Un Viaje en la Ciudad - A Trip in the City

This morning, we made our way out of our apartment early in order to embark on a trip around the city to try and accomplish a few more tasks associated with being here in Santiago. Specifically, Sarah and I had to have our temporary visas registered with the Investigative Police as well as to attend a meeting with the staff of Fulbright Chile.  Our mentor and great friend, Claudio, picked us up early and had our destinations marked on searches he had done previously on Map City (www.mapcity.com - a great resource for S. America - like Mapquest in the US).

Our first stop took us to the downtown area (Independecia) where we had to head to the offices of the Investigative Police in order to register our Visas. The biggest task was finding a parking space, like an big city, parking is at a premium and is very difficult to find close to anything. After some hunting, we ended up parking in a lot in El Parque de Los Reyes, a place I had been back in November, as this is where the biggest skatepark (concrete) in Santiago is located.  Yet, today was not a skateboarding day (unfortunately) but a day of business. 

Anyway, we went into the office and I had to purchase a ticket and pay $800 Pesos (less than $2.00 US) and then wait in line a bit more. It was funny because the guy int he window had no idea what I was talking about, but when I mentioned VISA, he took my money, nodded "OK" and gave me a receipt and a number.  We waited in earnest for our time to go into an office, and I was sure we were on the brink of a bureaucratic nightmare. Yet, once we went into an office and sat at a desk in a cubicle, the nice woman working there just took us through the process and within 10 minutes we were done.  I have to admit, almost all of my dealings with the process of coming into Chile have come very smoothly and I think this is a great testimony to the materials that I have received from Fulbright as well as the help of our close friends here in Santiago.

Well, after that we made it to the Fulbright Chile offices, again finding parking, and then taking the Metro a short distance to another part of town in the area of Provedencia.  The staff at Fulbright Chile made us all feel very welcomed and we had a nice meeting with the Director, Denise Saint-Jean.  We also spent some time with Marica and Mariana, who have been invaluable in the preparation and implementation of my program here at UMCE.  After that, we got back in the car and made our way back to Nunoa and had a nice lunch before making our way back to our apartment.  Along the way, we traveled throughout the city and viewed a number of sites including from downtown to here in our neighborhood including the Plaza de Armas, Cerro Santa Lucia, Biblioteca Nacional, Unversidad de Chile, and the Iglesia San Francisco among others. We whetted our appetites for excursions to come and plan to use this as a view out of our neighborhood and a peak into the sites, sounds and locations within Santiago.