Two things I didn’t think would be so involved in my day, mayonnaise and prostitutes.
Let’s start with the first one. This country loves mayonnaise. A lot. The first meal I had in Chile came with fries. The fries, or “papas fritas” if you feel like butchering the language like I have been, came with mayonnaise to dip in. I was vaguely aware that some countries did this (thanks to Pulp Fiction), and figured that Chile was simply one of the countries who liked a little mayo with their fries. Little did I know. My next meal was a sandwich. On this sandwich was meat, avocado, tomato, and mayonnaise. A lot of mayonnaise. Like half a jar of mayonnaise. I thought it was some sort of queso sauce at first. After doing my best to eat my surprisingly good meal, I had a pool of mayonnaise collected on the plate. After noticing this, I became very aware that almost all advertisements for restaurants include a picture of a sandwich with a large amount of mayonnaise. This isn’t the biggest culture difference I’ve noticed, just the most suprising.
Now the other part of my day I wasn’t expecting. We spent a warm Sunday afternoon in the town square, La Plaza de Armas. In the square was what you would expect in a big city. There were street performers, children playing, people eating ice cream, musicians, a fountain and some prostitutes. The prostitutes were hanging around in full view of the family as well as the police. Now I am not surprised Santiago, along with every city, has prostitutes. I was surprised at them being in the open town square at Sunday at 2 pm. I’m not even really sure what conclusions to draw from that.