Santiago a maiden voyage...

Friday around 4 or 5 we left for Santiago- we have yet to spend any time there, and Sylvain's good friend from Quebec City (who is half French/half Chilean) was visiting so we decided to go Friday night, spend the night and return Saturday night. We met Gabi at his friend's house where he was staying and within 5 minutes one of the 3 pairs of pants I brought with me to Chile- these happened to be white- were ruined after a vigorous clinking of wine glasses over excited mine. This was particularly inopportune because we were just headed to a party and I had only brought these pants to wear for the whole time we were in Santiago. Nothing like heading to a party with a massive red wine stain all over white pants- much less walking around the city for the next 24 hours with a big red stain... But, at the end of the day what can you do and no sense in spending too much time worrying about something that can't be remedied. 

The party was a birthday party for a Pakistani guy from London- he was lovely and although most of the guests were French and I got a lot of practice in- it was equally nice to reminisce about days of yore living in London. The party's host was one of those people that put together a lovely spread- spends tons of money and time making fancy punch, 2 birthday cakes and other party snacks and almost no one really bothers with eating any of it. She reminded me of me, and that was depressing. Anyway I'm the type of girl who when someone says, "oh, we're going to a party," my heart sinks- these days I almost never enjoy them unless it involves dinner, wine, sitting down, and good conversation not drowned out by loud awful music. For the first half of the evening except for the lack of a table- this was pretty close to my ideal party- but after dancing to crowd pleasing old school music for a while someone started playing crap reggaeton and I looked at Sylvain like- all right, I'm done. We got a taxi with Gabi and head home to bed (the apt had an extra room we rented for 14 dollars).

Today we woke up late took a shower without the necessary accouterments like soap and conditioner- or even an adequate towel for that matter (I had a camping wash cloth I bring to spinning class in my bag). We were pretty hungry and headed straight to a cafe where I had a really good shrimp quiche and raspberry juice which is delicious and maybe even better than kiwi juice. We wanted to walk around a bit and get our bearings but eventually we ended up at the Beaux-Artes Museum and it was a beautiful building with a glass ceiling and had one decent exhibit, the rest being either odd rooms with maps or mediocre but not completely disappointing photography or sculpture. After walking around some more we decided to visit Pedro Neruda's house and paid for an overpriced but decent tour - we live nearby his house in Valparaiso and I expect a second tour would find one gleaning similar personal info about the man in different surroundings- still, tempting. The house had a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it in the sense that Neruda was a complete artist- he loved the sea and built his house to feel like a ship- plus his friend's were all artists (thus free art) and he had his own sense of style that permeated the house in all the practical items. 

Before returning to Valparaiso we went out for sushi and it was delicious. The trip was a good one and we both wondered whether it would have been better to live in Santiago- but the truth is- it was just nice to be back in a city- we are city people, but for 3 months, Valparaiso has got much more character and charm (if it weren't for the tourists coming all the time now)- and it's opened our eyes up to the fact that regarding the future, we belong to the city...