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 Sightseeing City
parks Around
Santiago |
Santiago
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If
you are walking through the streets of a Chilean
city for the first time, you will need to correct your
idea of the "typical Latino". The Chileans have a familiar
European appearance. These people have been influenced
by the continuous stream of immigrants, but due to their
isolated position they did not have much of an impact
in world history for centuries. You will only learn more
of the special characteristics of these people on a closer
look.
Familiar, but different. This
is what you will think after an endless flight to Chile,
once you sit down at Plaza de Armas, the main center of
Santiago de Chile, and take a look around. On this continent
in the South the seasons are all different. You may have
left your home country in the rainy autumn season and
now you find yourself amidst a warm spring day. Here at
midday the sun is up in the North, but it sure gets hot.
The surroundings seem to be familiar: Arcades similar
to those in Spain, over there a splendid Palais, at the
corner a modern tall glass building next to the neo classicistic
cathedral. The faces of the people also seem familiar:
But no, these people are not typical Latinos. They look
just like the people in New York, Frankfurt or London.
Yuppies hurry down the street in their designer suits,
giggling school girls in their uniform pass by, you will
see the common businessmen in their characteristic grey
suits or self-confident business women with their mobiles
phones at hand on the way to a meeting.
At the Plaza you are in
the center of the tumult: While all around you can sense
the hectic of this metropolitan city, people begin to
walk slower, they watch the chess players or listen to
some street musician. The image of a chaotic Latin-American
city does not fit in Chile; instead life is civilized
and quiet over here: There is no beggar asking you for
money, the taxi drivers do not honk at you, only here
and there maybe a street vendor will try to sell cheap
jewelry to you. There is no trace of the extroverted temperament,
which is so typical for the Argentineans. You will encounter
difficulties in understanding the Chileans at first, even
though you think you know Spanish. In Chile the people
are fast-talkers and they swallow parts of words more
than others in the Hispanic world.
Nevertheless, it is easy
to start a conversation with the person next to you on
the bench, who is reading a newspaper or with the vendor,
who turns out to be an English student, and all of a sudden
everything is different. Chileans are not pushy, but curious
and interested in the foreigners. Where do you come from?
Where do you go? ¡Te gusta Chile? (Do you like Chile?)
Those are always the first questions. Soon you will learn
that the vendor's aunt's brother-in-law once lived in
Chicago just like you and now you are Amigos and you will
be invited to a barbecue on Sunday. No doubt, you will
often experience the warm hospitality on your travels
everywhere in Chile. |
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View
of the Plaza de la Constitucion and la Moneda
Dancing
group on the Plaza de Armas. |
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Santiago
