La Primera Dia en Paradiso

Hola amigos y familia! We arrived in Santiago bright and early on Thursday morning, and made it through the airport hassle nice and quickly thanks to Sammar's excellent packing skills! Despite 12 years of combined Spanish classes, we quickly realized that we were a bit rusty as we spoke to the man at the official taxi stand. Fortunately, we mananged to catch a few of the right phrases and arrange a ride to a nearby hotel, where we would meet Sammar's bible study friend, Lauren. While we had arranged the ride, we still needed to find the "conductor" to actually get into the car, which seemed to be a bit of challenging task considering that there was no conductor's stand. Fortunately, the Chilean people are incredibly nice and a few men helped us get where we needed to be, rather than trying to take advantage of our situation. After meeting up with Lauren's family, we got on the road to Valparaiso. Coincidentally, Lauren's family happened to be in Santiago and travelling to Vina del Mar(10 minutes from Valparaiso) on the same day that we were arriving. The odds of this were absolutely insane and it turned out to be a blessing. Once we arrived in Valparaiso, we realized that the city was significantly larger than we had expected and it was not the easiest to traverse, at least for beginners. Imagine the cliffs of the Italian coast, except multiplied by 100. Houses are beautiful and brightly colored and built into the hillside. There are a total of 32 cerros, or hills, that comprise the city, each of which has incredibly windy roads(think San Francisco) to get to the top. As Sammar and I first saw the city, we exchanged a glance of relief that we would not be trekking around the city to find our hotel with our 40-50lb backpacks. Eventually, we found our hotel, a beautiful 100 year old hillside bed and breakfast atop Cerro Concepcion with a 1950s checkered terrace overlooking the city. As we checked in, we realized that nobody spoke English at the hotel, which could pose issues since our Spanish is mediocre at best. Fortunately, Sammar has rubbed off on me a bit, so I had printed out our reservations and was able to point and mumble just enough to get us into the room and order us lunch. After settling in, we spent the rest of the day exploring Valparaiso and its beautiful cerros.


One of the most unique parts about the city is that no building's exterior can be renovated, in order to maintain the city's original state, which creates a unique view into the past and creates a unique culture of art and music. Thursday evening, we went to a "happy hour", held from 6pm until 10pm(madness, I know), to try out the Chilean specialty drink, a Pisco Sour and share some appetizers. Needless to say, we were the only people in the restaurant at 6pm. When we went for our dinner at 9pm, we were still the first people in the restaurant, as most Chileans do not eat until at least 10pm! A nice bottle of Chilean vino and a pork filet with a wine reduction put us in a food coma and put an end to the evening's festivities, but not before un poco bailando(yes, Sammar now dances!) down the back alley to our hotel.