{"id":995,"date":"2007-03-11T13:43:32","date_gmt":"2007-03-11T21:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/11\/santiago-chile-day-1\/"},"modified":"2007-03-11T13:43:32","modified_gmt":"2007-03-11T21:43:32","slug":"santiago-chile-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/santiago-chile-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Santiago, Chile – Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have arrived in Santiago, Chile to find that it is one of the
\ncleanest big cities I think I’ve ever seen. Especially in South
\nAmerica. I mean, this place couldn’t be MORE different from the Caracas
\nthat I remember, where there were massive random holes in the sidewalks
\nthat would break your ankles if you didn’t constantly keep your head
\ndown to watch where you\"Santiagochilethevieww\"<\/a>
\nwere walking.  Where on Thursday nights on
\nAvenidas Fuerzas Armadas, the textile shops and restaurants would their
\ntrash out into the streets, and the stinking rotting piles would be
\nswarming with filthy, slimy sewer rats by the time I got off work and
\nstaggered to the subway. <\/p>\n

\nNo, this place reminds me, if anything, of Calgary. There are shiny new
\navant-garde looking skyscrapers all over the place, and even more
\ncranes dotting the landscape, erecting more. The streets are smooth and
\nwell-maintained.  The cars are shiny and well-maintained. <\/p>\n

\nThe quibbles that I do have are that it was a drag getting into the
\nairport this morning at 5 a.m., after flying for 15 hours, to find that
\nafter waiting in the  long immigration line, I had to get out, walk all
\nthe way across the terminal to get to a window where I had to pay a
\n$100 "reciprocity" fee to enter the country.  The Canucks get slammed
\nfor $167, so I don’t feel so bad. <\/p>\n

\nMy guess is that this is close kin to the fees and fingerprinting and
\nother indignities that the Brazilians have implemented for gringoes –
\nbut only for gringoes – as a result of the parade of stupidity that
\nHomeland Security has foisted on foreign travelers trying to get into
\nthe U.S. in the last six years. <\/p>\n

\nAnyway, the other thing that blew me away was how much the airport in
\nLima has changed. When I was first through there, the whole place
\nresembled some 3rd tier airport – something that you might find in
\nPodunk, Texas.  These days the floor are spotless shiny marble.  There
\nis a Peruvian flute band playing on the concourse. The stores are all
\nnew and look like gift shops that you find at LACMA or next to Ceasar’s
\nPalace in Vegas.  I almost bought an amazingly soft Alpaca blanket just
\nbecause it felt so inviting. <\/p>\n

\nAnyway, here are a couple of shots out the\"Hotelnovoteltechtoys\"<\/a>
\nwindow of the hotel room,
\nand of the room itself.  The Hotel Novo here is obviously designed for
\nJapanese visitors – the furnishings, the height of the tables and
\ntoilets and the small space are reminiscent of the small hotels that
\nstarting springing up in the early 90s in Hawaii, specifically to cater
\nto the Japanese tourist trade. <\/p>\n

\nNow all I have to do is to pull two 90-minute presentations out of my
\nass (complete with funny and penetratingly wise slides) by 11 a.m.
\ntomorrow.  Did I mention that I am sick and my back is in agony from 15
\nhours confined on the flight?  <\/p>\n

\nI did want to be challenged more in this new career\/life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have arrived in Santiago, Chile to find that it is one of the cleanest big cities I think I’ve ever seen. Especially in South America. I mean, this place couldn’t be MORE different from the Caracas that I remember, where there were massive random holes in the sidewalks that would break your ankles if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,107],"tags":[363,847,872,352,105,370,354],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-music","tag-current-affairs","tag-journalism","tag-music","tag-online-multimedia","tag-travel","tag-webtech","tag-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}