cómo sobrevivir un invierno chileno

Winter is not Santiago's best season, for a variety of reasons:

• The smog is AWFUL. When you're feeling cold and melancholy, a sight of snow-capped Andes might cheer you up. The Andes, however, are never visible through the pea soup that has blanketed the city. Only rain clears the smog away, and (this is no exaggeration) it has rained exactly THREE times since I arrived here in February! Never before have I wished for a rainy day so much!
• Very few buildings have central heating. This means one must dress in layers at all times. Wearing coats, scarves, and gloves indoors without removing said garments upon entering is definitely en vogue here. Some relief from the cold is provided by the estufa, but the ridiculousness of this device merits a separate entry. Let's just say for now that it does not win the household safety award with its tank of gas hooked to it. A disagreeable side effect of this constant state of chilliness is that the bed is the only truly warm place in the house, which makes it VERY difficult to get up in the morning.
  
• Basic health knowledge is vastly different here. Everyone worries about having enough clothing on, but no one seems to be aware of what germs are. People cough and sneeze everywhere without covering their mouths. No one washes their hands in the bathroom. Nora is sick, and she blames it on the fact that the house of a relative she visited was "too warm inside". I watched her drink tea this evening, only to wash the cup in COLD water. I rewashed it in scalding hot water when she left the kitchen. No wonder everyone's sick. Cold water for dish-washing? Sneezing all over everyone in public? This goes far beyond layering one's outfits, I'm afraid.

There is nothing worse than being chilled to the bone, only to look out the window and see a palm tree. The weather is anything but tropical right now. I have to keep telling myself that it's not that cold out; rather, because there is no respite from the cold it feels worse than it actually is. Daytime highs have been in the 50s, and at night is has been in the 30s.

I hope you all are enjoying the Northern Hemisphere summer!