Santiago

I stayed at this fantastic hostel here and it kind sucked me in. It had such great facilities, lounge room with big tv and 700 dvds to watch, free breakfast, kitchen and table tennis. Best of all, lovely staff and a good vibe.

So I stayed here for a week after coming back from easter island (I was here two days before). I did not waste my time here, I went to a spanish school as well and took another week of lessons. I had some great teachers and it was great to finally revise some grammer and speak a bit more spanish (when you hang out in hostels you speak so much english).

Apart from that I did not do too much study. I watched a lot of movies I had missed out on in the cinemas. On my last weekend here I did the touristy stuff. I went to a winery, the plaza and the central market. On my last day here some friends and I went to the centre where we stumbled upon a parade will of sailors and military men. It was an anniversary of the Chilian naval victory I think it may have been over Peru, we were not that sure. We did go to a bar where there were many drunken sailors, singing along to an accordian. That day I also went up a big hill to get a look over Santiago where I saw all the buildings and mountains hanging out in smog. The polution is bad here, people say that about all cities, but here you notice it a lot. My asthma has been a bit of trouble. However Santiago seems a cool city, they have a metro which is really good. I took it to school everyday and my hostel is in a university area so there are a lot of super trendy young people around.

I am a bit sad to leave actually but it is time to move on and get back into the nature.

I would like to put up photos but I stupidly formatted my memory card. Lucky it was a fresh one with only 12 photos on it. But I am still a bit bummed. I know if you go to a photo shop they can retrieve the photos but I have tried explaining in spanish and they seem not to understand the problem. So I will leave you with a quote from Isabel Allende a famous Chilean author about Santiago that sums up my sentiments.

It would be a pretty city because it is well cared for, clean and filled with gardins, if it did not sit under the dark sombrero of pollution that in wintertime kills infants in their cradles, old people in nursing homes, and birds in the air.

Ok so I stole photos from google.

This is Santiago on a good day.

This is Santiago on a bad day.