We were the meat at the market.

Jenn, my fabulous friend and former house mate from university, has once again come to Santiago to assist her good friend Mackayla in physical therapy. Today we took to the streets of Santiago and this was our adventure.

At 11:00am, we arrived in barrio Bellavista and realized that it was Sunday... and we were in Chile, so this was figuratively 5:00am. No one was out but us and the street cleaners. It took us half an hour to find an open restaurant that was serving alcohol, and our day began.

After an hour, second breakfast/first lunch, pisco sours, and an in depth conversation with a Chilean man on the language of love, Santiago started to wake up and we ran into the streets.

Freshly tipsy, I argued with a man (in bad Spanish) over the price of having our picture taken with his llama and whether or not is was acceptable for us both to ride the llama at once. He said only one at a time, but he cut the picture price in half.


Once again, we hit the streets, tour book in hand, looking and sounding as obnoxiously American as ever. We stopped into the Museo Bella Artes to use the bathroom, and since we were already there, we decided to check out the art. Jenn is currently grimacing as I ask her what she thought of the museum. We'll leave it at that.

Next stop was the Mercado Central. After hitting the fish market and being accosted by every restaurant employee and external genitalia bearing two legged fish flinging... person, we decided not to visit the meat market because... we both had a lingering feeling that we actually had just been the meat at the market.

Moving on.

Plaza de Armas.... walking walking..... Cathedral... walking walking... time for second lunch. Back to Bellavista... octopus. (note: sorry for the stream of consciousness). Having our fill of meat for the day, we turned to the sea. Jenn and I shared this lovely plate of grilled octopus and a really lovely bottle of wine. After 2 hours of talking rather loudly in English about things that should not be brought up in restaurants, we realized that it was actually possible that someone within earshot could speak our language... so we decided to go home.

Well, that was our day. You should have been there.... all of you.


On a side note, I've been meaning to write something at least moderately thoughtful about teaching English, my progress in Spanish, and how I feel after three months in this strange land. Check back soon for something that involves more of a thought process.

Note: More pictures will be added tomorrow....

Besos,
Allie and Jenn