Chile de mi alma

(Clark's comments in Mauve, a name color, I may have just made up)  How sad it has been to see such destruction in Chile!  Luckily, I've heard from nearly all of my loved-ones and they are safe, though quite shaken up (Poor word choice by Amy there.  But like you should, I am going to forgive her).  I can't imagine how scary it must have been to wake in the middle of the night, grab your young children and try to hold onto them during 3 very long minutes. 

In honor of my dear country, it's time to blog about the beautiful cities in central Chile that we visited under two months ago before such immense destruction took place.

On Wednesday, Jan 6 we flew from Temuco to Santiago where my friend Claudio picked us up.  We spent the afternoon with him and his mischievous ( the kid played baseball with Christmas tree ornaments and punched me in the face) but darling little boy, Matías.  We spent most of the afternoon eating.  We bought delicious empanadas and made homemade tacos (a first for me in Chile--tacos are not typical in there contrary to the popular belief of my students).  We then went down to La Moneda, walked around the grounds and then checked out the museum.  There was a big exhibit on China (like I've always said, "there's no better place to visit to learn about China, than it's sister country Chile"), which honestly I wasn't too interested in considering I was there to learn more about Chile; but I really enjoyed the exhibit of Violeta Parra, a Chilean folk musician and artist.  

We had a lovely stay in Valparaíso.  It was sunny and warm and such a fun city to explore.  

We stayed in another hostel called Catalejo House.  We were a little worried the first night whether or not we would like it, but it turned out alright, though the dogs were obnoxious. (Understatement alert:  Kids that whine are obnoxious.  Getting a mosquito bite is obnoxious.  Carrot Top and his 1-800-COLLECT commercials are obnoxious.  Dogs barking for 8 straight hours through the night, are a nightmare.)

Valparaíso is a city of hills!  ( For you skiers, Valparaiso would be considered one large Black Diamond of hills) We did lots of walking up and down, but that was all right because there were lots of bright buildings and neat architecture to observe--not to mention the awesome vista of the bay.

Do you recognize this building from The Amazing Race?  This was where the final marker was a couple of weeks ago.

It doesn't come across so well in the picture, but the stairs leading to this house were SO steep and precarious looking.  Clark and I would see houses like these and try to imagine how people would carry groceries or babies to their house (Or both.  Parents need the basic necessities of life too).  I would fear for my life often.

We got to spend lots of time with one of my very favorite companions, María José, and her sweet family.  Seriously, her kids are dang cute.  They showed us lots of the city and we got to eat lots of food!  Maria Jose and her husband Eugenio were awesome.  I built a great bond with Eugenio and tried to teach him some English.  It's hard.  Try to teach someone the English language sometime.  You'll probably give up.  Something funny about Maria Jose is that she is really pretty and a very upbeat and smily person in real life, but in all of her photos, she pulls serious faces.  I don't know if it's cultural.  I would have asked her, but I probably would have accidentally said something awkward and made the situation worse.

Mariel and Quenito- Super cute kids.  I loved them.  I played games with them and didn't even mind when they called my stupid and fat.  Of course that wasn't appropriate.  I played "put the makeup on Angelina Jolie" with Mariel.  It's a real game and Mariel's favorite.  I think the website was gamesforgirls.com or something like that.  I'm still trying to find a "put the makeup on Brad Pitt game for boys, but no luck so far.

To help with all the hills, there are a number of "asensores."  While exploring (we were a little lost) we ended up on this tram which took us to this building pictured below:

It turned out the be the Maritime Naval Museum, which looked pretty cool so we decided to check it out. 

Inside we saw a lot of relics and records and replicas.  We particularly enjoyed the stained-glass representations of important Chilean leaders and explorers.

Believe it or not, this man has a street named after him in EVERY Chilean city.  I guess that's what you get when you almost single-handedly deliver a nation's independence to them.  Nice work Baba O'Riley.  That's not his name, but it is something like that.

The faces at the bottom represent important explorers/figures including Capernicus, Colombus, Galileo and then there was...

Sorry for the sideways picture--technical difficulties.  Anyway, I can see where they were coming from, but I guess it just caught me off guard.  We had a good laugh about it.  I'm still laughing about it.  I don't even think you would find a stained glass window of Neil Armstrong in an American Navitime museum.  It was just so out of place.  Gallileo, Copeurnicus, Chris Columbus and...Neil Armstrong.  It's like the Rock N' Roll hall of fame having a mural of Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, The Beatles and...Hall and Oates.  No offense to Hall and Oates fans.

And just a few other fun, random Val Paraíso sights:

You gotta make money and this guy makes it with his singing, guitar playing puppet.  It was actually cool.

An open market--it was insanely busy!  Piles of fresh fruits and veggies all around.

Here I am haggling prices with the local used-book seller.  If you know Amy, you know that she is the queen of bargaining.  She puts my grandma to shame and that is saying something.  This is my grandma who makes a gameplan of which garage sales to hit every Saturday morning.  I was impressed when Amy told me that she saved 1000 pesos by bargaining with the guy.  I was less impressed when I found out it was only like 70 cents in American money.  That guy probably didn't have enough money to eat that day, but Amy had an extra George Washington in her pocket.  No I am lying.  She saved like 4 dollars and we were pretty sure that the guy stole those kids books from his daughter, so he deserved what he got.

More to come soon on Viña del Mar and Pablo Neruda.