Week 8!

Well guys, since this was my last week in Chile, I suppose this is going to be my last post.  I can't very well be silly in Chile in Missouri, now can I?

Since Shea was there for just this week, we tried to get up to something every day.  Let's take a look...

Monday, Jan 7

On Monday I decided it was time to finish up my present shopping, so Shea and I met up with Rosie and headed to Santa Lucia to a big market that they've got there. Unfortunately I can't divulge what I got as most people haven't actually received their presents yet, but I did a great job and got something for about 7 people! Yes, this was after I had already gotten presents for the girls the other week. I have a big family!

That evening we looked up a vegetarian restaurant on Lonely Planet, but when we tried to find it, it was a major fail. So, we just had dinner at this Italian place instead. I had spaghetti with capers, olives, and supposedly anchovies. 

I couldn't actually taste the anchovies.  What a shame, since that was pretty much why I had chosen that dish. Oh well, it was delicious anyway. To drink, a kir royale. It's some kind of berry liqueur mixed with...champagne? Delicious and sparkly!

Tuesday, Jan 8

On Tuesday we decided to check out a couple of museums. First, we headed to the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende.  

Salvador Allende was the leader of Chile before a military coup overthrew him and installed dictator Pinochet. I guess the museum is dedicated to him. It had a lot of abstract artwork:

Also, some censored CIA documents...

This was actually really cool.  The black circles are speakers, and the color of the light at the bottom would change.  It was broadcasting in Spanish though, so not sure what it said.

Also, Allende's registration with the socialist party:

Afterwards, we headed over to the Museo de Artes Visuales, which also hosts the Museo Arqueologico de Santiago, and saw some interesting stuff...

Yeup, that's art.  Visually.

Here are some samples from the archaeological museum.  Mapuche jewelry, textiles, statues, and hats.

That evening we met up with Rosie and Andres to go to dinner and a “tango show,” that I had found on the internet. Turns out, it wasn't a dance show, but a tango music show. Still nice, but Rosie and I were really hoping to see some dancing.

The woman said that they don't even make that little accordion instrument anymore.  Neat.

I got some fish in a chardonnay sauce.

I think this may have been the first time I was disappointed with the food—the fish was so dry I didn't even finish eating it because I was tired of chewing so much! Oh well, can't win all the time.

Wednesday, Jan 9

On Wednesday we managed to do some actual physical activity.  I found a place to hike on the internet, took down the directions, and we headed out.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right?  Not so much...

The directions weren't entirely clear on which bus stop we needed to go to, so we just kind of guessed.  It was the wrong one.  We wandered around a bit, asked some gardeners where the park was, but it was difficult since neither of us *really* speaks Spanish, although Shea's is better than mine.  We went the way the gardeners said to go...and ended at a dead end.  We went back to the previous bus stop because we thought maybe that was where we should have gotten off, but quickly changed our minds once we got there. Finally, we decided that we hadn't ridden the bus far enough, and followed the way it had continued going.  This turned out to be the right answer.  Then we had to go through the Catholic University campus and the Equestrian Club, way back far away from the road and with no signs or anything.  Finally, we found the park...and discovered that the trail we had wanted to take was actually in another, far-off area of the same park, but that we couldn't get there from where we were.  Absolutely ridiculous.  So, we just picked a new trail and started off on what felt like our second hike of the day by that time.  We decided to head to the Monolito...

I turned out to be pretty grateful that we hadn't found that other trail in the end.  It was HOT on Wednesday.  If I recall correctly, I think it got up to in the 90's (over 32C for my international friends).  The trail we had originally chosen was supposed to be 3 hours up and 3 hours down at the minimum.  The one we ended up taking was about 3 hours round-trip.  I don't think we would have had enough water for the longer trail!  Anyway, check out the scenery:

Check out all those cacti!  We actually weren't very close to them--my camera's got a good zoom.

Finally reached the monolith:

Don't act like you're not impressed.

And a nice picnic lunch

With apple Gatorade!

After that we were hot, sweaty, and dirty, so we headed back to the apartment for some much-needed showers and spent the afternoon chilling and watching movies.  

That evening we went to the oft-recommended Liguria for dinner.  I had a big ol' bowl of mushrooms:

It was pretty delicious, since I love mushrooms, but I was glad that they also bring bread.  I mean, a whole dinner of just mushrooms?  Come on...

Thursday, Jan 10

On Thursday we got to do one of the big things I had been wanting to do my whole time in Chile--wine tasting!  We bought a Turistik tour and headed out to Concha y Toro for the afternoon.  

Here is the house where the owner/creator/whatever used to stay when he was there:

It has something ridiculous like 22 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, if I remember correctly.  We also got to see the vineyards

An old distillery

And the cellars

Here is the entrance to the legendary Casillero del Diablo.  

