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Published: February 1st 2008
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La Sebastiana
Neruda´s house in Valparaíso Don´t worry, I wasn´t going to let week four go by without writing!
Last week was the end of our second week of classes. Last Thursday, Emily and I got invited to the birthday party of Atala (she is our brother´s adorable girlfriend). We ended up going, but at first we were the awkward ¨gringas¨ because we didn´t know anybody. But then, Cristóbal introduced us to some of his friends he went to college with, and we ended up talking with them for two hours about everything. We even talked about politics (it´s amazing how much Chileans know about American politics, yet we know absolutely nothing about theirs). Also at the party, I had my first shot of tequila. haha. It was great fun. Actually, Emily said I took it like a pro. haha. I didn´t even give myself time to think about how nasty it would be, I just swallowed it. And everyone was cheered (partially cause they, too, had been drinking tequila). Don´t worry though, I know my limits. And that was it. 😊
Last weekend, the whole Furman group went to Valparaíso y Viña del Mar. They are two sister cities on the coast; together I
The view
the view from Neruda´s beach house. isn´t it gorgeous? think they have about 1.5 million people. Friday we spent the entire day in Valparaíso. It´s the older city and there were lots of landmarks to see. We started off with a tour of the Chilean Congress. It was actually pretty cool cause we had a tour guide and she explained all the different symbols throughout the buildings; all of our tours are in Spanish, so it always makes me happy when I think I can actually understand them. After the Congress, we went to Pablo Neruda´s house. He is basically the Walt Whitman of Chile. He has three houses in Chile, but the one in Valparaíso is called ¨La Sebastiana¨. Neruda really liked boats and the ocean, so he wanted his houses to have the feeling of being on a ship. Because of this, all the stairs and hallways are very narrow and slanted. The views from some of the top floors were absolutely gorgeous caused they faced out over the ocean. Not to mention, Neruda was a quirky little man and there are all kinds of random artifacts and collectibles throughout his house. In one room, there was a stuffed pink trpoical bird encased in a glass ball.
Funicular
This is one of those pulley cars that we rode up to the top of the hill Interesting.
After the Neruda house, we visited a local cemetary that is basically a little town of its own. It has all these different parts and mosuleums (?) for people. Depending on how much money you had, the bigger your grave site. After that, we took a walking tour throughout Valparaíso. Because the city is right on the coast, and Chile is a very mountainous country, the city is built into the hillsides. It´s actually amazing. I´m pretty sure there aren´t many housing regulations, and it seems like if people find a spot of land they will build a house on it. The stairs to some of these houses could give you a nosebleed. They are all really pretty though, cause everyone paints their houses bright colors. To get to the top of some of these hills, we took ¨funiculars¨. I´m not even sure what the name is in English, but it´s those little pulley-cars that you pay about 65 cents to ride up to the top. The view from the top was amazing.
After the day in Valparaíso, we went to Viña del Mar, where our hotel was. That night we went out as a group to
Reñaca
The beach at Viña del Mar. I even survived without any sunburn! Some of my fellow companions weren´t so lucky... an Argentina Restuarant. The wine, pisco sours, salmon, and company were great! After the meal, we convinced almost all of the group to go to a local discotech near by. When we got there, there was nobody dancing. So the gringos got the party started; we couldn´t help ourselves, they were playing middle school classics like BAckStreet Boys and Brittney Spears. Everyone was staring at us like we were crazy, but later they joined in too. All in all, it was tons of fun.
Saturday we spent the entire day at the beach. We took a short bus ride to Reñaca. It´s apparently the more popular beach in Viña. We just spent the whole day relaxing in the sand and working on my tan. It was great. The waves there were scary too! I habe only ever seen the Pacific Ocean once before for about 20 minutes, and I don´t remember it like this. The waves were terrifyingly high, I was afraid they would swallow me. haha. Not to mention, the water is frigid. So I opted to stay on the shore.
Sunday we had to leave around 3 to head back to Santiago, but we had time
Cemetary
This was the cemetary that looks like a little city of it´s own. It even has streets! to go to an outside book fair. It was really cool cause it had booths full of all different types of books. I bought an Isabel Allende book called ¨Inés, my alma mía¨. So far I love it and can understand most of it without having to use my dictionary. Also at the book fair, there was a children´s show. We decided to stay and watch cause it was free and they were doing the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Come to find out, it was not anything like the book. Instead of being a real play, with actors acting out the story, it was this one guy who just talked about the characters and acted things out with his hands. The whole time I thought he was just saying the opening monologue, and then the next thing I know everyone was getting up to leave. It was a little odd.
This week was our third week of classes. We actually just had our midterm today and it was fairly easy. On Tuesday after class I went to Neruda´s other house in Santiago. This one is called ¨La Chascona¨. I think I liked it better than the beach
Catedral
This is the big cathedral in Santiago in the Plaza de Armas. I had already visited once, but we went there again on WEdnesday with our tutora. It´s huge inside and very opulent. house, although the beach house had much better views. The house in Santiago was a lot better, and had really cool random collectibles- one of which were a giant pair of shoes. Apparently, he built this house so he and his lover would have a place to go. When his second wife finally figured out the affair, she asked him to leave. So, he did. But at that time divorce wasn´t legal in Chile so he couldn´t technically marry his lover. He eventually did and they were together until he died in 1973.
Yesterday we went out with our tutora groups to do some sightseeing. We walked around the central plaza and through a park to an ice cream shop. haha, i know. They had ice cream flavored from roses. I had green tea with mint and pepper strawberry. It was exoctic tasting, but delicious. AFter that we went to Santa Lucía hill. It´s one of the hills in Santiago where a rich family built a castle on top. You can walk to the top and see all of the city.
Today after school we went to another museum. This one was on Precolumbian History. I´ve never seen so many indigenous artifacts that were so intact before. There were hundreds of artifacts from all the different indigenous peoples of South America. Honestly, some of them were still so intact the looked fake. It was crazy. I´m really glad we went.
Well, it´s late and we are leaving early tomorrow to go to Isla Negra. There we will see the third and final house of Pablo Neruda. I will write some more when I have the time! Take care! Miss you all!
Megan
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