Grocery prices here in Chile, like everywhere else, are going up, up, up. I mostly buy food from the fresh market, but the things I routinely buy at my local grocery store (the Santa Isabel on Huerfanos, though there are three within a six block radius, all of them...

Since I often travel alone and am seldom sans camera, I have learned to take pictures of myself. I've mastered the self-shot with arm extended, have triumphed over precipitious camera-balancings and am even the proud owner of not one, but three tripods. (two...

When I had been in Chile barely a month in May, 2004, the students were out in full force, protesting the lack of availability of student bus passes, which meant that the bus drivers were not allowing them on the bus for a reduced fare, leaving students no choice but...

So one day, not long after I moved into this building, I got a note, telling me I had something at the post office, and that I should come get it. Visions of sugarplums or at least a care package danced in my head, and off I went. Not to the post office, per se, but...

Every now and then I run around waxing ecstatic about a product or an object that has somehow improved my life. Most of my consumer tendencies run towards photography, communication or outdoorsy whatnot. Today I'm putting Smartwool under the microscope.Smartwool is...

It's been years now that I would be considered fluent in Spanish by most people. Certainly, I've got my weak spots, but for the most part, there's little barrier between me and the people around me. But there are ways in which Spanish is still a little kooky for me....

Ever since they moved my customary post in front of the Santa Isabel grocery store on Huerfanos, I've been looking for the perfect place to lock my bike while at the grocery store. While in Chile most bike thefts are a wholesale affair, I prefer to at least lock the...

Chile has gotten just a dose of US-based paranoia. Everything is a security risk, it would seem. I have tried on numerous occasions to take pictures in supermarkets, and have been told repeatedly "no se puede sacar fotos aca" (you can't take pictures here). I'm told...

I've spoken before about Chile's wild contrasts, old and new. There's this overarching feeling of retroness to alot of my life here, in spite of how modern Santiago is. Not necessarily retro in my own life, but perhaps harkening back to my grandmother's days. Or even...

Santiago is a modern city. Six million inhabitants, more malls than you can shake a stick at, a debatably good public transportation system, a beautiful and gleaming metro. It's heavily wi-fied, everyone has electricity and potable water, things generally work how...