Santiago

This past weekend, everyone in my program had a planned trip to Santiago and Cajon del Maipo. We left Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m., so I had to get up early yet another day of the week. The bus ride to Santiago was an hour and a half. While in Santiago, we went to visit the Palacio de La Moneda (Chilean White House) and the Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago (a big church). To be honest, this was extremely boring. I haven’t done many “touristy” things here (perhaps on purpose) and this seemed like a definite digression. Lunch made up for it, though! We went to a seafood restaurant, which was my first opportunity to eat seafood here (which is kind of ironic because I live in a coast city and Santiago is farther inland). It was so good! We had big platters for the whole table with fried scallops, salmon and another unidentifiable fish. I don’t eat a lot of fish at home, but I’d inhale this stuff any day. After lunch, we went to Las Chascona, one of three houses of the Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. This was pretty interesting because the house was constructed similar to a ship and gardens connect most of the rooms.

In the Palacio de La Moneda. Apparently you're not supposed to touch the fountain. I was barely brushing up against it and 3 gaurds started to approach me.

From Santiago, we drove another one and half hours southeast to Cajon del Maipo, situated in the Andes mountains. We arrived at our home for the night, a campgrounds called “Cascada de Las Animas” (“Waterfall of the Spirits”), around 7 p.m. Adrienne, Laurel and I shared a quaint little cabin that had a kitchen, bathroom, living room, one bedroom, and another bed by the fire. I selfishly claimed the bed by the fire before anyone else could. Honestly, it wasn’t cold… it was FREEZING. I slept with four layers of clothing, one of which was my winter jacket, under 5 blankets. The air was so dry and frigid – think Wisconsin winters without the snow and without the luxury of heating. The only place I have felt warm during the entire time I've been here is on the Metro, which has replaced the bus as my transportation to class everyday. The bus got old quickly - the Metro is the same distance from my house as the bus stop, it's less crowded, it takes less time, and it's just more peaceful.

Our cabin in the mountains.

Back to the weekend... we ate supper at the restaurant on the campgrounds – a big chunk of chicken and a big slice of steak with rice. This was one of the first times I’ve had beef here, partly because I haven’t been fed it at home and partly because I’m picky about how well done the meat is. But it was really, really good. Dessert included a lemony mousse that nobody cared for. There was a cat in the restaurant that kept jumping up on my lap and its tail went in my mousse, which was a convenient excuse for me not to eat it.