Santiago

Hey guys! Today we toured Santiago, which is the capital of Chile. I really enjoyed it! It wasn’t what I expected though, I thought it would be like New York being super busy and crowded but it wasn’t. It was just a huge city with such character. Everything from the people to the art on the walls of the buildings just brought the city to life. First we went on an incline up a mountain which overlooked much of Santiago. There was a bit of fog, which only truly interfered with my pictures – in person it was breathtaking. There was also a statue called The Virgin at the very top of the mountain. On the way up to the statue there were a bunch of steps with benches on them, I think they were for praying. I like how in Chile they don’t always have to be so “politically correct” as we have to be aware of in America. They can express their religion and no one thinks twice about it. When we were at the incline I bought an alpaca sweater, a lot Chileans wear them so my plan is to bring back some Chilean culture to the US.

After the incline we went to Mercado Central de Santiago which is basically a market of fish, gifts, and a few little restaurants. We went to a nice restaurant called El Galeon Restaurante, the workers were so nice! They offered everyone free sodas on the house and spoke English which made ordering easy. I just got chicken with a side of mixed foods such as rice, potatoes, salad, and carrots. It was so good! The Chileans certainly know how to use their spices. After the market, we walked around Santiago and saw la Moneda where the president works. After walking around we made our way to the Santiago Stock Exchange. We saw a brief video about stocks and what they do at the exchange. I was most surprised about how small it was. The building was big but there weren’t many brokers or stocks being exchanged. There were only 31 brokerage houses which surprised me. We went into the trading room which was awesome! I felt so professional and they even let us walk around near the stock monitor. I had a really good day today, I liked Santiago a lot and hopefully we’ll get a chance to come back again before our trip is over.