Gisela & Carlos House Vina del Mar

... kao ona nasa volim te s jagodama :D u trgovini me totalno sokiralo kad sam vidjela likove kraj blagajne koji ti pakiraju stvari (tipa ona fora sto se vidi u americkim filmovima) - uzmu po dvije vrecice kako bi u njih stavili dvije litre mlijeka. na kraju su kolica bila krcata vrecicama, a meni je srce puklo kad sam to vidjela. cileanci, ocito, imaju jako izrazenu svijest za ocuvanje okolisa. prestrasno nesto!

grad (vina del mar ...

Hola Todos!

Yesterday, (which was Wed. June 17), I went to my first class, came back to mi casa para almuerzo (lunch), and then returned in the afternoon for my second class. After classes, all of the students from the exchange program (around 30 from the U.S.) took a walking tour through the some of the hills of Valparaiso known as Los Cerros de Concepcion, and we saw a little bit of Los Cerros de Alegre. We rode an ...

The overnight bus was an interesting experience that exceeded my expectations....except for the toilet, which was gross. For a whopping 10 additional ARG pesos (less than $3) we upgraded ourselves to the higher "cama" class. There were big, comfy, leather reclining seats, a movie playing, and a bus attendant who handed out ham & cheese sammies and 7UP.

The bus pulled up at the scheduled time and 20 min later we were all loaded up and on our way at ...

From Mendoza we once more took the scenic, trans-Andean bus in order to head to Valparaíso. Once again, my decision to splash out on good-quality earphones was rewarded in spades as I was able to block out the screams of some dizzy actress or other in whatever mediocre, maudlin garbage film it was that they insisted on blaring throughout the bus even though it was in English. The two hour border crossing was also a bit of a pain, as the Chilean ...

... t any good. Anyway, though distracted, I still found the concert enjoyable - it was a nice way to end our time on the coast. Vina is a nice-looking town with tons of shopping, but not very authentic - I prefer Valpo, warts and all. BH&M hopped in a taxi to go back to Valpo, and I walked to the guest house. The place isn't the nicest, but that could be improved if they hired a hottie receptionist! Maybe Liszett could submit a resume?

... cabin faced the city so we could watch the containers being moved around the port. On the hillside above that, the older part of the city has a series of funiculars that take people to the upper levels. There was one that we could see right across from us. The weather that day was very sunny and warm. We had the balcony door open and the breeze was very nice. I tried to find an Internet connection to send ...

I have another hour and half to kill before our bus arrives to take us from Viña to Santiago so luckily I am able to blog about the past few days with ease.... The decision to move from Ricardo´s humble abode to a hostel in Viña was one of the easiest and satisfying decisions I´ve made recently! The first one we ended up checking out also ended up being the one settled on as it was a very hot day on Saturday and we were in no mood to ¨hostel shop¨after walking more ...

... the border because the border workers were going on strike and may not let us through. It turns out that we were allowed to go through (after our driver passed around a cup saying, "Please give a tip to the border workers, they're working very hard, we'll get through faster) and without much delay. It also turns out that we were the last bus allowed through before they shut the border down. I don't know if it's shut down for hours or days or ...

... of an upper class resort. I have to mention Chile´s stray dogs, there are lots of them on every street you go to, just milling around. As we were walking through Vina, we saw a big black dog bark at one guy and he just jumped about 1 metre in the air, this same dog followed us for about 2 blocks even waiting outside shops for us when we tried to shake him off our tail! thank god I had that rabies shot! That evening, I had another Chilean spaciality ...

... Patsy from Ab Fab. You really do get to meet some characters.... Popped over to Vina Del Mar, this afternoon, which is only a 10 minute train ride away... It´s the more beach/touristy bit of coastline, in this area... The whole place took on a really dreamlike atmosphere, as the clouds had rolled in, diffusing the sunlight... It looked really beautiful... I have just finished reading Cormac McCarthy ...