la gringa y el chino

Friday:
-Went to all you can eat sushi with some Chilean friends from el Oasis. I was weak and gave up early, but had fun watching everyone else compete for sushi-stuffing victory. Not surprisingly, most of the Chileans opted out for using wasabi (they don't use many spices/flavors down here). It made me sad for their lonely, spiceless sushi.

-Met up at Starbucks with another Chilean friend named Seba. He had never been before and wanted me to explain how the whole Starbucks system works (understandably so...Starbucks still intimidates me...too many decisions to make!) Anyways, we had a great, smooth-flowing conversation! I barely had to ask him to repeat himself and I felt comfortable expressing myself.  Learned all about Ecotourism (Seba's awwwesome major!) along with his SCUBA diving and hiking adventures. Fun fun fun.

-Friday night went to the birthday party of my friend's host brother's friend. I'd only met the birthday girl once before, but for some reason, she loves gringas and wanted all of us to come hang out. Soo she put us on the list (oh yes, VIP baby) and we go to the restaurant that she rented out. But then after about 20 minutes of being there, the music stops and the bar shuts down and the restaurant decides that it is a sophisticated place and doesn't want to turn into a dance club (what did you expect when you rented out a restaurant to 80 kids?!). Anyways, the party was then moved to some random kid's house and this adorable girl made it a priority that the gringas were transported safely to the party locale. Too cute. Then we danced and talked the night away...fabulous fun.

Saturday:

So this weekend my dear high school friend Mr. Andrew Lyu came to visit me. Andrew is kind of ridiculous and has somehow mastered the Skymiles system and gets ridiculously cheap flights and such that make it feasible for him to decide last spring that he was going to take a little weekend trip to Santiago for 62 hours. I think he's a little crazy, considering the amount of daylight he spent down here was almost as much as the amount of travel time he spent to get down here; however, I'm still grateful that he decided to spend his fall break with me :) But we kind of looked ridiculous travelling around Santiago together - between my blondeness/americanness and his asianness we got some interesting stares and comments. 

Anyways, I was feeling a lot of pressure to show Andrew around the top Santiago sights in just 3 days; however, I think we fit it all in pretty well:

-went to Estadio Nacional futbol stadium for a baby futbol tournament with El Oasis. My team won and I scored a few goals! hooray.

-visited La Moneda to say hi to la Presidenta

-went to La Piojera (a hole in the wall chilean bar) so Andrew could taste test a terremoto and a glass of chicha

-attempted to go to dinner at a seafood restaurant called Aqui Esta Coco.  however, when we got to the address, we were greeted with an empty lot and the corner of a scarred concrete wall. after talking with a passerby, we learned that the restaurant burned down a month ago. bummer. 

-fortunately, there was another seafood restaurant across the street. I ate Sea Bass. Only after Andrew pointed out to me that it was probably CHILEAN sea bass. Wow I should have made that connection months ago.

Sunday:

-ate breakfast at probably the only brunch place in Santiago - Cafe Melba. The menu was very tempting but my blueberry pancakes were burnt and disappointing. Darn.

-went to el Museo de Bellas Artes. They were having a cool exhibition with live artists working on projects in the main lobby --really cool to see their work in action

-visited Pablo Neruda's house, La Chascona. Learned some things this time that tour guide I had before failed to mention. One key factoid that made my day: the symbol for la Chascona is a sunflower (my favorite!) because the sunflower looks like it has messy hair just like Matilde had (and just like I have!) Fun fun fun.

-made Andrew try empanadas + mote con huesillos

-climbed Cerro Santa Lucia - a pretty hill with a castle and a lookout tower on top. While we were on the top taking the usual tourist pictures, we met a lovely man from Scotland who is a ski instructor in Park City, Utah and has spent his vacation time just travelling around South America. I fell in love with him immediately, until he tragically mentioned his Peruvian girlfriend. Sigh...

-rode the gondola to the top of Cerro San Cristobal to get a birds-eye view of the city. Unfortunately the smog made the view not-so-pretty...bummer.

-ate dinner at a delicious Argentine steakhouse. I opted out for the red meat and ate tuna instead. Andrew feasted like a South American - with his pisco sour, chorizo and humongous steak. He was a happy camper.

Monday

-went to class then resumed my tour guiding by going to Viña Santa Carolina - a winery that is just 4 blocks away from a Santiago metro stop! Enjoyed a lovely wine tasting, saw some awesome cellars and enjoyed our spunky, picture-crazy tour guide. 

-Monday night my host mom and her son (who is visiting from out of town) went to the casino around 7pm. I woke up to them coming home at 3:30AM!! And now two days later they're out gambling again! They're too funny.

This weekend I'm going to Pucon - way way south from here. Be back Monday!