Weekend in Santiago

On Friday and Saturday, Grove City and another exchange program tripped it to Santiago to experience the big-city capital of Chile.  It really is a gorgeous city with deep European roots and backdropped by the Andes.  The snow-capped peaks are almost invisible if you’re too wrapped up in the constant motion of the city immediately surrounding you, but when you finally do look up long enough to make out their hazy blue silhouette it’s absolutely breathtaking.

We traveled around via contracted tour bus all day and students from the UAI Santiago campus made excellent guides and provided some historical as well as cultural context.  Our first stop was the Plaza de Armas, which is encircled by monuments, government buildings, a museum, and a cathedral.  We went through the museum and the cathedral, which were both beautiful.  

For lunch we hit the Mercado Central, which is an open-air fish market with a restaurant in the center.  It was a fascinating and somewhat rank atmosphere, and there were definitely some things still moving... but it was a cool place to experience.  I ordered chicken.  

After lunch we went to the Casa Moneda, which used to be the President's house but now it houses the headquarters for a lot of other government functions.  I honestly don't know the specifics, I wasn't paying that much attention...  

One of the UAI students who helped guide us is a volunteer firefighter, so for dinner we had a cookout at the fire department.  They let us get in the trucks, try on their coats and helmets, and slide down the pole - you'd think that we were a bunch of first graders on a field trip, but it was so much fun!  The department was founded by German immigrants, so everything was in German and there was a lot of Germanic design throughout the building.  One of the volunteers also said that all of their formal commands (usually only used when high-up officers are visiting) are in German.  The food was incredible; choripan (sausage in a bakery-bread bun) and cubes of pork and steak were passed around as soon as it left the grill.

We stayed in a hostel overnight and started the next day bright and early.  Our first stop was at Los Dominicos, an artisan community with plenty of typical shops for souvenir-ing and, for some reason, a lot of pet stores and poultry.  

We wandered around an area called Bella Vista and found a small local place for lunch, then took a funicular up to a low mountain peak that's used as a Catholic religious center.  At the top is an enormous statue of the virgin Mary, and there are several stops along the way up where you can find memorial resting places, cathedrals, shrines, etc.  All with a spectacular view of the city... 

 

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city, getting ice cream, and finally heading back to the bus station to head back to Viña.