homechile – Veuillez Decrocher

After another tough night, I got up hoping that today—the last official weekday of my vacation time—I would finally close some deal for an apartment. I had to call Sheryl (the apt @ LaMoneda) and wanted to get some time off downtown by booking a few nights at La Casa Roja. I was getting tired of the never-ending apt hunt, especially since everyday that went by meant another day of feeling like everyone in Nunoa and back home was worried and trying to help out. The upside was that as time was running out, apartments por diarios (paid per day) started coming into range.

In any case, if nothing else worked out, I thought I might risk doing the thing through HomeChile. In the end, even if I lost the entire deposit, it would be a price similar to an apart-hotel.

Hit the road and started with La Casa Roja. One thing I noticed: it’s better to get off at Los Heroes and walk west on O’Higgins, to Av. Brasil, and then walk up north directly. Going straight north, you wind up in some less hospitable areas…

Book a shared room for that night and the next (Friday and Saturday). I’d been promised a night on the town on Friday by my new pals from Bar La Nona… not sure I could take it tonight, but either way I’d get some time out of the family action in Nunoa.

Was told the best way back to the Casa late would be by taxi: Brasil avenue is a street with a few bars, passed Agustina, but below is mainly a slew of tiny stores selling hydraulic machine parts, tires, car parts and gaskets… It must be quite dead at night.

Typical example of the very specialized minishops

The call to Sheryl went in what I was coming to think of as classic Chileno fashion: suddenly things had changed, nothing was available and I should just forget it. Hard to count on anything, in these parts. “We’ll come pick you up on Wednesday”, mmhm. “Walk down three blocks”, yeah. “Use your phone number as the PIN”, sure. “Call tomorrow”, ok. It seems a grain, or ten, of salt must be added to every statement relating to the future.

Sick of the equivocation, I went from Los Heroes, in barrio Brasil, to Los Leones, in Providencia, and the offices of HomeChile. Was so tired of it all, I decided to take the risk, without even seeing the apartment—even if they were starting to raise the pressure with the “other people are interested” line. Murgh.

HomeChile wanted to take the whole sum: fee, deposit and monthly rent for the owner. However, they’d only provide a receipt for the first two, and transfer the rest of the cash to the proprietor. Uh, no thanks. I gave them what they’d provide a paper trail for, and would pay the owner on Sunday, when I’d actually get the key to the place.

Took a few subtle pics of the office, and swiped the owners phone number and RUT from the computer screen by entering it in my phone like a text message. Yeah, a little paranoid, but it’s a good chunk of cash with little of anything real in hand for the moment.

A little stressed, but very happy the apt hunting might be over, I left Providencia for a little pre-Friday night downtime in Nunoa. After that, the Casa Roja seemed oddly empty.

I went out back for a cerveza and a little time to collect my thoughts. The minibar by the pool had only a handful of patrons, and the actual bar was completely shut down. A small group of germans were the single source of life but their circle was slowly growing.

Seems most people were partying elsewhere tonight. Actually, you could hear the activity beyond the Casa walls and, in a quick tour of the block, I found people everywhere. The patios on Brasil were full, but so were most of the street corners and the park. Around 11pm , screaming and giggling children were on the slides and swings, while globs of teens agglomerated around most of the park benches, laughing and drinking beer, some playing music.

At the Casa, the bar man was morose and wasn’t helping the atmosphere with his complaints about low turnout, places he never wanted to go back to, and life in general. That was my queue to head out for a snack before calling it a night. I ambled down Brasil Av. a bit, stopped at the Blondie Snack Bar and ordered a napolitana pizza and coca light.

As I was sipping my coke, waiting for the food, that same group of germans showed up. The troupe had grown to 11, and included two Norwegian girls, one Canadian from T.O. and a Chilean. They promptly merged my table on the patio with two others and I was suddenly part of the gang.

A friendly and festive group, the germans had met in Valparaiso where most are studying mechanical engineering and pretty much everyone but Shane, the canadian, was in Santiago for some sort of bal-en-blanc: a rave-type affair where everybody dresses in white, to be held the following night two clicks north in an old train station. I was invited, tongue-in-cheek, to join that party—everyone seemed to know I wouldn’t have much white in my wardrobe. Shane, who was only part of the band that night, tried his best to chat with me from across the table but had lost his voice from partying the night(s) before so we basically did a bit of smile and nod and left it at that.

I was discreetly handed a small roll of paper and told it was Alex’s–the guy to my right–birthday and that on the signal, we should all throw him a little surprise. Shortly after the beers arrived, it was time. I obliged, and threw my roll which bounced off his head without unfurling. The others were more successful, namely because they were throwing confetti. Lots and lots of confetti.

Alex, the birthday boy, trying to lose a little confetti

The small mounds accumulating on the ground around Alex didn’t seem to bother the Blondie staff, but I felt a little awkward about the mess. At least they, unlike me by this point, were drinking heavily so I figured it would be all good. Still, I made excuses for the mess to the waitress and gave her a good tip to compensate a little. She didn’t seem to care about that either.

Back at the table, the booze was flowing and the conversation bouncing around many subjects but always returning to the big party set for the next night. At first, one of the Norwegian girls—studying Corporate Social Responsibility in Valpo—seemed pretty interesting and we had the beginnings of a conversation about the nature and role of enterprise. But soon the subjects of how annoying the “German mafia” at her uni was, or how tacky this or that or something else was, started getting a bit repetitive.

