Studying and Sight Seeing in Santiago

We are making progress in our class, and are very impressed with how far we have come in a couple weeks in school.  We are now hearing words we know in restaurants and sometimes can respond with the correct word to a simple question.  Stringing a whole sentence together?  That might take us months!  But, we are going to continue with class next week, so maybe a miracle will happen?

These streets and buildings are near our school.

Only the best ice cream in the world

We visited the Museo Nacional de Bella Artes.  The wooden crate at the front is a temporary art installation.

Afterward, we studied our Spanish lessons in a cute cafe nearby.

We can't get enough of this beautiful, warm weather.













The blurred photo below was snapped very quickly from our balcony.  We heard a commotion outside - cheering and hollering - and saw a city bus full of folks celebrating their team's victory in a soccer match.  Along with the streaming toilet paper, there are folks hanging out the open doors of the bus.  Chileans are mostly reserved folks, but they get hyped about soccer football.

We visited Cerro San Cristobal one afternoon after lunch.  The funicular is the only way to the top - unless you hike.  Yeah, right. Quacker Jack is ready to go!

Going up!

The view got progressively better as we climbed.

There are only two cars on the line, and they meet in the middle of the journey.

Arriving at the station

 Santiago just goes on and on...until it reaches the mountains.

Quacker Jack with Santiago behind him

 Cerro San Cristobal is where Pope John Paul gave mass in 1984.  There is a chapel at the top of the hill, which is open to the public and we *think* there might still be where services are held.

Virgin Mary sits atop Cerro San Cristobal

Along with lots of radio towers...see the one peaking in on the right side of the photo?

Although is was a very sunny day, there was a nice breeze that kept us from burning up.

  

I was excited to see hydrangeas at the funicular boarding area.  

Going down

We've found that Nescafe instant coffee is the coffee of choice in Santiago (photo on the right).  Fortunately, we've found at least one cafe whose motto is "You deserve good coffee" (photo on the left).  Yes we do, my friends, yes we do.

Week 2 Santiago

We enrolled in Spanish lessons here in Santiago for two weeks.  As we are 2 of the 3 students in class, there's no way to fake it and we spend most of our afternoons after class studying in various parks and cafes around the city.

 This fountain was a gift to Chile from Germany.  It's in one of the parks we've visited to study.

We had our first pisco sours.  Delicious, but dangerously strong. 

We visited the Pre - Columbian Museum - see Quacker Jack there near the southern point of South America.

 "Where'd you get your hat at?"

We saw this pretty little street in our school's neighborhood.

We haven't seen this billboard at night, but I really hope the cork pops out like the lights indicate.

This HUGE bowl is a traditional Chilean dish that is similar to dressing we eat at Thanksgiving but with more corn than bread.  

Lots of seafood in restaurants here, but not so much in grocery stores.  So, we've eaten lots of fish and shrimp out.  

 Delicious fish filet

 I might turn into a shrimp, I've eaten so many since we've been here.

Friday was J's birthday and we decided to take a sweet treat to Spanish class.  We bought cookies here - they were delicious.  This bakery has been in business for a long time!

What we've taken to calling this park Tree Park.  I think you can understand why.

Studying in Tree Park for the afternoon.  There are many folks selling ice cream out of coolers they carry here.  We like hearing them call "Helado, helado, helado!"  We'll never forget the Spanish word for ice cream.

The mounted police made a tour through the park.

We liked this old building in the Bella Vista neighborhood.

More shrimp - this time for J.

This ceviche made me want to slap my momma.

We learned that there is a Chilean folk character who plays the drums like this fellow.  They spin and spin and dance - pretty dizzying to watch.

The end of J's birthday. I think it was a good day.  All the folks at our Spanish school even sang Feliz Cumpleaños to him.

 Morning from our apartment 

We took the subway to the area known as "Sanhattan" today.  It looks like the newest and swankiest part of Santiago with lots of high rise buildings and South America's tallest building.

This is not South America's tallest building - we didn't get a picture of it.  Just liked the look of this area.

Taking a break in the shade at the park.  The sun here is dangerously intense!

We visited a very large mall over in Sanhattan.  It was impressive, with 350 stores.  

Then, we spent some time studying in the park.  Back to class tomorrow morning!

 Quacker Jack is hiding out in the palm tree there - hard to see him!