Day 283 of 1827: A Lunch Experiment

It occurred to me today that all of my friends have an “expat-compatible” mindset — either they are expats themselves, they were expats at one point, or they seriously want to live in a foreign country in the future.

I can’t think of anybody I’ve met during my Five Years Abroad that I would consider a friend who doesn’t fall into one of those categories.

It makes me wonder… if I were to return to my country of origin, would I have a difficult time making friends with the locals?

Whoops; I almost forgot to pay the internet bill this month. I had a pretty bad experience the last time that happened; I should probably take care of that.

To make matters more complicated, the account is in my roommate’s name, and he has been unable to pay online. That means I get to hike out to Costanera Center and stop by the VTR office.

It also means I’ll have to talk in Spanish with somebody on the other side of a plate glass window, and likely the room will be noisy.

By now, I’m not intimidated by that anymore. Vamos!

On my way back, I had a brilliant idea.

No, I mean like a genuinely brilliant idea; this one seems brilliant even in retrospect.

Normally, I stop by Castaño for lunch. It’s a bakery chain with locations all over the city, and there’s a shop on Vitacura on my way back to the apartment from Costanera Center. I’ll normally stop in for a sandwich, a muffin and some juice. Tasty, relatively-healthy lunch for around 4000 pesos.

But their sandwiches are a tad on the small side. They’re tasty… just probably not the best value.

Hey, isn’t there a Subway next door? Don’t they have a “sub of the day” deal going?

I think this is worth a little experiment.

One 15 cm sub: 1000 pesos. That’s like half the cost of what I pay for a sandwich at Castaño, and I get like twice the food! Score!

But I still like Castaño‘s muffins, and their peach juice is really tasty.

That’s right: peach juice. I never knew I would like that, since nobody sells it in the States, but it’s become one of my favorite beverages since I got to South America.

Well, errand is done, and Phoenix is fed. Time for a productive afternoon at home. Do a little tuning on the blog, finish my touches for the day, get some laundry done, see about buying some Bitcoins for a special project….

In short, nothing worth writing about.