Feriado (federal holiday) in Chile

My friend Delaney and I by the Pacific Ocean in Valparaiso, Chile

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May 25th was Argentina's bicentennial holiday- 200 years of independence, woo hoo! Since the 25th was a Tuesday, the president declared both Monday and Tuesday federal holidays so we all had long weekends in which we could travel. My friend Delaney and I decided to go to Chile- to the cities of Santiago, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. We left on Thursday evening and landed first in Santiago, and then planned to take a bus to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. One of Delaney's roommates from her University was studying in Valparaiso, so she met us at the airport in Santiago to check out the city with us. We dropped off our luggage at the hostel which was located in the neighborhood of Bellavista, known for its night life and dance clubs and then went to a nice Chilean restaurant for dinner. Chile is well known for its sea food, so since I'm not a big fan of sea food I stuck to steak all weekend. We were pretty tired from travelling, so we checked out the strip with tons of bars that Bellavista is known for and then went back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep.

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The next morning, we woke up early and took a gondola up the mountain to Subida a la Virgen (a giant statue of the Virgen Mary overlooking all of Santiago). We didn't have the best weather, so the view from the top was impeded a little bit by fog, but it was still pretty gorgeous (the city is in the background of the picture, but the fog didn't really allow any of our pictures to turn out well). For some reason there were tons of bikers at the top of the mountain (there must be a trail near by?) and lots and lots of tourists. We looked around for awhile and hiked further up to the top where there was a gorgeous church and lots of cool prayer sights. It was really serene and a good way to get a first look at the city.

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After seeing the cool view of the city, we rode the gondola back down and decided to grab some lunch. We had a guide book that suggested a cool city tour with lunch at this giant mercado, so we decided to check it out. We walked to the Mercado and walked into what can only be described as a giant fish market within a huge warehouse. We wandered through all types of weird fish and sea food until we made it to the middle of the warehouse where a bunch of different restaurants serve the freshest sea food in Santiago. After looking around forever to find a table (the place was packed!), we found a spot and Arlyn and Delaney tried out some local fish while I opted for meat again.

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We decided to take the self-guided city tour after lunch. We started at the Plaza de Armas, a square surrounded by churches, the national bank and a museum. There were artisans and shows everywhere, and we stopped to watch a cool spray painting artist and also a funny comedy show. It was interesting to see the type of humor used in the comedy show because it was very different than comedy that we are used to in the states. The jokes were very crude and sexual, and even though there were young children in the audience, the actors used vulgar language and made dirty jokes the whole time. At one point, a two year old boy by us was crying and an actor in the show turned and screamed at him "shut up!!!" and everyone just laughed. Very strange, but a good look into Chilean culture.

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We continued our city tour to the center of the town, including the old congress, the new congress, and the very beautiful capital building (see photo). Even though Santiago is a large city, it felt extremely small after being in Buenos Aires for so long. There is no way anyone could do a walking tour of Buenos Aires, its just too big! It made me realize how Argentina really has become my home, and how coming home to a "little cities" like Edina and Madison will probably be big reverse culture shock.

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After the city tour, we returned to our hostel to change and get ready for a night out on the town. Arlyn suprised us by telling us that one of her friends that was studying with her in Valparaiso was coming to Santiago with us to go out for the night. Her friend, Rodrigo, met us at our hostel and we went out to a bar nearby to have some drinks before we hit up a dance club for the night.

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Since this was a big holiday weekend, we knew a lot of people would be travelling, especially kids from our program. We also knew that many would be in Chile for the weekend but we made no plans to see them or talk to them at all during the trip. Much to our surprize, we walked into the dance club and ran into two guys, Zach and Daniel, from our program (both of which go to Madison with me)! We started talking about what a big coincidence it was that we were all in the same club in Santiago when all of the sudden we saw 4 more girls from our program! It was crazy that all of us ended up in the same club without planning it, but it was good to see them and we had a really fun night together!

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The next morning, we woke up early and took a tour of Pablo Neruda's house. Pablo Neruda is a famous writer from Chile who lived in houses both in Santiago and Valparaiso. His house was really cool, with secret passages and really artsy decorations- definitely the house of a writer! We had seen pretty much all of Santiago that we had wanted to see, so we hopped on a bus to Valparaiso, located about an hour and a half west of Santiago.

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We arrived in Valparaiso (Valpo, as the natives call it) in the evening and went straight to Arlyn's host home where her family was waiting to serve us the traditional Chilean dinner, called "once" (own-say). Once means 11 in spanish, and apparently the alcohol that Chileans used to drink with dinner had a name that was eleven letters long- hence the name "once". Their dinner consisted of tea or coffee, bread with ham, cheese and guacamole, and alfajores for desert (delicious cookies with cream filling- my dad brought some home after he came to visit me and I will definitely be bringing some back as well, they are amazing!). Arlyn's family was so friendly! They made fun of our "argentine" accents and taught us all about Chilean culture and the lingo (ask me about "ma o meno", "flaite", and "po"). We got to hang out with Arlyn's family more over the weekend and they were truly amazing. They definitely made our experience in Valparaiso so much fun!

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After "once" wth Arlyn's family, we washed up and got ready for a night on the town in Valpo. Valparaiso is a city build on hills, so it is almost impossible to walk from Arlyn's house down the hills to the city. They have these taxis called "colectivos" (which means bus in Argentina, very confusing!) that whip around the hills collecting people and bringing them to the bottom for a cheap fee. We hopped in a "colectivo" and made our way down the hill to the main part of town where we went to meet up with some students from Arlyn's program a a bar called Pajaritos (meaning "little birds").