At some point, I returned from the washroom and a local had joined in the conversation obviously with the intent to sell something. He was 61 years old, and had a short grey beard, dark skin and was wearing fatigues with a beret. He quickly turned to the subject of the ongoing, never ending, revolution of the people of South America. You could feel the yearning in his voice when he spoke of the 1970-1973 period. He said it was the best times Chile had had and that, after, everything had changed. However brutal the Allende government had actually been here (only heard that one from a single person: a Player on the Chilean cricket team, who I’d meet later, but he had a bit of mala onda to him… so I dunno the real story there), this guy seemed like he’d been—and still was—firmly on the side of the people, and I respect that.

He had something good, and revolutionary-related, to say about all the nations represented at our table. When someone spilled the beans about me, he tilted his head and stroked his beard… “yes, yes, Canada, Montreal. I can’t remember… what is the name, where you are from?” I guessed he meant Quebec, and he jump and exclaimed “Ah oui! Les Quebecois! Les Quebecois! They are fighters, as well, les Quebecois!” beaming a huge smile.

I’m uncertain whether he was living out on the street, but his income was derived from the jewelry he made of onyx and other stones. Instead of making a sale, he just gave an earring to one of the Norwegian girls and was on his way.

The party was just starting for these guys, but I was exhausted and bid them farewell. By the time I was ready to try out my upper level bunk in the shared room, it was 02h30. Shane was in the common area, with a few other people, having a cigarette or ten to ensure his voice would never return. We managed to have a talk, then, and he showed me pictures of Mendoza (Argentina). I’d been thinking of going, if only to cross the Andes by bus, and he talked of the place as somewhere he would love to live: a burning sun but with every street shaded by rows of trees, a beautiful and quiet town but where you could party all night if you felt like it. Not a bad sales pitch.

Turns out we we in the same room. I prepped and crawled into bed as quietly as I could, but feared that the alcohol might put me in big-snore mode. Don’t think it was much of a problem, my sleep was light and disturbed regularly by movement, the return of revellers, and someone’s checking around 6 am. Got a call around 7am: the guys who were supposed to take me out the night before… not sure what it was about, but it was a little late for partying by that point. Not a very restful night.

Ah, sunshine! Awoke to a glorious sunny day like I remembered, and that helped my mood a whole lot. Actually took the time to do a bit of TACFit, I nice little portable exercise program, and then did another check of the HomeChile site. Turns out, if you don’t specify “Providencia” in g00gle maps, you get pointed to the middle of nowhere but the actual offices are actually right next to the Los Leones metro station—i.e. where I went the day before.

Found my way out of the little mall that surrounds the subway station, and headed to the Banco de Chile, to see if I could find some place to store the cash I’d slowly been amassing for rent. The guard sent me across the street, to banco Edwards, for all things opening account related.

At banco Edwards, a spacious, quiet, cold and serious metal, glass and stone affair, I was eventually greeted by a friendly front desk clerk. She let me know that they required CH700,000 (about $1400) just to open an account. Woah… even if I wanted to (uncertain, ’cause honestly that seemed weird), it’d take me days to withdraw that much from ATMs, because of security caps on my account. She let me know that other banks in the Banco de Chile family would be less, like around CH500,000 to open an account. Hm, awesome.

I tried the Scotiabank. It was still austere, but warmer and in some way more human, and actually got to sit down with somebody. She was more informative: to get a cuenta corriente in Chile (a standard checking account), you need not only a RUT but two years worth of steady income in the governmental records. All this was because of the awesome power you get with a checkbook, wow. What if I don’t care about checks? Ah, well the plebe can always get una cuenta RUT, which is a checking account without the checks (meaning just a simple debit card and place to stow cash).

“Perfect, sign me up.” “You can get there from here”… Scotiabank doesn’t sell that product, she said. I’d have to try Banco Estado, where they seem to handle the little people like me. She gave me directions, and handshake and sent me on my way.

At Banco Estado, they’ve got the cuenta RUT. But no service. Neither spacious, nor austere, the place was like a bus terminal. I asked about who to talk to, and was directed towards a red phone on the wall. Oh boy, a phone… that would be easy. When I picked up I heard it autodial, though barely, through a ton of static. The automated system at the other end told me to enter my RUT, then moments after I did, said it would be unable to handle my request and call back later. A little relieved, I hung up and gave up.

The HomeChile offices were lost in the corner of a large building and sparsely decorated. There was less english expertise, but I got by en espanol. Mostly. The short story is that they didn’t have much available and that the subset that would accept renting for a single month was much smaller and they’d usually charge a bit extra. There was one I was interested in: the pictures were promising, the location was good. But in addition to the rent, there were extra gastos (building expenses, plus lights and maybe water, too) and they wanted an additional month’s rent as a deposit–all at once, all in cash if I didn’t have a bank account.

They understood that there were limits to how much I could withdraw from the ATM in short periods and offered to keep a smaller deposit and my passport as a guarantee. Not interested in that. I couldn’t visit the apartment immediately, as the owner lived out of the city. They contacted him, and he could come down on Sunday… when they’d be closed. I was on full paranoid mode, so I found all this fishy, but said I’d confirm I was still interested on Friday and I’d see the place before renting. Stayed in a hotel room, once, in San Diego that smelled like pee… wasn’t interested in that either, so I wanted to see how it was and that it was real, before moving forward.

On the way back through the minimall, I stopped off at the express Lider for a little breakfast goodies and hoping to contribute a bit to the food en la casa. Found a few things, even the sought-after nutella, but hardly any selection in terms of peanut butter and such. Somehow, I always feel most alien in supermarkets.

I proudly returned with honey, cheese, cold cuts and such. I’d later find out that I was the only one who would touch everything but the ham… ah well.

By the afternoon, the party was already starting with neighbours and grandchildren and puppies and … I was dead tired, and had a turbulent stomach, so ended up going to bed really early.

Tag: homechile

Day 5: An apt and time off

Day 3: Sunshine and banking