Santa Clause is coming to town

People in my hostel during the Chile and sopapillas night

(US, Australia, Holland, Spain, Chile, England)

So I was planning on updating this everyday, but I got tied up the past few days... but here is what happened... I will just update a little later than planned

Sunday 7/23

Let me just start this off by saying: its pretty sad, but my arm is kind of sore from carrying all the heavy groceries.

Well for the real highlights of the trip... the sopapillas (which are a deep fried pumpkin pastry with salsa on top) were awesome, as well as the mulled wine (warm with cinnamon and oranges). Regina arrived!!! I tried waiting up a bit beacuse I was worried that she wouldn´t get into the building. At our hostel, they lock the gate during night for security reasons and the doorbell is hidden from the street---I dont know how I would have known if she arrived, but nonetheless I tried to wait. Finally went to bed and woke up to 2 people walking in the room. It felt like Christmas morning when Regina got here, as if I was peeking to see if Santa was really coming down the chimney. Sure enough, Regina arrived at 4 a.m. We silently screamed and hugged each other. I ran out of the room so I could talk to her and I fell flat on my butt/back. It was actually quite a graceful and painless fall. (The floors are slippery and I am a goof.) We finally went back to bed so we could start the morning off.

Ronna, Karen, Regina, and I, followed by Sam (another TeachingChile person who is living in the same city as Regina in Rancagua) all went out to lunch in Patio Bellavista. It is a short walk away and is filled with bars and restaurants. It is a really cute area and I can´t wait to try out more places there. Then we girls dashed out since we realized we were going to be late for our free walking tour if we did not book it! We somehow got there in time, but this day was not very warm. It was quite chilly and none of us were dressed the part. We walked around for 3-4 hours and got a pretty personal tour from 2 locals on good and bad places to dine, drink, party, see art, shops, etc---all your typical touristy things. There are a lot of places that I saw and wanted to go to, but at a later time and as its own event, such as Pablo Neruda´s house and hiking up a large hill with the VIrgin Mary on the top with a ¨fabulous view of the city.¨Besides that, here are some of the things I learned:

1) The downtown area is DEAD on Sundays and the majority of shops are closed. Must come back on the weekdays.

2) There are tons of stray dogs in Santiago but the Chileans take very good care of them. They get clothed and fed on the streets and it is very normal for dogs to accompany you on your walk. After all we did have one dog follow us around for the tour. He must have been very interested in the culture. They are pretty harmless and just looking to kill a little time by hanging out with you. They are also medium to large sized breeds of dogs. According to the tour guide, Carolina, who was very nice and plays in an alternative rock band, the mayor of Santiago is trying to get rid of the dogs on the street. He plans on doing this by making it illegal to help the dogs. This in turn would make the dogs hungry and mad, attacking humans, so when they do, the city can gather them all up and kill them. Apparantly this has already been done in Valpariaso. Que triste. Sorry Rachel (besides the filth of them, you would go crazy oggling at all the dogs)

3) Chileans are very politically active and there are multiple education protests going on around the city. The one that we witnessed walking around were university students are running around the city, carrying a flag for 1000+ hours. According to Carolina and Javier (owner of tour), they have extremely creative and non-threatening ways of protesting.

4) Christina knows what she is talking about.The things that the tour guides and locals were telling me to do, are the things that Christina already recommended to me. Good taste!

5) Santiago rocks and I can´t wait until I am a local!

After the tour, we rested a bit and went out to dinner. Karen, Regina and I went back to Calle BellaVista and Pio NoNo to eat at a Chilean restaurant that Javier recommened. Upon arriving inside, I mutually recognized some Brazilians who were vacationing around South America and are staying at our hostel. We joined tables with them and ate and drank for hours. We ate, they drank. They were really cool guys and their English was excellent, which we found out they learned from friends. Not friends like personal friends, but American TV sitcom Friends. To say the least, a laughed A LOT during that dinner. We were supposed to meet with other people from our hostel at a Salsa Club so we all went on a journey. I doubted her, but good ol´Regina got us there. It looked a bit dead so we instead decided to go to another bar to chill. After a lot of walking around and a lot of conversing, we retired to a nondescript restaurant that kind of smelled in the front.. The back was better and we had a typical chill night out drinking. No boobies, but we did play ¨swaying, pass the quarter game¨. Went to bed around 3:30 to 4 and had to wake up at 7 for my first day of work. ¡Oh vey!

Me, Regina, Sam, Karen, Ronna

     

Parque Forestal with our new best friend

Spicy Chile Walking Tour

($300 a night to stay in the hotel behind us)

Good company, food, and beers with the Brazilians

I am extremely tired from two long days at school. There is a lot to tell and a lot going on. I want to do it all justice since I find it VERY interesting! However, I do not have the strength to do it now. I am so tired and running on about 7 hours of sleep in 2 days. Love you all! Thanks for your patience!