Salsa?

It's been a wonderful weekend here in Santiago! As Abby mentioned, the three Vanderbilt girls went to see Shrek Para Siempre on Friday night. It was thoroughly entertaining, and we chose to see it en español, so we were still being immersed. It was really fun to do something so normal, with two people I just love being around. I think we were laughing harder than anyone else in the theater because we were so excited to actually understand what was being said. Other highlights of the evening included the free puzzles we got with our tickets, and the conversation we had in line with a Chilean boy and his mother.

After a solid night's sleep, Abby and I met up around noon on Saturday to do some exploring/ wandering in an effort to get to know this great city. We walked from the metro stop down one of our favorite streets, stopping to browse a few tables of used books, and stumbling upon these guys hanging out the windows of their house:

From there, we wound our way to el Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum), and spent about an hour looking at paintings and sculptures and feeling oh-so-cultured. A student ticket to the museum only cost 300 pesos, or about 60 cents in the U.S!

Then we headed over to Bella Vista, a really cool area of the city that's full of shops and restaurants, and home to one of Pablo Neruda's famous houses, La Chascona. We got some frozen yogurt that we had been craving (what are we going to do without Sweet Cece's and Yogurt Oasis??), and bought some deeeelicious sandwiches for lunch in the cafe at La Chascona (We had been with CIEE to tour the house on Friday, and we saw someone else eating the sandwiches and had to go back. So good.). Another really awesome part of Bella Vista is the graffiti that covers most of the walls! It's not your average, destructive American graffiti-- it's an art form and a part of the culture here. (Abby has some great pictures with her fancy camera that she can add later...)

After our full day of walking, we each returned home to rest up before our night adventures... We went salsa dancing! Along with about 6 other girls from CIEE, we went to a "salsoteca" to first take a lesson, and then danced the night away... sort of. The salsa is a lot harder than it looks! Actually, I think it looks really hard, so maybe it just is as hard as it looks. Regardless, it was still so much fun and a great way for some gringas to experience some Latin American culture.

Ok and then today (sorry this is getting long!), I slept in again, until almost 11 (to which my host mom said, "What are you doing up so early?"), had breakfast with the fam, and then went to mass (once again, en español) with my host mom and host sister. Then the three of us walked from the church to a mall nearby that felt so American! They had a Dunkin' Donuts, and a Nike store... it was so nice. Then we came home and had a huge lunch, and have just been resting/ trying to keep warm since then.

I hope you've all had wonderful weekends in the USA!