Day 1! - Blogabond

Today marks the first day of our Santiago adventure. Our flight was slightly delayed in Santiago, which resulted in a late arrival to the city this morning. We ended up getting in around 9:00, dropped our bags off at our hotel and headed right to our orientation at a cafe around the corner. Following the hour and a half orientation/breakfast we all returned to the hotel, checked in and took a short nap before starting our "City Game" tour. Our City Game group was the same group as for this blog, Faith Anne, Bailey, Carson, Lauren, and me. We accomplished a few of the tasks on the list but we got slightly sidetracked by a Chilean artisan market and then later by a café with snacks and vino. Tonight we headed out as a group for dinner and then headed to Flannery’s Irish Put and a karaoke bar for some late night entertainment!

A few thoughts about the day:

1) Being in Chile makes me actually want to speak Spanish. I took Spanish for four years in high school and even though I can say enough to get by, I wish that I had paid better attention during that time. At one point during the day, I walked down to the lobby and accidentally asked a rapid fire question to the concierge in English. He looked at me in total bewilderment before calling his English-speaking concierge friend over to help me. Oops.

2) I found out that they do not bargain at the artisan markets here. I probably could have found that out if I had spent more than 10 minutes looking at my Chilean travel book, but I learned for myself when I tried to bargain down my Mom’s Mother’s Day present at the artisan market.

3) Being at dinner last night, I was reminded of how much I enjoy our Neeley Fellows class! Also, thank goodness for Andres, our friend and translator!

I borrowed a Flip camera from my brother and took a few videos during the day which I’ll post later today!
Also, today we climbed to the top of the Santa Lucia hill which overlooked Chile. It was absolutely gorgeous and probably a highlight of the day. Definitely worth the trip up there! I went ahead and attached a picture so you can see!

written by

SantiagoFellows on May 10, 2010 from Santiago, Chile

from the travel blog: SantiagoFellows's Travel Blog

Send a Compliment

comment on this...