Exploring Santiago: Day 9

We woke up to window cleaners on Thursday morning! If anyone saw me taking pictures they probably would have thought I was weird... but it was the first time I've seen them in action from 18 floors up! They move so incredibly fast and all thats keeping them up is rope. Scary, but cool to watch.

 

What Chilean Pesos look like:

 We went back to Plaza Del Armas so we could go to a museum. Here is that same tree from Day 1. Doesn't it look amazing? It's all real greenery.

There are local artists all over the center of Plaza Del Armas that are so amazing! If only I could afford their masterpieces!

Another shot of the Cathedral:

Santiago is full of characters. Especially when it comes to people trying to earn a living. Reese and I were chatting to one of his friends and we learnt that minimum wage here in Chile lands up being about $300 USD a month. Not that much money at all. Anyways, this guy was entertaining people by just talking and joking around. Reese says he was talking about the Devil or something like that. As you can tell, people thought he was quite hilarious. Anything for money!

I've noticed quite a few of people dressed like this in all white pretending to be a statue. We think they powder their faces with flour. 

I dropped 100 pesos in his jar and this is him telling me to come back... I wasn't sure what to do, and then Reese of course encouraged me to go over to him. He then preceded to spin me around and kiss me on the cheek. (This is why I am almost 100% it was just flour on his face and hands because it rubbed off on me)

Then he started pointing to his cheek... I started backing away and Reese goes "Courtney, don't be rude". Chilean's greet each other with kisses on the cheeks, even strangers, so I went ahead and kissed him on the cheek. Reese's fault...

We even ran into one of the Chilean miners! He was actually quite rude... he told Reese he didn't give him enough money. Rude!

Ok, so at first glance this looks like a strip club. Not quite. It's a topless coffee shop. They are HUGE here.

And finally, we made it to the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art.

A huge map of Chile. It ran onto the ceiling. 

The museum was really cool because almost all of the pieces were from 1-500 BC. I was really impressed with how well preserved everything was and how advanced the people were. 

Doesn't this stone art remind you of that animated movie The Road To Eldorado?

Reese reading about the art in Spanish. Luckily, there was always an English version on the other side of the art. 

This is not the best picture, but its one of those risque coffee places. Obviously, this one is not topless one but the ladies who work in them wear almost nothing. Again, you can't really tell in this picture but they're wearing tiny little mini dresses with heels. I've seen a few of these PG-13 ones around Santiago and their outfits are either the little mini dress with tons of cleavage or half tops and mini skirts. Notice that only men are in there...

After the museum Reese and I went to a place called La Naturista. It's a healthy eating vegetarian place. Reese got fresh kiwi juice and I got fresh orange juice. DELICIOUS! I can't get enough of them!

And of course, the complimentary bread and salsa. Notice that our bread bowl is empty. Healthy eating doesn't mean cutting calories people! The bread was whole wheat ok?

I got a yummy avacado, green bean, and tomato salad with a cheese empanada.

Reese got the Arroz A La Cubana. Delicous? He thought so. I don't care for fried bananas.

On our way back to the metro we passed by some workings striking against some electronic store. Reese said one of the signs said "Is $8,000 pesos ($16 USD) a good holiday bonus?"

They were creating such a threat that a ton of Chilean police showed up. I think I counted at least 25.

And the noise was ridiculous. From drums, shouting, clapping, stomping, vuvuzela's, whistles, blow horns, etc.


Angry people!

For dinner Reese and I went to a pub-type place for sandwiches with 2 of the guys Reese has hired for work. It was really cool chatting with them and telling them all about Arizona. They are going to be moving to AZ in Jan to train for a year before they come back to Chile and Reese's company hopefully opens the office. Reese forbid me from taking pictures because, and I'll use his words, "its dumb". So ja, my sandwich was really good. I got a lamb and sweet potato sandwich. The lamb had been cooked in beer and wasn't fatty at all. And the combination of lamb and sweet potato was really yummy. Reese got a chicken salad sandwich type thing. I can't remember because I don't have a photo of it!

And remember how the Santiago metro drivers went on strike? Well we found out that the city just fired them and hired a bunch of new people, trained them for a short 2 weeks and let them take the wheel! How safe! And I guess they must still be short staffed or something because Reese and I got back to the metro around 10pm from dinner and it was already closed. Even though it's only supposed to close at 11pm. But I guess its supposed to be open Sunday's too and it's not.... So we had to take a taxi home, which wasn't bad, just more expensive.

Taxi ride home from dinner.

All in all, it was another great day in Chile!