Rediscovering Santiago

Weird. I spent a whole month in Santiago and yet, as it turns out, barely knew it at all. Which I kind of knew, but realized the full extent of today. I had decided that for my parents first official full day, it would be good to do the city tour to give them an overview of the place; it turns out it was just as beneficial for me! I was so busy studying during my month here with my host family that I really didn't have the time to do much exploring; so today I got to find out just what a wonderful place it really is. Ironic to like it even more now that I'm not living here! Turns out it's a fabulous city with lots of quaint little neighborhoods and beautiful architecture.

We ended up in one area that we liked so much we spent FOUR hours there, just ambling around, having a liesurely lunch and going up to the top of San Cristobal, a mountain you can ride a funicular to the top of to get a bird's eye view of the whole city surrounded by the mountains. Well, SOME of us went up there. Some of us were afraid of heights. But I'm not allowed to mention names. Perhaps you can draw your own conclusions based on the glaring omission in the picture with the city in the background.

So it turns out that I really love Santiago. Who knew? I had only reserved our hotel here for 3 nights, thinking we would spend the rest of their time here travelling in other places. Tonight I just tried to extend it to 7 nights! I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to come back here in fall in love with Santiago all over again, this time for completely different reasons.

Oh, and I finally had moté! It's a drink made of peach juice, with a thick layer of wheat (yes, wheat) that sits in the bottom of the cup that you eat with a spoon and, just for good measure, two peach halves thrown in there, too. And all for the bargain price of 500 pesos!