She arrived into Santiago on Monday night, and so on Tuesday, we started the day at my absolutely fascinating Economic and Social History class (which, she confirmed, is boring no matter what language you do or do not speak) and then toured around Viña and visited the one of the castles, broke into the super fancy Sheraton Hotel, enjoyed the beach, and Brodie had her first alfajor (cookie-manjar-cookie covered in chocolate)... such a beautiful day! Then we went to my Bible study (and had extra delicious once-feast courtesy of Alyssa's mamá) and went out for some delicious Chilean sushi afterwards and Brodie had her first pisco sour!
Wednesday, we took a micro to Concón and visited the sand duness, which were absolutely huge and toootally worth it! We climbed across all the dunes and made our way down the cliff to the beach, where there was a lava-rock outlook/park-y beach thing... so beautiful! Then we went to the fantastic orange seafood restaurants between Viña and Valparaíso before I went to my Spanish class. That night, we walked alllll around Viña to find the youth and watch the Chile v. (Spanish-speaking) Bolivia world-cup-qualifying soccer game! We won- Viva Chile!
Thursday, we went and walked along the beach boardwalk and played on the strange playground-gym equipment and then went up into Valparaíso and poked around Cerro Concepción. We came back for once and naps (aka Brodie read Pioneer lady's blog) and then we went out salsa dancing in Valpo after dinner!
Friday we had an early start and took a bus to the Casablanca wine valley and went on a tour of the Emiliana Organic Vineyard. Sadly, seeing as it is now winter, the grapes had already been harvested, but the fields were still pretty, and a fellow Católica student led our tour/tasting, which was really delicious and oh-so-biodynamic (which means that they somehow utilize the sun and moon's patters in their harvest...??) We went back to the orange fish restaurants and had "traditional" conger eel soup, which may or may not actually be made of eel... but it was delicious either way. At night, we went to my church and [tried to] worship God in Spanish!
Saturday, we took the bus to Santiago and had quite a journey getting to our EcoHostel... Finally we found our way and were greeted by several very interesting characters (moonboots rejected-as-a-teacher guy, an overly friendly Australian red head and her awkward Argentine traveling companion, an Australian couple who surfed their way around South America, and multiple french Canadians) Sadly, we took another wrong turn and wandered around the man-world of Santiago for far too long, (read: the auto-mechanic/gentlmen's-coffee-bars) but finally got to to explore around the Plaza de Armas, La Moneda, etc, and stumbled upon a folklore festival of 55 Cuecas (olde timey traditional Chilean dance that's really hard to photograph) and then headed back to the EcoHostel to have empanadas and free tea.
Sunday was a very very rainy day... We walked to Bella Vista and did some shopping around, and then shared a pastel de choclo (kind of like Chilean chicken pot pie with a lot of corn-pudding-stuff) (perfect for rainy days) and then headed back into the historic part of town and soaked-ly went from one (free on Sundays) museum to the next before giving up, eating completos, (typical Chilean hotdogs with everything on them) and getting groceries to make scrambled eggs for dinner.
Monday, today, Brodie headed off to the airport and I sleepily came back to Viña and went to the last session of my film class (I passed!) and then my other classes... and then came home to a house with no electricity... yeah... sad life. Luckily, we all got one candle. That's right, there were 3 candles in the house (we weren't all home), and nope, no lanterns or flashlights... Thankfully, the electricity being out did not affect our heating situation, because we don't have any anyway. Oh, also- I lit and use our stove for the first time while the lights were out (after Brodie taught me how overt the weekend) - so that was pretty exciting!
So I have about two more weeks of school and then a few weeks of travel, and then I'm back in the U S of A... so sad. No offense, American readers, I'm just not looking forward to going back to the real world. The real world is lame.
Hasta luego!
It's actually http://thepioneerwoman.com/. Don't want to confuse your readers, Juli!
ReplyDeleteOh, and there was also Oscar, the very old "owner" of the EcoHostel. Who had a special sign on his door and a room shrouded in secrecy.