The most difficult part was navigating through traffic -- it's getting better, but some of the streets/road signs are not clear -- and of course learning Spanish was also difficult for me (I'm old!)

Was not all that difficult to adjust to the culture -- of course, you have good days and bad (even after 8 years)

Best piece of advice: if you have the opportunity to connect or join with an international group -- do it -- you want to make friends with chileans, but you also need a taste of home -- these groups can give you valuable information and support, especially if you do not have much Spanish -- even if you do, it helps you mentally to know there is someone who has gone through the same adjustment. Also -- relax! If your moving company tells you your air shipment is arriving and will be delivered tomorrow, or a repairman tells you the repairs will be completed on a certain date -- don't get angry when it doesn't happen -- they are not lying to you -- they really HOPE they can do it -- they have no proof that it will happen as they say, but they want to make you happy (in the moment)!

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We moved here end of November 2008. We'd visited Chile before, including spending 18 months on our sailboat exploring from Arica to Cape Horn and ports in between, and we speak better-than-restaurant Spanish, though are not fluent.

Some challenges: Opening a chequing account. Most banks I interviewed would not open an account for us with our temporary resident status (which is generally what you get for the first year). Scotiabank said they would, though, and my husband's Canadian company uses that bank in Chile for all its transactions, so we thought they'd be a good choice for us. We found the service (at our branch, in Providencia) atrocious. It took 18 meetings and 2 months to get a chequing account opened. Though we only wanted this, they said we also must have the package of a VISA card and line of credit in order to have a chequing account. We were required to post a guarantee of $1000 USD, which would be held indefinitely, until we were no longer temporary residents. We were given a good interest rate on this deposit, however.
When we tried to wire transfer funds from our US bank, Scotiabank required us to use an intermediary bank in NYC, which cost us $350 in fees, and then the Scotiabank did not advise us that the funds had arrived for 7 business days (though I enquired daily.) We subsequently changed to Banco Itau, which is reknowned for its excellent service. (Our Scotiabank ejecutiva cried when I told her we were closing the account, and then they offered us a big line of credit as incentive to stay, but too late...)

Other frustrations: finding decent road maps. We brought our motorbikes with us and love to travel the backroads. Finally found the best one at Copec stations, though most of these stations do not carry the maps. Use www.mapcity.cl for directions in the cities, otherwise, the map in the Santiago telephone book is the best available.

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