Day of Rest

Today is Sunday. Everything is closed. Santiago is pretty much shut down. We wanted to walk up Santa Lucia for a view of the Andes, but it was closed. I needed an outlet converter, but the electronic store was closed. I was hungry, but the restaurants were closed. Ok, there were a few things open, and we did end up having a good day. We walked through Plaza de Armas before we moved hostels to Hostal Forestal, right by Parque Forestal and the metro stop Baquedano. For lunch, we headed to Bellavista, a really cute barrio with a plaza of restaurants and cafes. Jeff´s friend recommended a restaurant called Galindo. We split a cazuela, which is this deeeeelicious soup with beef, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rice. YUM. This is also where we learned not to order water to drink because they bring you a fancy pants glass bottle of water that costs like 4 bucks. No gracias.


Next stop was Cerro San Cristobal where we can walk off that cazuela. We winded around this hill with gorgeous views of the city and the Andes in the background. What an awesome location for a metropolis. Jeff and I had a huge argument on the way up. He made the statement, ¨You need to visit a specific country in order for your argument about that country to be valid.¨ My LSAT-trained mind made me question his statement so I restated the statement to him over and over again. So you think you need to go to a country in order for your argument about it to be true? Reading about it or learnin about it in school couldn´t be enough in some instances? We went back and forth until we finally agreed that your argument can be valid even if you havent been to that country but going there may supplement your beliefs/knowledge about that place. Sticky debate. We also went into why we travel and whether or not people should or need to travel. Actually when we got to the top of the hill and saw the amazing view, we met Patricia Kelly, a former business professor at UW. She somehow brought up the fact that if you go to certain places in Africa and ask them about whats going on, they won´t tell you the truth about what is actually going on. So back to our argument...you could even go to a country and come back and speak about what you learned there but it could still be completey invalid beause the people there didn´t divulge the true realities of the country.



Tonight we ate at Doggi´s. Basically their fast food joint. We split a hot dog completo, a hot dog with tomatoes and guacamole. Oh, and in Chile, they call avocados palta, not aguacate. The hot dog was terrible. So we went to a panaderia for some dulces. Since we got back to the hostel, we´ve been planning out more of our trip. Also met some guys from Minneapolis. Buenas noches from Santiago.