The culture has also been fantastic! The Chilean people are great! We are grateful they are patient with our limited Spanish speaking ability! Actually, in our experience, Chile has been one of the hardest countries to communicate in. We can communicate what we want relatively easily, but the hard part is trying to understand what they say back! Many countries that we have visited, including the Middle East, has not been this hard! We believe it to be the lack of education, which was actually mentioned by the Finance Ministry as a big weakness in the country. In Europe and the Middle East, we believe that the education is better and therefore a lot of people in the service industry are better with English. However, as Americans, we should not say anything! We always expect everyone else to adapt to us!
Today has been a great day! We had the afternoon off and enjoyed some shopping, tennis, the spa, and a great dinner at Liguria! (Curtis has banned me from buying anything else, though...the Hermés scarf threw him over the ledge!)
Looking forward to another busy day tomorrow!
I really enjoyed reading your comment on not understanding what Chileans say... It is fun to see that you think the problem is a lack of education on the side of the issuer and not on the side of the receiver! That’s a very American way of seeing things (at least you recognize it!) Anyway, the problem of understanding what Chileans say, it is not only yours. Even for Spanish speaking people sometimes it is hard to understand what we say. It is just a matter of speed and local jargon. We speak real fast and use a lot of Chilean slang that have been created here and have been renewed as new generations arise. Nothing to do with Education! Remember we have been geographically isolated for years, the mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Atacama desert to the north and Antarctica to the south. No surprise we have our very own and particular way of speaking!
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