Global Crossroads Study Abroad Blog

It has been raining here for about three days now and when it rains in Chile it RAINS! The streets are literally filled with water. You can’t even see the road in front of my apartment right now. Just to walk down the sidewalk your shoes get soaked because there is just water everywhere. The wind is very strong as well, especially at night. Last night my windows and my door were shaking from the wind! In front of my apartment there are a bunch of bridges that go over a dried up sandy river, but today it had rained so much that there was a river there again! It is just amazing how much it has rained it only three days!

Today was Dia Patrimonial de Viña where a lot of the governmental buildings are open to the public. Sadly, many of the buildings were closed due to the rain and some that were closer to the ocean were closed due to the large waves, making them a little dangerous for the public. By the time I got home today I was soaked. I saw so many “dead” umbrellas (umbrellas that had been ripped apart by the wind..probably from last night) on the walk as well. Ryan, Mari and Ken wandered with me, which made standing in the rain for hours much more fun! It was a good day despite the rain! We went to the Palacio Presidencial which is the President’s summer home. We got there a little too early so we had to take refuge under the awning of a church. The president is actually going to be staying at his home tomorrow. We had to stand in a big line and the sexes had to seperate because they searched us with metal detectors and patted us down before we could enter. The house was huge and was incredibly beautiful! It overlooked the ocean and the grounds were beautiful. Too bad we only got to see the first floor!

We also went to El Museo Fonk, which has a huge collection of artifacts from Easter Island as well as artifacts of other indigenous peopels of Chile, like the Mapuche.  It was really interesting and there was an entire floor dedicated to indigenous artifacts. Upstairs was a huge insect collection (which I couldn’t really look at due to the big spider collection!) There was also a big taxidermy collection of various species that live in Chile. The taxidermy creatures were pretty poorly done, but I got the point ;)
On my walk home I managed to find an amazing empanada restaurant, they had 49 different kinds of empanadas and sopapillas. I got an empanda vegetariana, frita (fried) which had tomatoes, black olives, artichokes, mushrooms, corn, and queso fresco. It was delicious! I hope I can find it again!

I toured La Sebastiana yesterday. It was sooo beautiful! FYI La Sebastiana is one of the many houses of Pablo Neruda. It is in Valaparaiso or Valpo (for short) as I hear many people around here call it. The house is now a museum and it over looks the ocean and is on a hill, as is most of Valpo. When walking back down to the ocean you are at a 45 degree incline (maybe more!) The house had 5 floors and was filled with things Neruda had collected from his travels. He was a very eccentric man. Sadly, I couldn’t take any pictures of the inside of the house, but if you are curious I am sure you can just google: La Sebastiana to find some pictures of the interior.

While going on the tour I met two new people! Kenya and Mari, both are from Tokyo and they are studying spanish for the next year here in Chile. They both work at the same international company (which sent them here to learn). We (Ryan, Ken, Mari and I) all went out last night to a couple of bars (one was El Bar de Moe-as in Moe from the Simpsons!) I tried my first Pisco Sour de Chile! It was pretty good, but very very strong! I don’t drink, so it was all I needed for the rest of the night. When you go to the bars if there are more than one you walk around and check the prices and everyone tries to convince you to eat/drink at their bar. It is pretty different. The bar food (comida para picar) was pretty unique as well. We got this one that had pickled hearts of palm with ham and a pile of olives in the center. There was also the option to get a giant pile of meat that was on a little grill and another one we saw was a giant pile of french fries topped with meat (Chileans love their meat!) and olives and some other things. 

Tomorrow (hopefully the weather permits) all of the government buildings are open to the public, so we are going to try to see a couple of the castles on top of the hill! Then on Monday there is going to be an evacuation practice, which should be interesting. I am so close to the ocean that if there was a large earthquake that caused a tsunami I would be right in its path (I would have aproximately 16-18 minutes before the first wave hit), so the government wants to make sure everyone knows what to do in case that happens (bascially I just run towards the hills/follow everyone else). They don’t want a repeat of the earthquake of 2010, they want everyone to know what to do. So I will let you all know how that goes on Monday! Hopefully smoothly!

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