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Other entries in Santiago

chillin´ in Chile!!

During my last post, I made a couple of phone calls back home (2 cents per minute using Skype on the computer, but you have to put up with the noisy internet cafe). I was so confused because I thought there was a 6 hour time difference, but the times weren´t adding up. Which is when I realized, Daylight savings time is damn confusing!! Mom told me that they had changed their clocks forward an hour the previous weekend. And I later found out that Argentina was to change their clocks BACK an hour, that exact night, and the specific computer I was on, had already changed. So now there´s only a 4 hour difference! Now hopefully I won´t be calling people at 7:30am because I forgot there is such a huge difference!!

So after my last late night post (good thing the clocks went back an hour!!), I went back to my hostel, and finished my Dean Koontz book. I am so glad to have time for reading once again, I truly enjoy it, but for the past year I´d always been too busy, especially in Club Med!! I only brought 2 books to south america with me, thinking I wouldn´t do much reading. However, not only have I been reading a ton (long bus trips especially), I have had no problem picking up new books, and in fact can´t seem to keep up with them all! LOL. In fact, I picked up two at the hostel in Mendoza (including the Golden Compass, I just LOVED that movie!! Mom, you have to see it, it´s better than Narnia!), in a trade for my dean koontz book.

The next morning was an early morning pick up for a full day tour. It was a small group (10 of us, mostly girls) and we drove up into the mountains, stopping at Puente del Inca, which is Spanish for "the Inca´s bridge". It´s a natural arch that forms a bridge over a little river. They believe it was created by the interaction of extreme elements like ice and hot springs, with the help of some sulphorus water, which also must have caused the discolorations, or rather, the multiple colorations, all over the structure itself. I was just standing there admiring the colors, before I realized that the huge bridge was not man made. It´s pretty incredible. After that we drove up this mountain. It was a massive mountain, and just this little dirt road, and yet all these little tour vans are driving all over it, and at every turn we got really close to the edge of the "road", and could look straight down the mountain, to the teeny tiny looking buildings below! Good thing no one was afraid of heights!! From the top of the mountain, we had a great view of the snow capped Aconcagua mountain, and glaciers. Very pretty. But after all the amazing phenomenal sights I´ve seen in the last month (and trekked on!!), I think I´ve been slightly desensitized to sights on the average side of pretty. And you would not believe how windy it was on the top of the mountain! I had a hot chocolate, not even full. But the wind scooped INTO my cup and splashed my cocoa!

There were a couple more stops for sightseeing, and for a late lunch. All in all, it was quite a long day. When I got back to the hostel, I was so exhausted! Luckily, no one had checked into my room yet, I still had it all to myself for the third night in a row! What great luck! I took advantage of it with another long leisurely shower, gave myself a much needed mini pedicure, and packed up some of my stuff, all the while singing along to my Ipod stereo.

The hostel wasn´t that great, and I probably would have hated it if I hadn´t had my own room and own bathroom! But the timing was perfect, that solitude was exactly what I needed for my first few nights on my own, and I really enjoyed it. I didn´t even try to make friends in that hostel, because when I wasn´t out, I just wanted to be alone in my room with either a book or my music! It was a perfect little sanctuary, and I hadn´t realized how much I had needed that after spending 30 or so days with a friend, day and night. I am generally a very private person, and really enjoy having my alone time, and I hadn´t even realized that I had been missing it. Which of course is a testament in itself to how fun and easy Amy was to be around! I still missed having her around, but I loved having this time and space to myself!!

The next day I hopped on the bus to Santiago de Chile, and waved goodbye to Argentina. I got my last Argentinian exit stamp (this time the exit and entrance customs were in the same building, I was so confused!). However, I was quite excited because even though I thought I could never eat another jamon y queso sandwich, I was delighted to see that the bus gave us each two sandwiches, one of them on brown bread!! I had to eat it, just because it´s so rare to see brown bread out here! These people have not figured out the benefits of whole grains! Oh, and the little lunch came with a Bon Bon, which is a little chocolate ball with yummy hazlenut-like truffley kinda stuff inside. Geez, there goes my ability to be clear and concise in describing things!