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Much to our surprise, as we walked into the bar who did we run into but Zach and Daniel! Not only had we run into them in a dance club in Santiago, but now we ran into them at a bar in Valparaiso! Very weird! We all sat around and drank traditional Chilean drinks- wine (hot or cold) with fruit. Our table ordered hot red wine with strawberry and cold white wine with orange- delicious! We decided to go to a dance club called Nautica, and again we walked in the door and ran into the same four girls from my program who we had run into in Santiago! I could not believe we were running into everyone again in a different city than the night before! Such a coincidence, and so much fun!

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The next morning, Arlyn's family invited us back to their house for a family lunch. In Chile, lunch is the biggest meal of the day (not dinner) and "family" includes everyone- aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it! We walked in and they had set out a bunch of tables end to end with tons and tons of food! Arlyn's host mom bustled around serving course after course (never sitting down to eat herself, as is custom in Chile). We started with a delicious vegetable soup, then had chicken, more veggies, and alfajores for desert. The food just kept on coming, we were stuffed! Again, her family was absolutely amazing and wonderful to us, so hospitable! We were so lucky to have gotten to know a Chilean family and it really made us fall in love with Valparaiso.

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After a huge lunch, we decided to tour the city a little. Like I said, Valparaiso is a city built on hills, and since it is a port city it looks alot like La Boca in Argentina, where all the houses are painted with the left over paint from the boats, so there are beautiful colors! The city is gorgeous with the houses on hills and the sea port (see above). In addition to the "colectivos" that take you up and down the giant hills, there are also these cool lifts on either end of the city that go on tracks straight up and down. We walked around, took pictures, did some shopping and took these lifts up and down to see the city.

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We were wandering around the city seeing the sights when AGAIN we ran into a bunch of the girls from our program! We decided that we should just plan to have dinner together, since we would probably be running into each other anyways! We all went to this delicious pizza place and again ate way too much, but it was delicious! We called it an early night and went back to the hostel. When we arrived at the hostel, the owner of the hostel was in the main room watching a scary movie with a friend. The owner was really young and really nice, so Delaney and I hung out and watched the movie with him and he offered us vodka and fanta, a strange combination but it was surprizingly good!

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Arlyn had to work the next day, so Rodrigo was nice enough to take me and Delaney around town for the day. We did more sight seeing, took more pictures, and shopped around the city. He took us on a walk down the beach, when suddenly I realized that I had never seen the Pacific Ocean before! I got really excited and made Delaney take pictures of me touching the Pacific for the first time, kind of silly but very exciting for me! We went to a nice sea food restaurant right on the beach (where of course I resorted to eating beef...) and took a bus to Vina del Mar, a city right next to Valparaiso that had more beautiful beaches to us to walk down. We ended the day watching the sunset from the beach and the view was absolutely amazing (see picture).

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Once Arlyn got done with work we again joined her family for "once" and headed down the hill to a quiet bar where we drank hot wine and reflected on our amazing trip to Chile. Valparaiso is such a quiet and relaxed city, a nice contrast to Buenos Aires. We went to bed early so we could wake up and take a bus back to Santiago in time to make our late-morning flight, so needless to say Delaney and I took nice long naps on the flight!

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As I commented in my last post in my "misadventures", my trip to Chile took a bit of a rocky turn when my credit card reached its limit. Since my debit card had been stolen and I had no way of withdrawing money, I thought i would be alright using my credit card for what I could during the week, having Delaney spot me for the things I could not pay for with credit card. Unfortunately, I had charged my flight on my credit card, and since it is a student card I had hit my "monthly limit" and was not allowed to charge more, so I found myself without any form of money (and without a phone) while I was travelling in a foreign country. Luckily, Delaney is an amazing friend and agreed to spot me for the weekend with anything I needed and I was able to pay her back later when I got my debit card in the mail.

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It was so nice to have a long weekend away before finals started, but it was kind of sad that we missed the bicentennial weekend in Buenos Aires. On our flight home we were flying into the domestic airport, Jorge Newberry, which is located right in the city (the international airport is about 25 minutes outside of the city). Our pilot decided that it would be cool for us to see the city in celebration from above, so we flew over the biggest street in BA and over some of the areas where big parties were happening. It was so cool to see the city celebrating their independence in the streets, everyone was so happy! The only downside, however, was that since it was a federal holiday everything was shut down- including buses and most cabs. Luckily, the subway was free (so people wouldn't have to work the ticket booths) so I hopped on a subway home where Sara and I watched the bicentennial festivities from the tv in the living room.

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For the bicentennial, there were live shows and music commemorating the history of Argentina all over the city. The streets were packed with people celebrating, it really was one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Alot of important things have happened in Argentina within the last 50 years, so their history seems much more "alive" than history in the United States and you can really tell how proud Argentines are of their culture and what they have become. My host mom commented on the fact that although the streets were packed with people, no one was fighting or protesting, everyone was just happy and celebrating together!

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Watching the bicentennial celebrations, I found myself filled with pride for the country that I now consider partly my own. Seeing Chile helped me realize that I really did make the best choice for myself in my study abroad country, and that Argentina is a place that I feel really happy and comfortable. Sara was so happy to see me, and it felt great to be back "home". I settled myself back in and got ready to buckle down for all my finals that were coming up and for my last month in Argentina. I will update another blog soon about the end of all my classes and my last few trips on this study abroad experience. I can't believe its coming to an end, ahh! Love and miss you all, and I will see you in less than a week! Besos!