Back to Santiago, On to Host Family Life!

On Wednesday we returned from a wonderful extended weekend in Buenos Aires. As Megan said, I am so in love with Buenos Aires that coming back to Santiago was a little bit difficult. However, there are many new and exciting things to look forward to!! After recovering from waking up at 5am for our flight, immigration and customs we had an amazing dinner and a few strong pisco sours at La Mar, a Peruvian resturaunt in a trendy neighborhood called Vitacura. Not only was this meal one of the few times we have had Latin American food thus far (there is an absurd amount of Italian, Mexian, ect resturaunts but finding Chilean food or really any time of South American food is hard) but this neighborhood was less overwhelming for me than the downtown, "Centro" neighborhoods we had seen so far (I need trees and personal space.  Smog so thick you can't breathe/see the scenery, stray dogs, and people/cars literally filling up every available space are just too much for me).

The next day, we visted some well-known toursity Santiago sights, such as La Plaza de Armas, La Catedral Metropolitana, Palacio de la Moneda, Cerro San Lucia, and the Chilean history muesum. After this whirlwind sight seeing, Megan and I said goodbye to my mom and set off for our first dinner alone (but together!)

Here is a picture of me and flat stanley outside of the palacio. It's houses the president's and a couple other important people's offices. It's been around since the early 1800's but was rebuilt paritally after being bombed during the coup in the 70's. 

Today the real excitement started!! Megan and I moved in with our host mom, Mirta. Mirta lives about 30 minutes outside of the downtown area in called "Las Condes." We took the metro from our hotel downtown to the end of the red line (odd coincedience, though I will say the Santiago metro is SO much more efficent than the one in DC). Mirta picked us up and the metro stop and took us home to get settled in! The house is tiny, but comfortable and cozy. Megan and I each have our own rooms that we have already unpacked and settled into. We have wifi, a little dog named Lulu, and a host mom who has already fed us two delicious meals, is more than willing to speak to us in Spanish very slowly/repeat herself/rephrase to make sure we understand. Mirta has had over 100 American students stay with her in this house before us over the last 20-something years so her efforts to make us comfortable and her overwhelming experience helped to make me more comfortable and put some of my concerns at ease. 

Here are a picture of my bedroom at Mirta's. Night y'all!