Today was our first day at work, separated :o(
My colleagues were all very nice and helpful and I am looking forward to the big challenges ahead (busy days with lots of learning!).
We also saw a great house! The first one that has potential :o) and we are trying to go for it - though we do not have any of the papers that they supposedly need... so we have tried the poker face and "we can pay in advance" strategy... let's see what they say! :op
For the next few days I will be in the north seeing some projects, Christian will join me on Friday after a crazy bus tour through half of the country, 24h, 1600 km, almost fully adjustable seats, almost like a bed apparently (I am flying... booo hisssss)
We (well Christian) tried to book some accommodation over the Internet... nope, does not work like this here.
So I rang... and there is another crazy procedure for booking:
1) you ring
2) they tell you if a room is available
3) you ask whether you can pay via credit card over the phone
4) silence... they stare (hypothetically down the phone line)
5) you realise things don't work like this here so you ask how people normally book
6) they give you: an account number, a name, a RUT number, a bank name and ask to deposit an amount of money into that account.
7) you have no account in Chile and an international transfer for that amount of money is laughable (besides it does not work in Chile to do this, you'd have to ring the bank manager and stuff)
8) you try to walk to the bank the next day and see what happens - this is one for tomorrow
Probably won't write till Monday now (and hope to have lots to tell then!).
Haha, money talks in that part of the world. I bribed both the military and customs in South Africa :P
ReplyDeleteChile does not seem work by bribing. They are very developed in that sense and you would get into a lot of troubled if you tried. Culturally they are very proud of having very low levels of corruption. In the deserty north at the moment, it is very interesting, will write more on Mon or Tues.
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