Happy "Día de los Niños"

So today was kids's day - a la father's day and mother's day. A celebration of the younger generation in Chile. Basically like a mini Christmas in August. I think this should become a tradition in the U.S. too. Anyone with me?

Yesterday I went to visit Isla Negra (Pablo Neruda's second house) with some friends. It had the most amazing view of the Pacific Ocean. The inside was designed to resemble a boat and was full of everything that Pablo accumulated in his lifetime. Talk about the ultimate pack-rat. The stuff he had was really cool, but there was a lot of it...It covered all of the walls and ranged from mosaic fireplaces and ships in bottles to immense collections of seashells and figureheads from ships.

After we visited the house, we spent some time at the beach and then picked up empanadas for the road. Once we sat on the benches with our empanadas to wait for our bus back to Santiago, 7 stray dogs showed up because they wanted our food. I felt like the dog whisperer - except I couldn't really control them... They all swarmed my bench and then followed me down the block to the trash can.

After we ditched the dogs and hopped on the bus, we watched the sun set over the Pacific - so beautiful.

Today, for kid's day, I received a gift from family when I woke up - chocolate... excellent! The we had our second family asado since Marco's kids were here for the weekend. We had the whole family together...completely crazy. Everyone talks at the same time, but for once, I understood about 75 % of what they were saying!

We also celebrated the newly discovered barbeque pit dubbed "Machu Picchu". My family has only lived in this house for 3 years and a couple weeks ago, the dogs jumped up on this platform that had been hidden by overgrown brush in the backyard. Voila! Perfect for the family asado!

Tomorrow starts week two of school. I will also solidify my travel plans for the semester. Here's to Machu Picchu, Patagonia, B.A., Mendoza, and the many more places I hope to reach while I'm down here!