just arrived in Santiago...

HOLA!!!!

I got in to Santiago around 2pm chilean time today... (11 am California time). and i want to share with you all my last 2 days in Valparaiso!

on Saturday, we took a bus to Vina del Mar to met up with Valentina, one of Lindsey's host sisters from when she studied abroad in Chile 2 years ago... Valparaiso and Vina are super close, so it was an easy bus ride. Vina del Mar is such a great town! It is right on the beach, and is much more upscale and less poor than Valparaiso. its crazy that these two towns are so close together and yet so different! We met Vale in front of Hotel O'Higgins and walked around downtown Vina then drove to Renaca ( a near by beach town). In Renanca we had empanandas for lunch! I dont know why we dont have them in the US, but they are yummy :) Imagine a calzone that is filled with anything. So far i have had a pino and a pollo empanada. pino is very typical chilean... its meat with onions, olive and hardboiled egg... kinda a weird combo, but it was good. so far the pollo (chicken) empanada has been my favorite!

Renaca is so beautiful! It was very chilly while we were there... since its the winter in Chile. But during the summer the beach is packed with tons and tons of chileans and people from all over neighboring countries. Back in Vina, we did some tourist shopping and looked at chilean goodies for sale in stands that lined the water front.

On Sunday, (our last day in Valpo) We met up with Valentina again and went to several flee markets in Valparaiso. Valentina was so sweet, and i was so happy that i was able to meet up with her! After hearing so many stories from lindsey, it was so nice to put a face to the name. I can only hope that my host family in Brazil is as amazing as Valentina and her family. On our last night it Valpo, i think we made one of our best dinners! Valparaiso can be a little dangerous at night.. especially on the hills which is where out hostel was located. So we never ate dinner or walked around at night. if we did we always took a taxi... so we have been making all of our dinners at our hostel. but anywho, our dinners have been great, eating lots of veggies because its hard to eat anything but bread when you eat out in Chile.

This morning, we checked out of our Hostel in Valpo and took a bus to Santiago which is where we are now. Santiago and Valparaiso could not be more different! Santiago is humungous and much more city like compared to the bohemian/artys city of Valpo. OUr hostel here is much more modern and hip than our homey Caracol in Valpo. we are staying at Andes Hostel which couldnt be in a better location! We are right in the center of downtown and there are tons of shops near us... thank god i dont have to climb up more stairs! Valpo and Santiago are both great, very different cities, my experiences here are going to be completely different... but still both great!

We got in to Santiago around 2:30pm and immediately hit the town around our hostel. Today i saw the most beautiful cathedral i have ever seen! I think the Cathedral was called, El Cathedral de Santiago.. but im not totally sure. it was located in la plaza de Armas. It was gorgeous, definitely put all other Cathedrals that i have seen to shame! After grabbing a quick bit to eat, empanadas of course, we decided to go see a Chilean movie that was playing in a film festival. This was a good and bad idea... it was cool to watch a chilean film to learn a bit more about the culture. But at the same time i really don't know spanish and there were no subtitles, so i had NO clue what was going on. But the main actor was very attractive so it was definitely not a complete waste! Because our hostel is is located downtown we felt very safe going out for dinner for the first time... so we decided to go to a Peruvian restaurant. I had french fries, it was great!!!

Tomorrow we are going to explore Santiago more and meet up with my friend Eva from UCD who is studying in Santiago right now.

All is well, and i cant believe i will be in Brazil in like 4 days!

I will post picture soon!