Anna's Adventures: Valpo!

On Monday of last week my friend lauren and I booked plane tickets to Santiago, Chile to visit a friend of hers in Vaparioso. On friday morning we took off and flew over the Andes mountians and landed at the Santiago Airport, where we met Luaren's friend Josolyn. She was so sweet to pick us up! She helped us get some money out of the ATM. The Exchange rate in Chile is 500 pesos to 1 US dollar, the bills are all in thousands which all the zeros where confusing but we got a hang of it, sorta :) We spent the afternoon seeing the sights of Santiago, including the Presidential house and other governmental buildings. We also went to this bueatiful park with fountians and palm trees, and hiked to the top and saw the whole city surrounding us! que linda!

It was an hour and half bus ride to Valparioso and we arrived a bit tired but ready to go! Valpo is a beautiful city on the hillside overlooking the Pacific ocean, it was dark by the time we got there so the whole hillside was all lit up! We took the city bus to Josolyn's house and got settled in. We decided to go out our first night in town and went to a place called El Huevo, or The Egg. It was crazy, it was this huge building with rooms blasting every kind of music! reggatone, salsa, electronic, top 40, hip hop, 2 live bands and many more. Needless to say we had a wonderful time dancing the night away!

The next day we took a bus to Vina Del Mar about 15 minutes away. but first we visited her university which was this Buetiful old building with open courtyards and palm trees. We went for lunch in Vina and I got a seafood soup, in Chile the seafood is half off EVERYDAY! Very very cheap! We walked around checked out the beach and went for icecream that afternoon. We moisied back to Valpo and made dinner of local fish and fresh veggies mmmm! Was feeling a bit ill so stayed in that night and got some good rest.

The Boat fixer!

Day two we stayed in Valparioso and Josolyn showed us around! We went down to the Harbor and took a tour on a little boat. Valpo is port of the Chilan Armada, so lots of gray boats. I would not want to mess with the Chilan Armada :) Another highlight of the boat tour was the boat fixer. its this huge U shaped boat, open on both ends. When a boat needs to be fixed, it lowers and ship goes in it and get fixed! so cool! The size of the ocean liners had me in shock! I thought the boats on lake Superior were big but boy was i wrong! That day for lunch we got the local special of steak bits on fried onions, over a bed of fries. mmm soo good! That afternoon we saw a movie at the theater but because there wass some sort of Chilan time change we missed it and had to see Resident Evil 4. lol im not really into zombie movies but it was pretty good. That night we had a good time drinking some litros at josolyn's house with a friend of hers!
On monday we took the elevators! which instead of being vertical they sit at any angle and go right up the side of the hill, we had lunch at cute little cafe on top called Cafe Color. Soup and salad mm mm mm! They forgot about our soup but there was nothing we could do because they dont tip in Chile! We spent the after wandering in and out of shops and and just lOOking at stuff the hillside was beautiful because all the houses are these bright colors! That night lauren and i made seafood dinner while Josolyn did homework.

The last day spent in Valparioso Josolyn had class so Lauren and i wandered around doing a bit of shopping and sight seeing. Stopped at an internet cafe. Mom and Dad are in Italy so I wrote them a little email, we headed back to Josolyns for dinner and then went out for Margaritas for our last night in town and to celeberate the Miners successfully getting out! Woohoo!