So, I have arrived in Santiago, which is huge, and was quite overwhelming at first! Luckily there are a lot of people who speak english here. Unfortunately, the man at the bus station gave me the wrong directions to the hostel (he was thinking of a different hostel entirely!), so I hopped on the metro and got off at the wrong stop, and walked 5 blocks down the street he told me, which was the wrong street. I went into a Farmacia and asked the ladies there if they knew the street I was looking for, only to find out it wasn´t nearby! One of the ladies was such a sweetheart, she called the hostel (I had been smart enough to write down the number!), and found out where it was. Since she was being so helpful, I´ll forgive her for telling the man (in spanish that even I could understand), that there was a gringa who didn´t speak much spanish who was lost, and that she didn´t think i should get back on the metro to look for this place. I forgive her for it, because it worked. The owners of the hostel came and picked me up, and were super nice. However, I was talking to them in my awful broken spanish for a whole 5 minutes before the driver bothered to tell me he spoke english!! LOL.

When we arrived at the hostel, they spent a few minutes looking up my reservation, because for some reason, Hostelworld.com hadn´t sent it directly to them. I had booked a bed in an 8 bed dorm, but since they felt bad for the reservation mix up, they upgraded me to a 5 bed room. Which worked out really well, because I really like my roommates, and, we have our own bathroom and shower! Again, luck is on my side! Also, since it was St. Patricks day, they were making free Caipirinha´s for the guests! Once I put my stuff away, the owner led me into the back living room, gave me a drink, and introduced me to a big group of people who were playing the drinking card game "Kings". Two boys from the UK had started it, so the rules were a little different from what I´m used to, but the idea is the same. You drink way too much! LOL

Within minutes I was immersed in the game and had the lowest card for the "Arrogance" side-game where you take a card without looking, and put it on your forehead. Everyone takes turns pouring a little or a lot of their drinks into a central glass, assuming they don´t have the lowest card (this is why it´s called arrogance), and the person with the lowest card has to chug it. I saw them go through this before I started playing, and the guy who filled the glass the most was the one with the lowest card!  So funny!!  Well, this time, i had the two. But my ability to chug the rum and beer mixture earned me some respect!! I didn´t even think I could do it, good thing it was mostly rum, sugar and limejuce!!

When we ran out of booze, the big group of us headed out in search of a bar, and we found one called Dublins, very suiting! They had a live band who were playing "I can´t get no satisfaction" when we walked in, and the servers were all wearing green hats or green wigs, it was awesome!! It was so completly opposite from my experience in Mendoza, where I didn´t interact with anyone from the hostel. Then to come here where I´m instantly immersed (and getting drunk) with a group of people! Soo much fun! There are some great people at this hostel, and despite the fact that I enjoy the smaller cities more, I am definitely enjoying my stay here in Santiago!!

Yesterday, half the people in the hostel were hungover, so we all had a nice relaxing morning/early afternoon, watching a few episodes of CSI Vegas and then CSI New York (I hate the New York one!!).  Eventually I got restless, so I took out my map, and took a little walking tour of the area.  There are so many statues and monuments throughout the city, it´s quite pretty.  The first thing I saw when I turned off the little street we´re on, was a big beautiful fountain display, with the water jets changing constantly, so it looks like they´re dancing.  Also impressive, is the number of parques (parks) or cerros (hills) in the city.  Cerro St. Lucia being one of them.  Right in the middle of the city, surrounded by busy streets and highways, is this beautiful oasis that should look entirely out of place, but is just so beautiful! A pair of curved staircases lead up off the street onto the first landing, where there are palm trees and a beautiful fountain.  Then there are more stairs, that lead up to these amazing viewpoints of the city below.  And in the background you can just see the Andes mountains, which unfortunately don´t really show in pictures because of the faint layer of smog over the city.  But it was still amazing.  Directly below are the busy streets full of cars, taxi´s and buses, but it was so peaceful up there!!

After that I headed deeper into the downtown area, and visited the "Palacio de la Moneda" (spanish for "Mint Palace"). It was once the residence of the President of the Republic of Chile, and housed the offices of three cabinet ministers.  It´s kind of pretty from the outside, and there is a changing of the guard every morning at 10am.

I´ve made friends with a couple girls from Luxembourg who arrived the same night as I did, and we´re going to check out some more of the town today, including the zoo.  Should be fun!

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