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So i have been in Chile for the last week now and really like it here. It is nice to have a bit of a culture shock again- even though not being able to speak the language is definetely causing a problem. My appalling Spanish is coming out again!!!!
We arrived on Saturday extremely jet lagged. It was the longest Saturday i have ever had considering we left Auckland on saturday at 5pm and arrived in Santiago on Saturday at 1pm! I know, very strange time difference- we went back about 16 hours.
At the airport we were litterally bombarded with taxi men trying to 'help' us but eventually managed to make our way through the throngs and get a taxi. It wasn't a great way to start as we had all heard a lot of horror stories about South America so are a little edgy and i think we all felt a little intimidated. We reverted back to how we were in Hong Kong at the beginning of our travels and stuck closely together like scared little lost sheep.
But we got to Hostal de Sammy in one piece and fell straight into bed for a little sleep. BIG MISTAKE, HUGE!!!!! when we woke up it was around 8pm, and we were starving. We had no money because we were all to scared to get it out at the airport and were completely awake like it was the middle of the day (hate jetlag!).
Eventually we managed to get a pizza delievered after much difficulty. Firstly we got laughed at for asking if they accepted credit cards, then when one of the men in the hostel offered to take Jess to a cash point it wouldn't accept her card, then the pizza place tried to rip us off by saying they had to come and collect the money first before they woud deliver the pizza'a, we had to get some one else to order for us bacause we are ignorant English (and Welsh) girls who don't speak Spanish.... but in the end we got our pizza's- at about 1am- and stayed up watching movies till around 5am....needless to say the 'late night crew' is back. Luckily i seemed to have managed to get over my jetlag reasonable well but some of the other girls still have it a bit now!
On Sunday we spent the morning chilling and playing table tennis at the hostel and then took the metro with some ppl we met at the hostel (Scott, Dave, 'Asparagus' and Rob) to Parque De Forestal. On a sunday afternoon here a variety of funkily dressed peeps with very adventuorious haircuts hang out, practise juggling tricks, acroatics, fight-dancing (very cool, a mix between something like katate and break dancing) and play bongoes. There was also a flea market. I really liked it here, there was a lot going on and we made some Spanish friends- a chance to practise my shocking spanish, i mean there are only so many times u can say hello and thank you!.
That evening we watched Saw 3 (eugh!!!) and went to bed.
We moved to Chilli hostel the following morning as it had been recomended to us and chilled out there for the day making some new friends before going to a market and then to Balavista Square for the best meal of my life!!!!! And we drank Sangria and chatted- it's really nice being able to afford to go out for dinner again as we have been living on soup and noodles for soooooo long!
The following day we took the Funicular (tram) up Cristobel hill to see some amazing sights as well as an extreamely tranquil church and the Virgin Mary and then took a cable car down. We walked around for a while looking for a nice restaurent before settling on the restaurent opposite the one we had eaten in the day previously before spentding hours trying to figure out what we had actually ordered from the Spanish menu (luckily we had a very helpful waiter). We also bumped into Tuey who we had met at the park on Sunday, he got annoyed with us because we didn't want to join him and his friends for a drink (a very awkward moment!).
On Wednesday we got a very comfortable bus to Valparaiso to spend the night there. We checked into our hostel Marie Antonette (i love how chilled out the hostels here are- it's like 'u can pay me now, or later, whatever...here drink some red wine') and then caught a train to Vina del Mar with the intention of going to the beach but it wasn't really warm enough to sunbath so we jus had lunch (a delicious Spanish ommelette) and walked around trying to avoid the crazy people. We then bumped into Pablo ( Toeys friend) and his two Australian friends (quite old but nice enough) and had a couple of cocktails with them. They treated us to all our frinks too so can't really complain. Faye, Jess and I then went on with them to a karioke bar but the others went back as they were still a bit jetlagged.
Today we just got the bus back to Santiago, had some lunch and then checked back into Chilis (i really recommend it here, its very homely) and tonight we are going to have a BBQ that our hostel has organised which i am very excited about because apparently the food looks really good and they have been preparing it for ages!! mmm YUM!
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