More gringas visiting Chile...siiiipoh!

This past weekend I had my first visitors!! Melissa, Katie and Jen took a bus to Santiago all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina. For those of you that don't know, Katie has been in Buenos Aires since last September, teaching and traveling through South America. Melissa and Jen bought tickets to fly to B.A. and arrived on May 24. After a few days visiting Argentina's capital, they took a bus to Mendoza (wine country) and finally came all the way to Santiago last Friday! That bus trip is about 24 hours total...do I have awesome friends or what?!

Unfortunately when they arrived it was gross and rainy outside, but that didn't stop us from having a wonderful time! They got here around 2:30pm, and I can't tell you how excited I was to see them sitting in my apartment building lobby when I got home from school. From the second we saw each other, it was hugs and screams all around! Typical girls, right? The conversations didn't stop all night, or all weekend for that matter. I took them to an area of the city called Bellavista for a yummy Italian dinner, and then we came back and chatted some more. Saturday morning we decided to leave the cloudy city and headed to the beach. We stayed in Viña del Mar Saturday night and toured both Viña and Valparaíso on Sunday. First the girls thought it'd be fun to stop at the casino in Viña since none of us had ever been in one. Katie played one of the slot machines with her $1000 bill. And by that I mean, 1000 Chilean pesos...which is only about USD$1.60. After a few spins, she won, 30,000 pesos!! Hahah we yelled with excitement in the casino at like 10:30am...I think everyone thought we were crazy. Now we understand why gambling can be so addicting! Katie won like USD$55-60 just from playing one slot. However, we weren't stupid and cashed in our winnings immediately and left.

After our exciting morning in the casino, we walked around some of the castles in the resort town and found the famous Viña clock made of flowers. Eventually we made our way to Valpo and decided to check out Pablo Neruda's house (a famous Chilean poet). It was beautiful at the top of the hill, but too crowded, so we went to another hill in the town called Cerro Concepción. There we had a delicious, long, Chilean-style lunch that lasted almost three hours. Then we walked around, soaked up the scenery and finally took a cable car (ascensor) down the hill to catch a bus to Viña. We wanted to rush back to the beach to watch the sunset over the Pacific.

We arrived in Santiago around 9:30pm Sunday night, and it was back to school Monday morning for me. The girls went on my favorite city hike to Cerro San Cristobal and after school we went to a really cute area of the city. Some of my friends had told me about it, but I'd never been, so it was fun exploring the area with Jen, Melissa and Katie for the first time. It reminded us of Europe, with quaint boutiques and unique restaurants. We enjoyed another 'rico' meal, and the girls headed out on Tuesday morning.

It was such a wonderful time!! My favorite part was just being able to catch up with the girls. We reminisced about college and all of our fun times, and brought each other up to speed on our current lives. I loved being able to share some of my Chile experiences with them and teach them a little about the culture too. Some of the girls' favorite Chilean phrases were 'siiipoh' and 'obvio!' ...I hope they bring them back to the States and everyone is talking like a Chilean when I get home :)

I can't wait for my next round of visitors in July and September...you know who you are! Get ready for some fun :)

Love and miss you all!

Grace and peace on your week,
lg