Legend has it that the Concha y Toro cellars are cursed by the devil and that anybody who tried to steal any wine from them was marked for death...or the guy made that up to deter theft.  Either way, it was pretty cool.  This part of the cellar in the furthest down and doesn't have a refrigeration system, just the coolness of the Earth.  It smelled funny.  If you want to see a ridiculous movie trailer based on the legend, check this out (WARNING: it looks kind of stupid): http://casillerodeldiablo.com/minisitios/trailer/

And, of course, we got to do some wine tasting:

Bonus: they let us keep the glass!  Made it all the way home without breaking!

Friday, Jan 11

Believe it or not, we decided that we actually needed to buy MORE presents, so after we took our sweet time sleeping in, we headed back over to the market at Santa Lucia.  Shea got some alpaca socks for his dad, and I got...haha, just kidding!  It's still a secret!

We met up with Libby and Rosie and went to a Peruvian place for dinner, so Shea could try a good Pisco sour.  I got a seafood medley for dinner:

Then we went to the river to watch the international jazz festival without paying for tickets.  Don't worry, we weren't the only ones.

Saturday, Jan 12

My last day in Chile!  Had a fruit and toast breakfast with Rosie and Libby, then spent the day packing before meeting back up with Rosie for lunch.  Then she and Andres were kind enough to drive us to the airport, and that was that!

After a 9 hour flight to Miami, a 3 hour flight to Dallas, and finally a 1.5 hour flight to Kansas City, I was exhausted and happy to stagger off the plane and into the arms of a sweet boyfriend who was holding these

I win.

Week 7!

Well guys, the second-to-last week of being in Chile has come to an end.  It was a pretty good one--let's take a look!

Monday, Dec 31

My one and only Monday class was cancelled, so I got to sleep in and take my sweet time in the morning.  Libby and I headed out about midday to meet up with Rosie and Anna for lunch.  We went to Waffles and Crepes, and I got this awesome salmon roll with avocado, cream cheese, and onions.  Yum!

Afterwards we went to the Jumbo to pick up some groceries for New Years Eve dinner.  The lines were ridiculously long.  We were able to get into the express line, which usually doubles back on itself twice, but today had doubled back on itself 4 times and went down half an aisle.  It was crazy!  Then Andres picked Rosie and me up and we headed up the mountain to their house.  To have a New Years POOL PARTY!

That's right, I went to the pool for New Years Eve.  Be jealous.

In Chile, New Years is a family affair.  People have dinner, drinks, and count down to the new year with their families.  THEN they head out partying around 1 or 2.  Andres's parents were so kind to invite me to their family dinner for New Years.  I met his brother Flan (yes, it's a dessert, no, I don't think that's his real name) and his girlfriend.  We had a cheese plate and Rosie made Mexican-style dips for appetizers.

But the real beauty comes in the form of Andres' paella.  It's a rice dish with clams, mussels, abalone, shrimp, sausage, ham, and chicken.  It's yellow because of the saffron.

It was really delicious, though I couldn't eat a lot--I had filled up on chips and dip!  For dessert there was a beautiful fruit salad to go on top of ice cream.  It had all kinds of stuff in it--cantaloupe, watermelon, apples, peaches, cherries, and blueberries.  Amazing!  Regretfully, I did not get a picture.  At the end of dinner, we had the new years countdown, and everybody hugged and kissed cheeks (a very Chilean thing to do).  It felt so nice to be there for this lovely family event.

Andres and Flan

I can't help it that Andres is silly...

Us with Nika banana

The girls

We had planned to go out and meet up with Libby and Anna afterwards, but we were all so tired we just went to bed instead.

Oh, one extra note.  All week I had been seeing people selling yellow panties.  I mean stores, street vendors, you name it.  Turns out, in Chile it's good luck to wear yellow underwear to greet the new year.  Maybe that's what we've been doing wrong??  Happy New Year everybody!

Tuesday, Jan 1

Tuesday was a holiday and a day off work, so I just took it easy.  Rosie and Andres took me home, I did a work out, and just various reading the rest of the day.  Nothing too exciting.

Wednesday, Jan 2

Ok guys, Wednesday was the surprise I promised you last week.  I had to go to a class at noon, and when I came back:

Oh, it is a Shea!  For those of you who don't know him, this is my friend Shea that went to Truman with me and was also in Korea for part of the time I was there.  Since we make the big bucks in Korea, heh, he came down to visit and check out some South America.  He had to dress up because he had special airplane tickets since his dad used to work for the airline.To welcome him, I brought him his first empanadas (in Chile) and we hung around with Rosie until dinner time.  The we went to Korean food with Libby and Andres!  It was awesome.  I don't usually order tteok bokki because it's kind of a plain, everyday dish, but since there were 5 of us we could order quite a few dishes, so we got some of that.  Yeah fishcake!!  Didn't take any pictures this time, sorry!

Went to bed relatively early because I had to teach again the next day.

Thursday, Jan 3

My last day of work!  I had two classes, both of which had tests, so I thought I wouldn't have to do much.  That was a mis-estimation for my first class.  He finished the entire test, along with the speaking, in about 15 minutes of the 1.5 hour class!  It was fine, we just went ahead and started the next chapter.  Oh, and he got a 95%.  Aw yeah, I'm an awesome teacher!

