pros/cons of living in Santiago

I'm a list maker.
If I have a problem, I make a list.

Is this our forever city?!?
TIME FOR A LIST!

Pros
Things I adore and love about Santiago/add to my quality of life/make me want to marry it and have its babies

1. wide sidewalks, I love wide sidewalks!  They make me happy!  People walking everywhere!  YAY!
2. little public parks/trash cans/benches/cute old people sitting on afore mentioned benches
3. great weather....greaaaaat weather...every. single. day!  It's like living in tele-tubby land!
4. bug free...accept for some occasional moths at night and scary giant black blood sucking bugs in the south...no country is perfect!  Mosquitos and fruit flies though?  Nope.  Zilch!
5. lots of beautiful exotic plants and flowers - which can be a slight "con" for allergies, but I love it!
6. a view of the mountains anywhere....Rock!  Literally!
7. lots of little cars scooting around...good for the environment, good for parking!  They're so cute!
8. never getting pushed or hurried in a restaurant by a waiter for new customers, I love this so much!
9. a great international bus system that's affordable and on time
10. a great local public transit system that is also affordable and on time
11. a growing bicycling community and many a new inter-city bike path getting environmentally friendlier by the minute!
12. a new and old generation open to change and growth with a push towards becoming a force to be reckoned with on the international scale!  Grrr...roar...grr some more! 
13. polite taxi drivers who don't rip you off and wear business attire!
14. Paco's (Chilean cops) who also don't rip you off and seem to follow traffic rules surprisingly!
15. conservative style - granted, it's no Buenos Aires, but generally speaking people dress nicely, smell nicely and take care to look their best!  On a crammed bus, this is appreciated!
16. generally speaking, Santiago is quite clean...pollution hangs in the air certain months, due to the surrounding mountains, but in comparison to many other cities in S.A. and the world, it's really good!  
17. no continual I.D. checks for purchasing/consuming alcohol...biggest culture shock ever returning home.
18. fresh good and cheap fruit
19. fresh good and cheap veggies
20. damn good wine, if I do say so!

Now, the cons:

Things that drive me absolutely batty with frustration/can't and won't understand ever/W.T.F.

1. paying for street parking.  If a guy is holding a flash light and helps you pull your car into the street, after he has intentionally parked cars all around yours making it impossible for you to pull out independently, he expects payment....that's wrong.
2. notaria's - in the States, we have Notary Publics who are public servants and free of charge...in Santiago, you stand in a long line at certain times of the day and you have to pay a Notaria a LOT of money to certify whatever paper work you have....wtf.
3. 80's architecture.  After visiting beautifully styled Buenos Aires, Madrid, Paris, etc.,  Santiago architecture is just plain yucky.  Building after building much in the style of Americana suburbia, but only in the color grey...bleuk.
4. Book Tax.  What country in their right mind would decide to put an extremely high/almost impossible tax on the purchase of educational material meant to broaden horizons and improve the mental capabilities of a nation?!?!?  Oh yeah...Chile. Not to mention, if you don't have a Chilean National I.D., you can't use/enter the not very pubic, public library!  
5. Starbucks/Starlight (in Chile), McDonald's, etc..  Something I've been disappointed all over the world with is how passionate people are internationally with fast/crap food, especially when a country has such excellent traditional foods to offer.  Why eat a big mack when you can have a queso empanada followed by an Italiana (a giant sandwich stuffed with sliced beef, mayo, tomato and palta (avacado)....why whopper it up when you have that?!?  I don't understand.....why copy bad food when you have such exceptionally great traditional foods which kick their asses???
6. bright neon street cleaners....seeing men in bright orange jumpsuits on the streets scares me.  It's like watching a bad sci fi movie from the 80's or entering a federal prison.  It gives me the heeby geebies.
7. bad manners; as suited up and well dressed as they are, everyone likes to budge and shove their way to the front of....whatever line they're in here....  and it drives me crazy!  Walking/driving/getting on and off a bus/train it doesn't matter how old or young you are, people are RUDE!  The only exception I've seen to this is when young men give up the old/disabled/pregnant person chair on the bus...that's it!  
8. curry...where is it?   You can find sushi sold on street corners out of coolers by locals after music events....where's the curry?!?  I'm dying for a chicken mussuman with some hootspa!  Dying!  I need me some chilies in my life!
9. the blind spot.  When you take your driving exam in the States, you have to check your blind spot or sometimes you fail!  I can't believe how many accidents I've seen here which could be avoided by the driver simply looking over his shoulder before he turns/switches lanes!  COME ON CHILE!!!!!  Get with it! 
10. white people ads - I'm looking up at a billboard and there's someone who could be from Norway looking right back at me....it makes me pretty sick to look at....in the States, everyone is so focused to be politically correct/a rainbow nation/making sure everyone is represented fairly in our advertising/books/movies etc...when I look at billboard pictures in Chile, I have rarely seen a person of darker, not even tan skin tone looking back....I don't see a Chilean....where is your pride Chile?  You are a beautiful people!!!!  Be proud of who you are!  

20 pros, 10 cons...

hmmmm......