I have been in Chile for a week and a half now, and I have avoided writing this post because I’m not sure what to say or where to begin…

I’d like to be able to say that Chile is exactly as I expected, but it’s not at all. I’m not sure what I thought it would be like; Tom has asked me that several times and I haven’t really been able to describe it. All I know is that Chile is beautiful, vibrant, exciting, alive, cold, modern, old, friendly, intimidating, different, clean, eclectic, and completely fascinating. That’s not to say that I thought it would be ugly or dirty or anything like that, it’s just that I’ve never lived in a big city before so I don’t think I really had any concept at all of what it would be like.

I’m rambling a bit here and I think it’s pretty clear from the tardiness of this post and it’s aimless nature that it’s difficult for me to put into words what I’ve seen so far and how I’ve felt about it, so I think I’ll rely on the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”…

View of the city from the balcony of our apartment 

View of the Andes from the other side of our apartment building

Various statues…pretty much every city has them :)

There are stray dogs everywhere in Chile and in the winter people buy them jackets…

And scarves!

There is a neighborhood called Bellas Artes that is covered in street art. I mean everything is covered in it, including houses and businesses.

Someone’s house…neat!

Some of it is truly stunning

Tom thinks the city looks like what Paris must have looked like in the 70s. Here he is modeling for you ;)

I love this building. It looks Parisian…and haunted :)

This is in a beautiful park called Santa Lucia. It’s actually a park built into and on top of a giant hill in the middle of the city…gorgeous views and very old architecture.

Here he is again, pretending to be a model…I had no idea about this when I agreed to marry him ;)

From the top of Santa Lucia

So this is Chile, or at least what I know of it so far. Not bad, eh?