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Published: February 15th 2010
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valparaiso
one of the streets in valpo Another entry! I still feel like I haven’t gotten in the habit of posting another entry every Monday, and I still feel like my entries are pretty boring and I’m leaving a lot of stuff out, but here I am pressing on…
Anyway this past weekend we had another day trip with the program to Vina del Mar (which, if you’ve been paying attention, is the place I went to a few weekends ago) and Valparaiso (which I hadn’t yet been to). But they’re called the “sister cities” because they’re both on the Pacific Coast five minutes away from each other. Valparaiso reminded me a lot of Charleston actually; it’s a big port city with a lot of history that I vaguely recall but with which I am not going to bore you and antiquated buildings. But anyway first we went to a different part of Vina than the part in which I stayed—I didn’t realize it while I was there the first time, but it’s a really big city with various different main parts—and went to a private museum that had artifacts and such things from Easter Island. The picture of the mummy is from that museum, and it’s
valparaiso
there was a bunch of sweet graffiti in valpo so i took a few pictures... i particularly like this guy one of the oldest in the world, etc., so that was cool to see. I had only briefly heard of Easter Island before coming to Chile as an island that had these statues/figurines that were like 20 times the size of humans, and it had a Stonehenge-esque history in that no one knows how or why the natives made the structures…but anyway I was planning on visiting the island while I was here, but then I learned it’s the island that’s the farthest away from a land mass in the world (i.e. it’s farther away from Chile, and any other country, than Hawaii is from California) and it’s really expensive to fly there and stay there, so I will not be doing that…sadness…but to continue!
After the museum Anna and I and a few other girls from the program went to another artisan’s market (they’re killing me…I always want to buy everything and they’re so overwhelming…but I’ve been able to resist the temptation so far) except at this one I caved and bought some chocolates which were surprisingly not that good, so I’ll hopefully be able to stay away from buying any more while I’m here. And then we
went to Valparaiso and walked around the port and went up on one of the hills—the city is actually comprised of about 30 different hills with some connecting streets—and then checked into our hostel and went out with some of the people staying there, which was fun. And then Saturday we went back to Vina to go to the beach, because, like Charleston, Valparaiso doesn’t have any public beaches because of the whole port thing. Anna and I left on Saturday afternoon and came back to recover, and then on Sunday it was Anna’s birthday! (And Valentine’s Day, or whatever…Chileans, or Santiagans at least, definitely celebrate Valentine’s Day, to an even greater extent than we do in the states. There were couples everywhere walking around with flowers and stuffed animals and obnoxious balloons…it was slightly nauseating, but I managed to pull through). But anyway a bunch of girls from the program went out to eat cake and ice cream and it was glorious and we’re definitely going to make it a weekly thing.
I don’t think anything huge is happening this week or this weekend, because Anna and I were looking at our schedules for both school and diversions
valparaiso
another street view and next week is like…midterms…which is unexpected, and therefore fairly terrifying, and also kind of sad because we’ll officially be halfway finished with the semester. But I say it’s fairly terrifying because next week I have two papers that are due and three midterms or something ridiculous like that, so this weekend will probably be spent working on all of that. But the next weekend after that (the first weekend/week in March) is the start of our spring break, for which we have two weeks, and for which I’m going to an island in the southern part of Chile called Chiloe, and then the second week we’re going to Buenos Aires! Which I’m pretty excited for. And I’ll definitely have awesome stories/pictures for that. So until then I hope you enjoy the pictures from this past weekend and are glad to know that next week’s entry will be short. Peace!
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good pix
Hi Lisa - I especially liked your pictures this time. Good luck on your midterms. I'm so happy you are enjoying yourself. I wish I spoke spanish! XOXO