santiago, valparaiso, globalization

unfortunately, we weren´t able to do a second group blog today, so i will update alone!

after our fateful day walking up san cristobal (the mary statue at the top of the hill), the next morning we woke up super early to take a bus over to valparaiso, described as ¨the san francisco of chile¨. the buildings in the city are made of coloured sheet metal, and dot the hills overlooking the ocean. gorgeous! unfortunately, we had overcast weather and a very chilly wind, which was not conducive to picture taking.

after catching the bus from pajaritos station, we made it there in under 2 hours. instead of being ripped off by the local tour, we made our own. we stopped off first at pablo neruda´s valparaiso house (i was never really into his poems, but in the time that he lived, he lived a very eclectic, bohemian life. were/are all diplomats like this?) afterwards, we walked down the hill, and took one of the city´s infamous elevators downhill. they were very old and rickety, very unique! they are very much like a funicular.

we then had lunch and afterwards went back to santiago for the evening.

the next day was very rainy.... i unfortunately fell very ill from the night before so missed the winery tour to concha y toro in the morning and opted instead to sleep and read. in the afternoon, we didn´t do much but sit in a cafe, and we hit up one of the museums. and we made dinner.

the days have actually been blurring together here because of the rain. last night we went to go out for drinks at a bar called ¨backstage pass¨ (slightly cheesy). they had the funniest pizza names - note that the pizzas were delicious - do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do, do sharp, and three other black keys. they also had a lot of regional drinks - i had one that was made of pisco, lemon juice, honey, and green chilli, which kind of tasted like a marinade for chicken, but was quite good. kavitha and cheryl, who have become inseparable as of late ;) both got pisco sours, and bossmat and arti had a mojito and an orange mojito each. we were amazed to find that we actually stayed out past 12:30AM, a new record!!

today, we went to unimarc and picked up a bunch of groceries for easter island. afterwards, arti left :( - we will miss our favourite giraffe! the girls went shopping, while i went to the concha y toro winery with helena (a girl from our hostel).

while waiting to catch the bus to the winery from one of the bus stops, i looked around me and got a little frightened and had a bit of an a-ha moment about globalization (i wish i had taken a picture of it). except for the backdrop of the andes, everything around me looked like america. pizza hut, mcdonalds, kentucky fried chicken, shell, esso. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! it was almost as if someone had transplanted this very american scene and then placed a green screen behind it that could easily be replaced by the mountains or a blue cloudless sky. and we talk about having ¨identities¨ today. eeeeeeeeeek.

tomorrow morning we take off to easter island - internet is apparently very expensive, so if we do not blog for awhile, it is not because we are in trouble!! we will do our best to update.