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Our last night in South America was awesome! The Estadio Nacional was HUGE, open air, and set with a backdrop of mountains. We got there about a half-hour before the game started and since there was no assigned seating, we had to fight our way to the back of our section and ended up standing against the back wall (always loved the standing-room only!). We definitely got a few looks being foreigners all dressed up as Chile fans - especially Mark with his picked-out hair!
There was an incredible energy in the stadium, so much chanting, singing and dancing! They have it down to a science. Makes me think we should have some Team Canada chants for hockey maybe?! The entire crowd of 48,000 was so into the game, and when Chile scored their first goal, the stadium erupted into such crazy song and dance, we could feel the stadium shaking under our feet! It was great fun and Chile beat Paraguay 2-0 (ending an 11 year losing streak!).
We had a quick pizza after the game and said goodbye to Burrill and Courtney who were flying home early the next morning. They were awesome travel companions - thanks so much for traveling with us guys!
Wednesday, we packed up and had the day to wander around Santiago. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe and were discussing what to do with our day when the man sitting next to us interjected and told us there was a free exhibition of one of Chile's most famous artists at the Moneda. We headed there after lunch to check it out and saw some of Roberto Matta's work. I think that was our first (and only) museum in South America. There was an interactive media room with sound and colour displays and we spent a good amount of time there playing with the exhibit.
That night, we headed to the airport and hopped on our plane to bring us into the future, and into Auckland! We boarded our plane at 11:20pm on the 16th and landed at 4:00am NZ time on the 18th! We skipped the 17th altogether and arrived in Auckland on Mark's birthday!
We were lucky enough to get early check-in to our hostel and slept for a couple hours until it was a normal time of the day to be up and about. We had a great birthday lunch for Mark at an Irish pub and spent the day wandering the downtown area. We even ran into Alan, our Irish friend that we met at the Boliva-Argentina border and hung out with in Salta. He had arrived in Auckland a couple of days ago. Small world. We had a couple pints with him. He is doing a similar tour of NZ, just a day or two ahead of our schedule, but somehow, I think we'll most likely run into him again.
Since it was hard to wrap our heads around what day it was today, we'll probably keep celebrating Mark's birthday tomorrow, as it'll technicially be the 18th at home! Yay for birthday weeks!
- comments
matt Happy birthday Mark! And you won't be finding any museums in NZ either!