Went home, had some lunch, picked up Shea and headed to my 2nd class.  Shea hung out in the park while I was in class, and then we headed over to Bridge to finish up my class paperwork.

That evening, we went to check out Bella Vista, which is a party neighborhood with a lot of restaurants/bars and a few clubs.  I actually lived in that area my first week in Chile, but never really bothered to check out the nightlife.  Rosie and Andres aren't drinking right now, and I had just arrived so I didn't know anyone else to go with me.

Anyway, we found a table on a patio and had a few pitchers and some food.

We also made friends with the Chilean guy at the table next to us, and part way through the evening the girl sitting behind me turned around and said to Shea, "Hey, didn't you come through Miami on your way here the other day?"  Turns out, they had briefly met in the airport and she had asked him to watch her bags while she went to ask a question at the counter.  Small world eh?

On the way home I caught a picture of the aviation plaza:

I recommend clicking to see the big picture

Friday, Jan 4

Well, we got in pretty late on Thursday, so Friday was pretty much just spent watching movies.  We got our classic on with The Jerk.  That movie was crazy!  I love Bernadette Peters, I think she is so adorable.  Also watched Elf, Spirited Away, and I finally got to see Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter!  If you like ridiculous action movies with fantastically unrealistic scenes, this one's for you.  Meaning it was awesome!

Some hangover refreshment:

Pineapple...mostly just tasted like sugar

We also moved all my stuff to another room in the apartment.  Apparently Maria Eugenia had promised my particular room to someone else (even though I was in it?), so she asked (aka, politely demanded) that I move to another room.  This room is fine too, I just think that's a weird/sketchy way to run things.  Oh well!

Saturday, Jan 5

On Saturday we went with Rosie, Andres, and Anna to a birthday pool party for this girl Alison that works with Rosie and me at Bridge.  She's the girl who went to Los Dominicos with us the other week--I finally learned her name!  Anyway, it was nice and hot, and the pool was cool.

Me with the hostess, Leo (a random Chilean dude), and Anna

I played a little ping pong.  I beat Shea and Rosie, but not this dude:

He was pretty good.

After the pool party we were all pretty hungry, so we all went to the little French restaurant near my place.  We got a delicious cheese plate appetizer:

as well as this:

It's very rare beef with capers and cheese on top, though I didn't catch the name.  While I'm not usually one for beef, I like to try new things, so I had a bite.  I dunno, it tasted like meat to me.  One bite was fine, thank you.

I ordered conejo (rabbit) in mustard sauce.

Ok guys, now brace yourself for the story of this dish.  I ate the leg part first.  It was good, and the sauce was excellent.  Ok, I've finished the leg, now let's check out this other part.  *pokes it with fork*  Hmm, it's pretty hard, seems to be mostly bone, that's strange...*turn the piece of meat*

Omg, omg, it's a head.  There is a rabbit head on my plate guys.  Guys, guys, there is a rabbit head on my plate!!

Actually, after the initial shock, I calmed down quite a bit.  Dug this out and ate it:

Yup, that's a rabbit tongue.  It was yummy.  Also tried the cheeks.  All in all, rabbit face is not bad, but there's not much meat on it.

Hope you enjoyed that story!  Andres also ordered Crepes Suzette to share:

Sunday, Jan 4

On Sunday I got a surprise message from Rosie saying we should go to Valparaiso for the afternoon!  It was sudden, but nice since I had been trying to get her to commit to when she wanted to head over there for a while.  Valparaiso is a city on the coast and it's all hills.  The town center is flat, and the hills go up all around it (except for where, the ocean is, obviously).  There are roads that go around, of course, but they also have these elevator-type-things call funiculars around the city.

We parked and I got a few random pictures of the city.  It almost felt like a fairy tale city.  The buildings were so colorful and cute.  Very cool.

We headed to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which is an art museum set in an old Art Nouveau palace that was originally owned by an Italian nitrate Baron.  There were some pretty cool works:

The photo of this painting doesn't do it justice.  The sun and reflection looked really cool in the actual painting.

This photo is also not as spectacular as the real thing.  The pink on the snow was so vivid that at first we thought maybe there was a light shining on it.  Absolutely fantastic!

A painting of Valparaiso itself from up on the hill.  Again, I recommend clicking for a better view.

After that we took one of the funiculars down, took a little walk through town, and took another one back up.

Rosie and me in the funicular

The opposite one coming down as we go up.

  

Went through a cute little neighborhood of restaurants, and then back to the car to head over to Vina del Mar for dinner.

Vina del Mar is another city that is right next to Valparaiso.  We went to a seafood restaurant right on the water.  There were seagulls, pelicans, and even a few seals...or sea lions.  There seemed to be some debate going on at the table as to which.

We got these abalones for appetizers

Also got some wine:

Is it a tiny bottle or a huge glass??

Oh, it's a tiny bottle.

I had a fish soup.

It was really good, but really hot!  I burned my tongue :-(

After that, we drove around Vina del Mar lost for a while, and finally found the way back to Santiago.  I was exhausted and headed straight to bed.  A very awesome day to end a pretty awesome week.