Just over 2 weeks ago, Will and I arrived in Santiago, Chile to spend 6 months as part of Generation 10 of Start-Up Chile. The morning of July 18th, to be precise.

Since, I’ve gotten lots of questions from friends to the tune of “How’s Chile?”

Arriving in Santiago has been the least culture shock I’ve ever experienced. Even less than Europe.

Aside from the lack of English, Santiago seems like just another United States city. Very modern. Clean streets. Relatively safe in most places. Efficient metro system (beats Seattle by 1000x).

We have a 3 bedroom apartment with a maids quarter in the Providencia area of Santiago. The place previously belonged to the team at Bureo Skateboards (Generation 8). Big bedrooms, and a great big table for multiple people to work – but with only two uncormfortable chairs and no television, it’s a bit lacking on the lounging amenities. We are planning to spruce it up, but haven’t gotten to that yet. My personal favorite aspect of our apartment is definitely the garbage shoot. If you’ve never experienced one before, you’re in for a treat. Taking out the garbage is as simple as grabbing the bag, opening the door to the laundry room, walking 2 feet, and dropping the bag into a small door in the wall. That’s it. No leaving the apartment. No stairs.

Our place is a 15 minute walk to the Costanera Center, which contains a massive food court, grocery store, and just about anything else you could ever need. The metro stop, Tobalaba, is right outside. We work at CMI (the Start-Up Chile co-working space)most days, which we originally thought required a 15 minute walk to the metro, a 10 minute ride, and then another 5 minute walk to CMI. However, a few days in, we realized the 517 bus picks us up 2 blocks from our front door and drops us off directly across the street from CMI. Door to door, it’s about 15 minutes with no traffic and if we time the bus right. Worst case, it’s 30 minutes (bus leaves every 12 minutes).

I haven’t done much sightseeing as of yet, but there’s plenty of time for that. Here are a few things I’m aiming to do before I leave the country. For those who’ve been to Chile, would appreciate any tips or reccommendations via Twitter (@drewmeyers).

Chile Todo - a photo list by Drew Meyers

In short, I’m a fan of Santiago.