We finally arrived to Santiago! I was extremely excited to finally get off the plane and start this two week adventure. Everything ran smoothly in immigration and customs, and all of our luggage was there waiting for us. Dr. Abad met us in the airport along with a few of the Chilean students who will be spending some time with us the next two weeks. Our first order of business was going to the ATM and withdrawing some pesos to use. This took a lot longer than I anticipated, considering there were 20 of us and one ATM, as well as other people who needed to use the ATM. Once everyone had some cash, we headed to the bus which would take us to our hotel in Vina del Mar. The bus ride was about an hour and a half and I'm almost positive all of us slept through it. We arrived at the hotel around noon and received our rooming assignments, then had a little time to freshen up before lunch at 1:30.
A few of us walked around the block to explore a bit, but then we met up with the others and headed out. We ate at a Mexican restaurant called Tiki Taco and I ordered "Pan Bonita" which was a thin tortilla in a pan, with cheese, chicken, and "bacon" (which was really more like ham). Normally, I'm not an adventurous eater so this was a bit different for me, but I really enjoyed it. After that we just walked around the beach a little and took lots of pictures. It was so beautiful out and I can only hope the pictures we all took captured that. In Chile, street performers are a little more common than the United States. There was a mime who was messing with some of my fellow travelers, as well as other people walking and driving down the streets. It was pretty funny, but he did get upstaged by someone else dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. We walked a little more and there were all these cool tables set up with various homemade items that would be perfect gifts for friends, so hopefully I can make another trip there to pick up some souvenirs. Then we got to the fairly small beach portion, where people of all ages were out enjoying the beautiful weather. After that we were shown the location of the shopping area, but we did not spend much time there. It was more so that we knew where it was and how to get back to the hotel from there. By this point we were all exhausted and decided to take a break and update our blogs. I still need to go out to the grocery store and grab a few things, but after that I'm anticipating an early night.
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| Our quaint hotel |
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| Beautiful view at the beach |
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