We arrived at our hotel - the Plaza El Bosque Ebro and after a slight mixup (we had a quad room suite and they only gave us keys to one half), we realized how much more room we had to spread out! It was a good thing, because the ski equipment still had to dry out.
One thing I've noticed is that the Chilean hotel rooms are not generous on available power plugs. Between the boot dryers, the laptops, the iPads, the iPhones, the portable radios (normally not necessary anymore in the day of cell phones but we have no cell service here to keep in contact on the slopes), we use a lot of plugs and were constantly fighting for the ones. They didn't even have a plug near the desk!
Laundry turned out to be a bit more of an issue than we hoped. They were all closed on Sunday, which left us only Monday (we leave for Valparaiso on Tuesday morning). Through broken Spanish, we determined they wanted until Tuesday morning to do five loads (they were pretty small loads, as they would have easily been three). Meanwhile all of her machines stood empty. We stood our ground and got her to ag
Sightseeing in Santiago was fun. Lots of stuff closed on Sundays of course, but everyone goes for a walk, so the streets were crowded. We saw the Palacio de la Moneda - the Presidential offices (originally the mint). I thought it was similar to the White House, but the President apparently doesn't live there.
The Plaza de Armas was a hopping place with a family entertaining and a "silver" and "bronze" man, who was very successful at grabbing the tourists to get some $$
The Plaza was hosting some "small sided soccer", 4v4 with a very wide range of ages on a single team so it wasn't obviously divided by age group. The soccer was very popular and large crowds were around the matches. It was even being televised.
Walking around Santiago was nice because they had some pedestrian only streets. Apart from a couple of flashing lights which we had no idea what they were signaling, the normal cross walks got the girls attention. Not only did they tell you how much time you had left, the man on it started to "walk" faster the closer you got to zero. It was kind of funny to watch it.
We stopped at a cafe for a coffee (a cortado - espresso and milk). The cafe was huge with at least three large espresso machines that looked like they were capable of making four pulls at a time. At the cafe, you have to pay at a front cashier first and you get a ticket for your coffee. You then go to another waitress (all wearing very short skirts) that would then get you your coffee (and an aqua con gas - mineral water with bubbles). The girls proclaimed the whipped cream in the cocoa the best they've ever had. At its peak, I'd guess they could probably serve around fifty people coffee, and there was more than one of these on every street.
Dinner at the Tiramisu restaurant. An amazing time that took almost two hours in total. Dinner is not rushed around here and we savored some amazing pizza (I had tuna since there is no such thing as gluten free pizza around here - I've seen one option in a supermarket that was labeled "sin gluten") and Sara enjoyed the tiramisu.
On Monday, we started our day with breakfast at the 17th floor of our hotel with great views of the mountains in the distance and just how sprawling the city is
We went to the market area, saw a twist on the "everything for a dollar store"
Had lunch in the Chilean market - I had ceviche (raw fish) but the girls went for something a little more standard but very Chilean. Lots of vendors to choose from, and mostly the same food so it wasn't clear how to best pick. We ended up finding one that had some locals eating there and looked relatively comfortable and a reasonable location (not way in the corner, not in the center). In the center of the market are some really fancy places set up - but we had been told that these were mostly tourist traps and you would not get very authentic food for a good price. Anyway, the lunch was delicious.
We headed over to Cerro San Cristobal and took the funicular to the top. There is a very large statue of the Virgin Mary at the top and this was apparently where the Pope said mass when he visited Chile.
After that, we headed down to the Bellavista area and found a nice pub/restaurant where we enjoyed some Pisco Sours and sat and enjoyed the afternoon sun with a little snack
We did visit a museum - one that claimed to have an Easter Island room. The curator didn't seem very interested in letting us in. To get her attention to unlock the door must have taken about three minutes. We paid the small fee and went in to beautiful courtyard and some exhibits on the history of Chile, but no Easter Island room to be found.
Its off to Valparaiso tomorrow. We had a wonderful dinner at a sushi restaurant (Temple) near our hotel. Girls loved this one table that was set off in a pond and looked like a bed. Unfortunately, it was reserved for a couple so we sat in more regular setting. The food and the presentation were wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment