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Published: October 24th 2009
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on the bus!I finally packed my bags and got to bed. I got up early to shower and eat breakfast. We had to be to the airport by 7:30 a.m. Jorge drove Jess A and I to the airport. I didn´t feel so bad about taking my big suitcase because I wasn´t the only one. My bag did weigh 19kg though, which is kind of heavy! I decided since I was bringing a big bag, I might as well take whatever I wanted to! I sat by Hayley and an aisle on the plane. We had an emergency exit seat again which was kind of nice. On the plane I had tea, orange juice and the snack pack they give you. My favorite part about flying with LAN is that you always get a snack, no matter how short the flight is. The flight to Santiago is only about 45 minutes. We arrived around 9 a.m.
We grabbed our luggage and headed out of the airport. Our tour guide was waiting to lead us to our bus. It was a really nice tour bus. Everyone could have their own seat. Triana told us that she had paid extra to have buses with seatbelts
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Pablo Neruda´s house so we better buckle up! We boarded the bus and were on our way to Valparaiso. On the way our guide talked and we watched a short video about Chile. We stopped at a little place to use the bathroom, rest, and buy food and drinks. I bought a water. There was a llama in a little pasture out back. The drive to Valparaiso wasn´t too long, probably over an hour and less than 2 hours but I don´t remember exactly how long it took.
Valparaiso is a beautiful coastal city. The house line the hills and overlook the ocean. The weather was crappy and cloudy. It was windy, cold, and sprinkling a little bit. Our first stop was the house of the house of poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda actually had 3 houses in Chile. The one in Valparaiso was called La Sebastiana. We weren´t allowed to take pictures inside. They gave us these big remote control looking things and you walked around the house and listened to your remote to tell you about the room you were in. There was a lot of neat things in the house. When we were done I bought postcards and 2 key chains.
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La Sebastiana We left La Sebastiana and then walked around the town of Valparaiso a little bit. We actually ran into a student from St. John´s University who was with his US family that Brenna knew. It is truly a small world sometimes! We took a scary little elevator down the hill to the financial center of Valparaiso. The bus picked us up at the bottom and we drove to Viña del Mar.
We didn´t really stop at all in Viña del Mar, we just drove around it in the bus. Viña is a big tourist town in the summer. We went to a ocean view restaurant to eat. When we walked in with our big group and table of people just got up and left. I guess they didn´t like the looks of us. We should have known that it would be expensive! Mine was 6500 pesos which is about 13$. I had Cazuela de Ave and a fanta. Cazuela is a soup. It had a big chunk of chicken, a potato, and a little corn cob in it. It sounds weird but it was delicious and it warmed me up nicely. A lot of people spent around $20 on seafood
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Chatting with Pablo but it is about as fresh as it gets.
After we ate I went and walked on the beach a little bit. I was wearing my nike sandles and just wanted to put my toes in the water. Of course the mar tried to swallow me and a wave came from behind me. I got my pants all wet on the bottom trying to keep my shoe from getting washed away. grrr.. that probably wasn´t good for my cold to have wet, cold, sandy feet. We got back on the bus and then stopped to see a statue that they brought over from Easter Island. I thought that was pretty neat. We went to a really fancy Lapis Azul store. Lapis Azul is a blue stone that is the official stone of Chile. The jewelery can be a bit pricey depending on where you buy it. You know its a fancy store when they serve you pisco sour when you come in. Profe Triana was the only one that bought anything. I liked the jewelery but it cost too much for me.
After the jewelery store we walked through a park with our tour guide. Our guide was really nice
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Valparaiso but he walked kind of fast. After our walk we boarded the bus and drove back to Santiago. We hit a lot of traffic in Santiago and it felt like it took forever to get to our hotel. We were pretty surprised to find our we were basically staying in an apartment building that rents out places for the night. The rooms were extremely nice. There were 2 bathrooms, a bedroom with one bed and another with two beds, a nice living room and a full kitchen.
After settling in to our rooms, a group of us went to the Lider to get snacks and food for breakfast. I got popcorn, milk, eggs, bread and bananas. I also went to the pharmacy and got some Tapsin (like alka-seltzer but tastes better!). When we got back to the rent-a-home we tried to make our snacks. We had the microwave going, the hot water pot going, the lights were on, lots of stuff was charging, and we tried to light the oven. All of a sudden, all of our electricity went out. I had to go down to the desk and have a guy turn our power back on. I couldn´t believe
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Gorgeous! it but my popcorn still popped nicely even though it had stopped right in the middle! 😊 I went downstairs and used to computer lab to check my e-mail and send my parents a quick message. Of course we went to bed later than we should have and we had to get up really early (4 a.m.) to get to the airport. A lot of people never even went to sleep. I think I slept about 3 hours. I guess we were all just so excited for the trip!
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