Hola, Santiago!

Today was another beautiful, fun-filled day in Chile. Unfortunately we all had to wake up very early after our fun night with the Chilean students, but thankfully we were able to rest on the 2 hour bus ride to Santiago. Once we entered the city, we walked to the Santiago Stock exchange and saw a brief presentation on the history of the stock exchange. We also learned a lot about MILA, an agreement between Chile, Peru, and Colombia that allows citizens of all three countries to interchangeably purchase stocks and bonds from one another. After the presentation we were escorted to the trading floor! Obviously, nowadays it is not used very much since everything is online, but it was really interesting to see where the Chilean stock market used to operate years ago.

The (renovated!) trading room at the Santiago Stock Exchange

After our tour at the stock exchange, we were led around Santiago by Javier and another Chilean student also named Javier. We walked to the city's center where there were a lot of vendors, shops, and museums. The city center is also home to one of the biggest and most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen! The pictures truly don't do it justice. The statues, ceilings, and architecture was incredible.

The inside of the Cathedral in Santiago's City Center

We then spent about a half hour checking out a free museum right next to the Cathedral which was awesome! It had a lot of different interactive exhibits for children as well as really impressive statues and art. After we were finished looking around, we took the bus to one of the nicest, upscale seafood restaurants in Santiago called Augosto's. The meal was delicious and the atmosphere wasn't so bad either! We all enjoyed bread, fish, and meat over great conversation and authentic Latin American live guitar music! There were also a lot of vendors inside selling clothes, jewelry, and souvenirs, which gave us a nice chance to browse around after lunch.

Lunch at Augosto's

Following lunch, the Javier's took us up a very steep, long incline ride to an amazing view of all of Santiago. It was incredible! Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out great due to a heavy layer of smog covering the top of the city, but it was beautiful nonetheless. It makes the city of Pittsburgh look VERY tiny, as you can see!!

View of Santiago de Chile from the top of the incline

Our group!

After riding the incline back down, we got some delicious frozen yogurt as a group and then boarded the bus to head back to Viña del Mar. Once we got back we had another dance class, this time reggeton! These classes are becoming one of my favorite parts of the day. I'm looking forward to trying out some of my new moves when we go out the rest of the week! After our class we were all exhausted and decided to just grab something to eat and come back to the hotel for the night. Molly, Allie, Alyssa and I were able to find some authentic American snacks at the local grocery store and even ate Pizza Hut for dinner! A little piece of home right here in Viña. We are heading to bed now to make up for an extreme lack of sleep the past few days. Tomorrow we are getting up early once again to have lectures at the University and visit LAN airlines. Another busy day....more to come later!