Finally Made it to Viña!

I'm blogging from campus again! Just staring at the Cordillera. It has been a beautiful day here. Starting to get a little bit cloudy, but it's still spring! I'm so excited to be wear shorts - even if I do have to wear legging to cover up what's left of my funky bug bites... and to not completely stick out as a gringa.
Chileans are still wearing hoodies and jackets even though it's 85 degrees. I don't know how they do it without overheating or sweating. We have yet to find a bad smelling Chilean. Truth.


San Joaquin

Sorry for lack of an update. Life has been a bit hectic recently.  Last night was a sleepless night. I just finished my second wave of big assignments throughout the semester, so all that I have left to do is take finals and write a couple of final papers! So weird...

This past weekend, "The Vandy Girls" - as we've now been coined - decided to take a day trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. Basically, we went to the beach. :D Sort of.
My host family has an apartment in Viña so they offered it up to me whenever I wanted to use it. Aren´t they amazing!
So after a long week, we took off on Friday afternoon, hopped on a bus and drove and hour and a half toward to the Pacific. The apartment is right on the beach and it was such a beautiful day that we couldn´t help but walk to the apartment from the bus station. It took us an hour, but it was completely worth it.
We watched the sunset and found a fancy little Italian restaurant for dinner. It was a nice little date and we were so happy to finally kick and relax for a day.

The Viña Sunset

The next morning, we woke up and made our way to Valparaíso, which is 5 minute drive. The two towns are right next to each other.
Valpo and Viña have two completely different feels. Viña is more of a resort-beach town and Valpo is a shipping port full of history, character, and colored houses.

A blue house!

 Valpo is also home to Pablo Neruda's 3rd house. We have now successfully visited all three!

Talking to the Pablo bench

The view from Pablo´s bedroom window

La Sebastiana - the house - was my favorite of the three. You could actually live in it, without the heaps of clutter and artefacts from his lifetime. And the view was beautiful.

From La Sebastiana, we wondered around the artsy-graffitied section of Valpo called "Museo Cielo Abierto" which literally means "Open Sky Museum". An outdoor wonderland of mosaics and paint and graffiti - it fits perfectly.

Little mosaic chairs

 Next, we headed to the famous "J Cruz" - Sergio's suggestion - to eat chorillana. Basically a heart attack on a plate. But still quite good. It´s a mixture of pork, eggs, and onions on top of a plate of fries. The Chilean Primanti's?

Here we go!

 The restaurant is famous for its home-y clutter and the table/wall graffiti from the patrons. We decided to add to it before we left.

We left our mark

 Then we found Abby's Chilean puppeteer friend - Marcela - and she walked us around the rest of her magical city.


Valpo is famous for all of it's hills and ascensores - inclines!!




She also took us to meet on of her friends, who was also a puppeteer. He puts on shows with his puppets which are made from old trash.



Mosaic plaza - Sam Smith, this one's for you!

Valpo and Viña truly were magical. We can't wait to go back and take cooking classes and spend more time with Marcela!