Our move to Chile

It was 4 months ago (almost to the day) that we first arrived in Santiago. Each of us had one backpack and one suitacase. Since then, we have found a place to live, met a dog friend, opened a bank account, got registered with the health system, got a pension plan (yuk) and I have had my Visa approved (and now have an ID card! :o)).


Apart from the dog friend bit, all of those have required a considerable amount of effort and beaurocracy. It has also been fascinating to see how in place with very low corruption (and most chileans I have met are EXTREMELY proud of this), it is easy for the "officials"/"person of authority" to interpret the rules as they see fit and when they see fit.

Examples of this: 

• We went to BBVA and were told "you cannot open a bank account until you are a resident for 6 months and you have a Visa". The week after I had a bank account with "another" bank and 2 days later Christian had full access to it (on a tourist Visa) - I am now very glad to say that my money will always go to another bank. Similar experience happened in the UK with RBS (glad to say won't be opening an account with that bank, I suppose not that surprising since I disagree with their policies, service as well as crap investments and financing tar sands in Alberta)

•  We were also told "you cannot rent a place without a RUT number", 2 weeks later we found a place we liked and one month later we were in our new house (granted, work had to warrant I was a reliable person and along the way every single "official" person has had to have a good look at my work contract and in particular the amount of money I earn) - it was also, interesting to pay our first month of rent and deposit as we did not have a fully functioning bank account yet so we had to pay in cash and cash machines only give you 200.000CLP each time... also, each card has a daily allowance... many trips to cash points, many cards etc were required... the look of our landlord and lady when we paid was priceless though.

• Other examples of companies that make life hell for foreigners are Telefonica/Movistar who would not even consider us as customers even if we paid in advance for our internet (so here we are in a new place, with a one year rent contract and no way of getting internet because they have discriminatory policies towards people that do not have an ID card... even though the process can take 5 months! imagine 5 months with no internet)... nope... won't be dealing with them in the future either.

In any case, our boxes are here and some of us are properly legal ;o), this means our place now feels much more like a home!! We had some fun unpacking, especially Mario who could not understand why all these boxes with fun things (like my slippers and wrapping material) were appearing in his house.

And this is the living room afterwards! (the box in the corner will be emptied at some point... though I think it is one of those boxes that lingers into the future and may stay until the next house move ;o)... Christian is not smiling... ok, maybe smiling a bit but not so much!)