Santiago Day One

Besides last night's post, I haven't really blogged in a week or so. But that is because there hasn't really been anything worth talking about. In all fairness though, the week before last I was fighting a cold and this past week I was busy with trying to do all of my homework. The funny thing about Americans is that everything we do is always "the best" or "the worst" and there is never really anything in between. But there is so much gray area that really is interesting for being so bland. Which is why, even in the midst of a foreign country, my friends and I decided to take advantage of our long weekend. 

Santiago for a weekend trip was definitely a great trip. I went with a group of friends that I've made here, and going with them was the best idea ever. Our last day of classes for the week was Wednesday, so we all packed up and headed out to Santiago Thursday morning. 

The morning started of very stressful. Since Thursday was a holiday, pretty much everything was closed. I walked down to the ascensor at 7:30 to find out that it was closed. So I began to get a little nervous as I find another way to get down to the metro station to meet Ruby. I walk up to walk down, and down to walk up, but finally I get to the metro station. Yet again, the metro station is closed. Out of all days I that I need it to be opened, today was that day. The metro was closed until 9, but we needed to be in Viña before 9 to get on the bus for Santiago. So at this point, we are a little peeved, but we decided to take a bus. We get on the bus and everything is going alright. The bus stops at one of the last places before heading to Viña when we see one of the people of our group, Eric, and notice he isn't getting on the bus. We begin to yell at him, "Eric, Eric! Get on the bus!" phew. That was close! The bus gets moving, and all systems are go. As time is moving rapidly, our bus driver decides that today would be a good day to not drive crazy. We are checking our watches to see that we have about 15 minutes left until we have to be on the bus, but we aren't that close to the bus station yet. We finally decide to get out and walk the rest of the way. Well, jog the rest of the way. We turn the corner, and we see the bus stop! It's just shy of 9 o'clock, but we made it. We grab our tickets and meet the rest of the group (Dillon, Parker, Otisa, and Allison) outside at the terminal to get on the bus. Loaded up and ready to go, we buckle up in our seats on our double-decker Tur Bus and wait to head out. The clock struck 9, and it is finally time! The seven of us are so excited to get to Santiago that we are too enthused to even try to sleep on the two hour journey inland. 

Seeing the poorer parts of the country, to beautiful landscapes, to the snowcapped Andes, we finally arrive to Santiago. Once at the  bus station, we get off and grab our gear and head to the metro station so we can check into our hostel. The metro of Santiago is just like any other normal metro system around the world, so we find it easy to maneuver to the area closest to our hostel. It's about 11:30 when we arrive to the hostel, knowing that the staff is expecting us at 12. We get to what we hope is the door. At this point we aren't too confident because of the lack of identification that this is even a hostel. We ring the doorbell for 723 Avenida Brasil, which is the address for the hostel, but there is no answer. We wait a few minutes, and ring it again. There is still no answer. We pull up the information for the hostel to make a call, and try calling. We tried calling from four different phones, and there was no answer. After almost 30 minutes have gone by, we decided to ring the doorbell one more time. Finally! Someone answered the door...but it wasn't the hostel staff? These random people staying the hostel answered the door for us and had to go wake up the staff so that we could check in. By the time we get in the door, it's noon. The hostel staff was still asleep at noon! Already quite annoyed at the lack of professionalism, the staff finally saunters down to the desk and tells us that we have to pay up front. What? Now, that is a little unheard of. We all begin to shuffle around our pockets to pull out our money and pay her. After that is all settled, we set our bags down and head out to see the city. 

We began heading towards the Main Cathedral of Santiago, but first we stopped by an open air market for some traditional Chilean/Peruvian food. We socialized and ate different things, and had Inca Kola. Afterwards, we went to the Mercado Central where we walked through to see what they had, taking pictures of every interesting thing we see. Shortly after the market, we walk to la Plaza de Armas and visit the Cathedral of Santiago there. When we showed up, it was right around the time for mass to begin. Fortunately for my friends that stayed to partake in the ceremony, the arch bishop was in town to lead it. After mass, we got ice cream, and watched as some people danced the night away. It was getting to be dinner time, so we decided to head back to the hostel for the night. We went to go find a place to grab dinner, but nothing seemed to be open because of the holiday. Instead, we decided to order a pizza. I never realized how difficult it is to order a pizza until I came here. After going through 3 or 4 different pizza establishments, we finally got a hold of Pizza Hut and ordered 2 delicious cheese pizzas. When we finished, we just enjoyed each other's company until we were too tired to fight it.

Even though the day had started off on the wrong foot, the end made every little struggle worth it.