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Published: February 1st 2008
La Sebastiana
Megan and me on the deck outside of Pablo Neruda's house in Valparaíso.¡Hola! I´m still alive after an amazing trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso last weekend...
*We spent all day Friday in Valparaíso (the twin city of Viña), riding our bus from place to place and checking out random stuff in the city. Random stuff = a tour of Chilean congress, a ride up the funicular to the top of one of the hills, a walk through an amazingly beautiful and atypical cementary, another walk through a section of town with some incredible grafitti, and so forth. The place where we ate lunch had a great view of the city, which reminded me of a mixture of Greece, San Francisco, and poverty. All the buildings were built in the hills, and everything was painted bright colors. We headed back to Viña for the evening and had dinner as a group at a nice Argentinian restaurant there. Then most of us went out in search of some Chilean nightlife, and ended up in a dance club near our hotel where we totally got the party started (to songs like "It´s Gonna Be Me" by NSYNC and "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears)! It was amazing to be able
La Sebastiana
Pablo's house in Valpo. Five stories high! Crazy. to sleep in the next morning after such an exhausting day!
*On Saturday, we had a whole day of free time. So, naturally, we spent all of it at the beach! We went to a shore close by called Riñaca. Lying out in the sun felt great, and there was a nice breeze that kept us from getting too hot. Hardly anyone swims in the ocean here, since it´s the Pacific and it´s
freezing, but I definitely put my feet in a couple times just for the experience. The only annoying thing about the beach was that there were vendors
everywhere that bothered us constantly, trying to make us buy sunglasses, cookies, necklaces, and other useless things. Ridiculous. After the beach, a group of us went out to find some delicious dinner. And let me tell you, we succeeded. We ended up at an empanada place called Entre Masas ("between bread") and had what was, in my opinion, one of the best meals so far in Chile.
*Sunday a couple of us checked out the Viña book fair that was going on in a huge tent a few blocks away from our hotel. Megan found an Isabelle Allende book that
Cementary
The cementary we walked through in Valparaíso. That wall on the left is filled with dead people. Think about it. she bought and is loving so far, and we watched a "play," if you can call it that, of
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. It actually just turned out to be this one guy who wore a cape and mimed everything, continuously pretending to be different caracters. Weird.
*Since last weekend, it has just been a regular week of classes. In the afternoons, I´ve visited Pablo Neruda´s Santiago house (La Chascona, which means "crazy hair" -- he named it for the woman he was having an affair with, who lived there with him), the Museo del Arte Precolumbino, and the Santa Lucía hill. I also went to una heladería (ice cream shop) called Imporio de la Rosa with my tutor group and tried Rose flavored ice cream. Surprisingly subtle and delicious! In other news, we took our midterm in literature today. It wasn´t too bad, but it´s definitely a relief to be done. Tomorrow we´re going to Isla Negra (to see yet another of Pablo Neruda´s houses) and Pomaire for the day. I´m sure I´ll write all about it before too long.
I hope everything is well for all of you. As always, much love to
Valparaíso graffiti
Some of our group crossing the street in Valpo. Look at the graffiti behind them! Everything was super artistic and colorful, as opposed to the mostly ugly graffiti we have in the states. everybody back home. Only 3 weeks left before I see all of your lovely faces again!
¡Chau chau!
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james st. james
non-member comment
city of the dead
you should try going to santiago's cementerio general at some point and wander some of the parts of the cemetary where the richer people are buried and have build some pretty incredible and outlandish mausoleums. just take metro line 2 north to the station called "cementerios". it's a fascinating place. cheers!