Thursday morning we woke up and ate the nice included breakfast at the hostel, fresh fruit, tea, and bread. We then walked to the Western Union in the commercial center to pick up the money Hanna's parents wired us. We were super paranoid, but we decided we had to keep doing what we would have been doing had we not been robbed. So we walked up and saw the city's above-ground cemetery (similar to the one here in BA, but smaller). Next to that is an old prison that has been transformed into a park/cultural center of sorts. It was very interesting, especially all the paintings and graffiti the prisoners had done on the walls and in the cells. Then we went to the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's house, which was been preserved and turned into a museum about his life and poems. It was a very cool, 4 story house filled with weird objects, little nautical windows, and a beautiful view of the harbor. After that we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood lunch, because Valpo is obviously known for its fish, being on the ocean. We walked into what looked to be kind of a tourist trap, but it turned out to be wonderful, if expensive. We sat outside on this fancy balcony up high overlooking the water. First we had this blueberry pisco sour drink that the waiter recommended. There was also bread with avocado butter. Then we got an appetizer of ceviche, which apparently is famous in Chile. It was salmon, shrimp, and two other kinds of white fish semi-raw/smoked and marinated in a lemon, cilantro, pepper, butter sauce. Finally we got red tuna steak with vegetables and ravioli blackened with squid ink, filled with salmon, and covered in a calamari sauce as our entrees. Fanciest meal I've ever had. We had wanted to go to Vina Mar, a beach town right next to Valpo, but we ended up running out of time. That afternoon we took the bus back to Santiago, went back to our original hostel, and then met up with our friend Kara and her Chilean boyfriend for dinner. We went to a parilla place, but we were so stuffed from lunch we just got dessert. Then we just went back and went to bed. They only had space in the dorm rooms, and it was just us and a 40 yr. old man, which was kind of weird, but it was much warmer than our private room before because it had all internal walls, so I could actually wear my pajamas haha.
Friday morning we went back to our fruit/yogurt place for breakfast, then took the subway to La Moneda (the equivalent of the White House or Casa Rosada). They weren't giving tours till later, however, so we just saw it from the outside. After that we went to a Chilean history museum, but soon got bored with the effort of exhibits in Spanish and the fact that colonial life there was basically the same as colonial life in the U.S. For lunch we found this bizarre, whimsical little cafe with its menu in the form of a letter in an envelope. We sat upstairs in this loft, and we had to climb a ladder up. There were mirrors all over the ceiling, and you could sit among pillows up on this little platform or in armchairs. There was this book in which you could draw, write philosophical things, etc. Mostly it was filled with lovers' declarations...very Latin American. We had delicious pizza and salad, and I tried this fancy black mango loose tea.
We managed to make it out of Chile that night, even though we had to lie on the health forms about some of our gripe (swine flue) symptoms and pass by a heat sensor haha. Overall, it was a really great trip, and really interesting to compare Santiago and Buenos Aires. Chileans and Argentines DO NOT get along, but the two places were relatively pretty similar to me. Some notable differences: in Argentina, you hoard monedas like they're gold. In Chile, you get millions of them, they're super heavy, and they're worth hundreds of pesos each. In Chile they say "hallo" instead of "hola," and "yah" instead of "si." It is also much harder to understand them, but that is probably just because we're used to the Argentine accent now. People in Chile didn't automatically assume we were from the U.S. We got Brazil a couple of times. Although we did stand out more, because in general the people are darker skinned/more indigenous looking. We had really good waiters/customer service in restaurants in Chile that we don't get in Argentina. However, outside of restaurants, people were very pushy, in your face, and always explicitly asking for a tip after helping you. Like for taking a picture, or finding you a taxi. It was much colder in Chile. The subway in Santiago was much cleaner/newer/faster/better laid out than the one in BA. Although it was weird that there were different fares for different hours of the day. The dress is more casual in Santiago, and the women are heavier. We felt normal/thin again because we weren't constantly seeing anorexic girls in boots. Santiago had a lot of newer, modern infrastructure that BA doesn't have. It had a suburban feel at times, and we saw a lot of bigger cars/trucks, probably because of the close mountainous terrain. The highways had big signs and billboards, which seemed more American. They also had Applebee's and KFC. In our opinion, the food in Chile was worse, and there is a heavy influence on greasy, fast-food type options in general. BA has many more one-way streets. Argentina has better soccer. I don't know, it's unfair to compare two places after spending such unequal amounts of time in them, but overall I'm happy with my choice of BA. So there's my trip in (much more than) a nutshell.
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