Viaje a Chile, parte uno

So once again I fail at the updating game. To pick up where I left off, Thursday the 2nd was a feriado (aka school holiday with no classes) and Friday I had one class like I always do. Other than that, I have no idea what I did with myself for those two days. I do remember that Lauren and I were both not feeling well and we basically bummed around and did nothing. However, knowing us, there were visits to Modena involved. Modena is the ice cream place on the corner by our house- the staff all know Lauren and I by name, where we come from, what our favorite ice cream flavors are, and probably know what every single set of pajamas/sweatpants that we own look like. Needless to say, we've gained a lot of weight recently and are going on a diet that does NOT involve ice cream every day. (We have the "Empanada-Face Diet House Rules" posted on our fridge with terrible fat pictures of ourselves to prevent us from snacking).

On Saturday, I spent most of the day doing my own laundry for the first time- Joe discovered that we've had a laundry room in the basement of our building this whole time, go figure- and packing for Chile. Had a heated debate with boy on the phone in the middle of the night and then lay down for about two hours before it was Sunday morning and time to go to the airport.

Flying to Chile by myself was a fiasco start to finish. I couldn't look at my reservation or print my ticket because I still did not have internet, so I just showed up at the airport and took a stab at what I thought was my airline. After waiting in line for about an hour, I learned that I had chosen the wrong airline, and went on to guess #2. Mind you, at this point I have less than an hour to find my airline, get through security, find my gate, and board the plane. Fortunately, guess #2 was correct, and my flight was delayed so I got there in plenty of time.

Once I landed in Chile, I had no idea if the girls were meeting me at the airport, a random bus station, at their hostel, or somewhere else, and our cell phones don't work in Chile so I had no way of finding out. After wandering around the airport for a while, I made friends with a sketchy bus driver who drove me into Santiago and then forgot to tell me which stop to get off at. Also, let me just state that every single building along this road in Santiago looks like a bus station, so that was no help at all. Once he realized he had forgotten to tell me which stop, he got one of his bus-driver buddies to drive me back for free, and fortunately this one was much more helpful. General first impression of Chileans: super nice and extremely hospitable but a little spacey.

I eventually arrived at the bus station, and wandered around for a while longer until I finally spotted the girls getting out of a taxi. We immediately bought bus tickets for Valparaiso and headed off. Our hostel in Valpo was generally nice- awesome staff, cute puppy to play with, but the bathrooms were pretty gross so we avoided them at all costs. The girls (Lis, Robin, Aly, who is Robin's friend from home, and Catherine) and I wandered around and found a place for lunch. For about $5 I got a huge bowl literally filled with more seafood than I could eat in a week- no pasta or anything. Chilean seafood is awesome, and it was a nice change from the beef/chicken/bread/cheese Argentine diet. After lunch we went on a boat tour around the harbor and got to see the entire city from the water. We saw a few sea lions, and I swear me and Robin saw a penguin, which our guide said is rare but not impossible.

Lis and I decided to call Amanda, and she invited us to come over to her house to visit and meet her family. After attempting to use the public transportation (same situation- the driver forgot to tell us the stop), we got there eventually, and I was FINALLY reunited with my roommate. Her family is amazing- she has two older sisters who are really cool, a seven-year old sister (Bella) who is a whirlwind but absolutely adorable, and the nicest mom and aunt ever. They insisted that we all stay for dinner, and so we crammed all 11 people around their dining room table and gossiped and talked for a few hours. Altogether a great experience. After dinner the girls and I went back to the hostel and met our other roommate, Rob, who was pretty cool and laid-back, and looked a little like Ryan Gosling.

On Monday, we decided to take advantage of being near the beach, and we went to Vina del Mar, a little beach town next to Valpo. When we got there in the morning, the fog hadn't lifted yet, so we went to see the museum nearby that has one of the Easter island statues, did a little shopping, and got lunch at a tiny empanada place near the beach. For the record, Chilean empanadas are good but NOT better than Argentine ones, contrary to popular belief. After that, we went back to the beach and hung out there for a while. We put our feet in the water, so we could say we've been in the Pacific Ocean, but it was too cold for swimming. We stopped at the bus station on the way back to buy our tickets for the next day, and went back to the hostel for a bit.

For dinner, we tried to go to a vegetarian restaurant that Catherine had picked out (she's a vegetarian, which pretty much dictated our restaurant choices while we were in Chile), but when we tried ordering, we found out that in addition to not serving meat, they were out of: bread, cheese, pasta, avacado, quiche, and about half of their drink selection. Since that eliminated about 99% of their menu, we left and went to another restaurant near the hostel. I unintentionally ordered raw fish ceviche, which was actually good even though I was expecting to hate it. I can check that off my list of life experiences, at any rate.

When we got back to the hostel, we learned that two of the other girls there, who were visiting from Australia, had been robbed. They were on a tour with thirty other people, in a busy part of the city in broad daylight, when two men ran up, threw them to the ground, and cut their bags off of them, while about 100 people looked on. Although we had already been being careful with our bags (the most common phrase in Valpo is "Watch your shit", if that gives you any idea) we were even more paranoid after that. After hearing that story, we walked into our room only to find that two new girls, who had arrived while we were gone that day, had stolen Lis's bed, so apparently it's a city-wide trend. Fortunately there was another bed for Lis to sleep in, but I was really tempted to throw things at the sleeping thief.

Tuesday, April 7, we had breakfast at the hostel and went to wander around the city. We went to the ex-carcel, which is an old prison that is now a sort of artists' commune. There's graffiti murals on all the walls and strange sculptures scattered around, but it was completely deserted when we got there so it was a little eerie. For Beanie: the main prison yard reminded me of Sona, if that gives you any idea. Just graffiti covered. We were a little freaked out when a man appeared out of nowhere, introduced himself as Peter, and proceeded to tell us that he had been imprisoned at that jail years ago, but dug a tunnel and escaped with sixteen other inmates at some point in the seventies. Not sure whether or not to believe him, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

At that point, Lis and I went to meet up with Amanda to have lunch. We grabbed some pizza and had a good time catching up, although it wasn't nearly enough time. When Amanda had to leave for class, she put us on a bus that took us to Pablo Neruda's house, where we met back up with Robin, Aly, and Catherine to take the tour. His house is really cool but didn't take as long to see as we thought it would, so we headed home a little earlier than planned and stopped at a calling center so Aly and I could call home. I called my dad to wish him happy birthday, and apparently gave him a heart attack. I guess when Rose gave him the phone, all she told him was "It's Katie, calling from Chile, and she said she needs to talk to you" so he thought I was in trouble or something. Hopefully the relief made up for the panic? I don't know.

The girls and I went to a little bar for dinner, which was really cool and had mosaic tiles all over the entire room. We tried a really gross drink which was basically pureed pear mixed with red wine (I don't recommend it) and had some quesadillas before going back to the hostel to pack our stuff. We took an overnight bus to the next city, which was fine except for the two little girls sitting behind me who whined the entire ride. Boooo. The next place we went, Pucon, deserves it's own entry, and I figure the long entries are a little tedious anyway. More later.