Chorrillana, La Sebastiana, Chile through the decades, Isla Negra

Here's my long post, as promised!

Wednesday, we had class and then went to the house of Pablo Neruda, a poet and ambassador for Chile (he's dead now). Apparently he's super famous, but to be quite honest, I've never heard of the guy. His first house was in Valpo, and it was gorgeous. Before we went though, we went to this little hole in the wall place (think Bowens Island) for lunch. Carlos (one of our teachers) took us there, and we thought we would have the option to choose what we wanted. We got the option to choose Chorrillana for two, or Chorrillana for three. In case you're wondering, Chorrillana has a nice thick layer of grease on the bottom, topped with french fries, scrambled eggs, onions dripping with grease, and meat:

It was as good as it could be, I suppose. However, it's a once in a lifetime kind of food because every time you eat it, you lose 10 years off your life, I'm sure.

I branded the restaurant forever, with my name (don't worry, all the furniture and walls looked like this--I'm not just writing on random pieces of furniture in random restaurants):



We then went up the hill to the house of Pablo Neruda:





We walked through the garden at the Neruda house, and I took this picture for my dad to identify this strange plant:

And more pictures:




And since what goes up must come down, we walked back down the hill through the horrible twisting winding gross and disgusting oh so lovely streets of Valpo:


We walked down Ferrari street (the name was misleading, let me tell you):

And saw some amazing graffiti:


And then headed back to Viña:


Thursday was pretty uneventful. We went to school, I came back and took a nap, and that night, Aften and I went to a discotech (a dancing place), stayed out til three in the morning, and had a grand old time. (Really, it was a lot of fun).

Yesterday, we went to school (the days would be so much more exciting without this), and took a trip to Pablo Neruda's second house in Isla Negra. If I thought the first one was pretty, this one was AMAZING. We stopped to eat lunch at a little bit nicer place where we actually had some sort of say in what we ate, but of course, the menu was all in spanish. I know the spanish word for fish, but I couldn't tell all the types of fish apart. So I did what I could, and closed my eyes and stuck my finger somewhere on the page, and ended up with this:

It was really, really good!

We went to the house at Isla Negra, which was fairly uneventful and dull:





Here's where dear old Pablo lies:

And here's what his head looks like, in case you were wondering:

Then we went to the beach at Isla Negra. I have never seen a beach like this before in my whole life. I spent a good hour just sitting on a rock and watching the waves, it was mesmerizing:
Hey, welcome to paradise!:










After we got back from Isla Negra, Aften and I wanted to do something, but we weren't sure what. I knew that I couldn't do another "let's not come home until 3 in the morning" kind of thing, but I mean, we're in CHILE, why sit at home?!

So, we went to the beach to watch the sunset. It was awesome. And then, we went to the casino. Because we can do that here. We each played a 500 pesos (less than one dollar) slot machine, one time, and we each won nothing. So we left and got ice cream, because that makes everything better. We went to a karaoke place where we watched people make fools of themselves, and then we came home. It was pretty fun and eventful night, and I was in bed by 12:30!

I've been working on an accurate description of Chile, and I think I'm finally on to something:

They live like it's the 60's (technology wise), smoke like it's the 70's, dress like it's the 80's, and party like it's the 90's.