So I don’t anticipate much else happening this afternoon, so I figured it was safe to post. I had a little panic attack when I went to the grocery store this afternoon, and here’s why: The exchange rate is 1 USD to about 520 CLP (pesos). So when you’re walking through a grocery store and you see a banana whose price is 550 CPL per kilo, it sounds like SO MUCH MONTEY. But actually that’s only a bit more than a dollar, so you end up with something like 5 bananas for about a buck, which is the same price you would get them for at Trader Joe’s.
So I took out 10,000 pesos (about $19.25) from the ATM (and got slapped with a $5 fee, ouch), and thought, wow, this is going to go nowhere. So I was very frugal, thinking that 10k pesos would not buy very much. Imagine my surprise when I rang up everything and it was just over 5k pesos. So I went back and bought a few more things I needed to actually be able to prepare real food, and this time it only cost 3,500 pesos. In total, I ended up with the following, along with the prices so you can see just how disorienting the entire ordeal got to be:
- 1 avocado – 673
- 4 bananas – 433
- 1 cucumber – 269
- 1 lemon – 136
- 2 large onions – 196
- curry powder – 139
- a box of vegetable broth cubes (with no animal fats, yay!) – 389
- salt – 269
- rice – 629
- the tiniest bottle of vegetable oil I’ve ever seen – 399
- toilet paper – 1,269
- instant oatmeal – 589
- a bag of lentils – 969
- blackberry jam – 499
- a head of garlic – 379
- spaghetti – 519
- pita bread (because it’s smaller than regular bread and I’m trying to watch my bread intake) – 1,019
Total: 8,775
It sounds like a lot of money, right? It’s about $17. i.e., not as scary as it looks.
Content with my purchases, I went around the block again to a store I had passed on the way there. An ORGANIC store! exciting!! I went in and the first thing my eyes landed on was…
Almond milk.
I’m saved! I sang to myself in my head. I didn’t buy any, because I’m being careful about how much I spend and I don’t think I’ll be needing it within the next few days, but it’s good to know that it’s there for when I do want it, and trust me, I will. I then saw that they have quinoa, which is definitely exciting, but I probably won’t buy any simply because I don’t foresee going through an entire bag of it in only a month. And I finally went up to the counter and asked the question that had been on my mind since I got on the plane:
“Do you guys have peanut butter?”
They did. ORGANIC peanut butter. Imported from the Netherlands, no less. Price: 990 pesos, which is less than $2. I don’t think I’ve ever seen organic peanut butter for that cheap in the States. Total cost of everything:
9,765 pesos -or- $18.81
So this all means I won’t go hungry while here 
Hope I have adequately conveyed how momentous an occasion this is.
