The Adventure of a Sensible Quixotic Girl in Chile: Updates (5)

Recently I took a trip to Santiago for part of the weekend with my friend, Eric! We packed up some stuff on Thursday afternoon, booked some beds in a hostel and went to the bus station. We bought our tickets there, only like $7(!!!) and hopped on the bus! We got to Santiago and following my mom's lovely directions got on the Metro and to our hostel without any problems! ^_^ The funny thing was when we got to our room we had four beds just for us! We went out to eat and back to the room to chill and plan activities for the next day! On Friday we planned to talk to the person at the hostel to see what we should do but ended up just walking around! We were looking for a market but ended up just walking around the Bellavista barrio (neighborhood). We found a zoo but it started raining as we were walking up the hill to it. We hid under a tent for a restaurant while it downpoured for a couple minutes. (It was really strange that it was raining... I didn't know it was even on the forecast, even the Chileans thought it was strange that it was raining!) We then ventured out in the sprinkling rain and decided to head down the little hill we were on and find food.

Eventually we came to a cute little cluster of shops and restaurants and ate at one called the Jukebox. It was good but not enough food for us or Eric at least. We wandered back toward our hostel until we found the market we had been looking for earlier. We looked around but didn't buy anything. We started walking down a large road (Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins) looking for things to do. We passed lots of colleges and government buildings until we were walking around a plaza and a couple of people gave us some of their really bad poetry and started asking us where we were from and if we would give money to help support the arts or something? We talked to them for a little and then they pointing out El Cerro de Santo Lucia (Saint Lucia Hill) that my mom had also recommended we visit. It was so sweet! The trail snaked around the hill with little benches and patios at many levels getting to the top. Each of these patios had statues or pools or fountains. See some of the pictures below! ^_^

We spent a lot of the afternoon walking around there until we decided to keep meandering down O'Higgins Ave until I bought Chirimoya Alegre ice cream (literally translated happy chirimoya but really chirimoya is a fruit and when it's chirimoya alegre its just chirimoya with orange too! ^_^) and we eventually got pizza for dinner! After that a couple of Eric's friends called asking about where we were staying as they were in Santiago for the night as well. We didn't make plans but ran into them later on a crosswalk! What are the chances! ^_^ We then made plans with them to go out but they wanted to take a nap (it was already like 10:30pm) and I needed to change into pants instead of a dress. We went back to our hostel and waited for the friends to call. Eventually they called but I was just ready for bed by then. It was probably like midnight by this time! So I went to sleep instead.

The next morning we packed up everything and went to the bus station. We got on the bus and headed back to Viña! It was such a short trip we both felt like we didn't get to see anything, I think you would need like a week to see a small portion of the city! Regardless it was a blast!

The only bad thing which turned out okay was once we got off the bus and were walking home I realized my phone had fell out on the seat in the bus because of the shorts I was wearing! I didn't know what to do but when I got home and told my parents they said that someone had called and left my phone with the people at the bus station! Thank you so much for the good people in this world! I got my phone back that day and everything is wonderful! Thanks again good stranger!

<3Annie