Valparaíso

Yesterday afternoon, Natalia and I went to where my host mom, Katia, works, a currency exchange place (convenient). Natalia speaks fluent English, but Katia and Graciela, the housekeeper, only speak Spanish. Afterwards, we went to Ripley’s, the mall in Viña. 4 floors of bliss. I had some manjar chip ice cream at the mall and it was delicious! Since I loved that, Natalia had me try a churro with manjar in the center. Also delicious! Manjar is creamy and kind of like caramel, but better (a mixture of milk, sugar, honey, etc).

My eating schedule is all messed up right now, due in combination to the time zone difference and the Chilean meal times (breakfast 9-10, lunch 3-4, dinner 8-9). I had yogurt and a flat bread with cheese inside for breakfast yesterday and soup, chicken, mashed potatoes, a roll and pineapple juice for lunch. The bread is amazing here and I have a feeling the bakeries will see a lot of me. I’ve been snacking on clementines a lot, too, which are even better than the ones in the U.S.

Yesterday was also my first time riding in a colectivo, a taxi-like vehicle that you just jump in with random people already inside. It was 400 pesos to the mall – about 80 cents. The driving in Chile is surprisingly pretty good, in comparison to other Latin American countries I’ve been to.

Today Natalia and I took the microbus to Valparaíso, which is 430 pesos one way. I’ll be making the 10-15 minute trip Monday through Friday to go to Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, where I’ll be taking classes. She showed me where the university is and we walked a lot through the streets of the city. It is older than Viña, the buildings are more European, and the streets are trashier. There is an indoor/outdoor marketplace a block from the university that has every kind of fresh vegetable and fruit imaginable, plus lots of fresh crab, shrimp and fish since we are right on the ocean.

The view after we rode on the ascensor. Viña del Mar is across the bay.

I went on an “ascensor” for the first time today. Ascensores are elevator-like boxcars that people use to get to the high parts of the city, since many areas of Valpo are on an incline and incredibly steep. It was fun!

By the time Natalia and I took the microbus back to Viña, we were exhausted. Our apartment building is half way up a steep hill and we barely made it up all of the flights of concrete stairs. My legs had flashbacks to stair workouts during cheer practice last fall – I will definitely be getting my summer workout time in here!