Santigo de Chile

Well, Santiago has been ok. I'm glad I saw the city, but I can't help but think that it was kind of a worthless trip.

First off, I had originally planned to study Spanish two weeks in Santiago and then two weeks in Bs As. However, it took longer than i had expected to get my Visas, so I had only 3 weeks instead of 4 before I needed to be in Brazil, and I therefore chose, wisely, to spend the whole time in Argentina. Since I had already gotten my hopes up about going to Santiago, and since it was the same price either way with my plane ticket, I decided to at least see the city. It is a stupid trip though. I flew from Bs As in the south to Recife in the north and then 13 hours back to Santiago in the south (2 flights/3 stops). Also, I was charged $100 dollars US just to enter the country. It's a reciprocity fee so I guess the US charges Chilean citizens the same, but still, it sucked. I wasn't exactly thrilled with my choice to visit Santiago for 2 days when I learned that I had to pay $100 dollars to enter and then $26 to leave. Awesome. I would have been better to have stayed in Brazil and spent 3 days in Sao Paulo or Rio.

Oh well, I'm here.

Santiago itself is pretty nice, although there is nothing too spectacular about it. It's a big city, albeit much smaller than Bs As. It seems cleaner and the streets, sidewalks, and buildings seem to be in better repair. The population here is much different from that of Bs As. Whereas most in Bs As were tall and fairer skinned, the Chilenos are small and darker, more of Native South American than European descent.

Plaza behind the congressional building.

I've seen a lot of goth and punk kids around the city, something that I didn't see in Bs As, and I read in the paper yesterday that two goth kids (college-aged) committed suicide by drinking poison. I don't know if the whole goth/punk trend is big here or if it's just something to do with where I'm hanging out (which are mainly the touristy/main pedestrian thoroughfares so I'm not sure about what that means, i.e. are touristy/heavily popular streets non-conformist?)

One view of the Santiago skyline, with the Andes in the distance.

Yesterday I climbed up to the top of Cerro (Hill) Santa Lucía which is some 630 m high. There is a lookout tower at the peak which offers an awesome 360° view of the city. It was really a nice vista: the city sprawls out almost as far as you can see and it is bordered to the east by the Andes. I also threw a 1 peso coin.... ok, digression, I don't understand the 1 peso coin. About 600 pesos make a US$ so the 1 peso coin is worth about 1/6 of a penny? I read somewhere that they are debating doing away with the penny right now, something to do with the worth of the penny itself vs. the it's manufacturing cost. Forget the penny, do away with the 1 peso coin. It makes no sense to me. When a coke costs 1000 pesos you don't need a 1 peso coin. It's literally worthless, what are you going to do with a 1 peso coin? I was just shocked when someone gave me 2 pesos among my change for something that cost around 8500... Anyways, back to what I was talking about: I threw a 1 peso coin into the Fountain of Neptune at the base of the hill, which is in a truely beautiful park and is something like a national fountain. Hopefully my wish comes true...

Fountain of Neptune.

Today is Sunday and the museums are free. I went to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, which chronicles 4500 years of Pre-Columbian civilization in four different geographic regions: Mesoamerica, and central, northern, and southern Andes. The museum was good. There was also a traveling exhibit about Pre-Columbian hats, which, while somewhat interesting, was also somewhat boring, and didn't really ever capture my imagination. I just briefly perused the collection and left. Wha-bam!

There are some nice pedestrian streets her in Santiago, lined with cafes, restaraunts, and stores. Today, being Sunday, the street preachers are out in droves. At every corner there is someone trying to save my soul or congregations singing hymnes. It reminds me of Speaker's Circle at MU.

So that's Santiago, really nothing too exciting, just a big city. Maybe I'd like it better if I spent more time here and actually got to know the people/culture/country, but for now, superficially, its just a big, modern, South American city with a somewhat European-feel to it. I am not too sad about leaving (I think I'm still a bit bitter about the airport fees).

Tonight I'm going to fly to Tokyo, well, actually to Dallas and then to Tokyo. I'm definitely not looking forward to the traveling, around 24 hours of flight time, but I'm extremely excited about Japan and Asia. It's going to be a completely new world for me. I'm still not exactly sure where I'm going to stay, as all of the hostels and ryokan that I've contacted thus far have been full. I guess I'll work it out when I get there though, what with my stellar Japanese and all... Wish me luck...

*EDIT* I think the main reason that I didn't find Santiago all that appealing was that I was looking for something different, I had already seen big South American cities and big European cities, I was looking for a change... (Asia offered that)