Goodbye to La Serena

Hey everybody. Sorry it´s been a little while since we last wrote of our exploits. Since we left La Serena downtime (and computer time) has become a bit more scarce.

Since Stretta wrote of their sickness, I have stayed healthy. Tuesday we had a day off to study for our final which took place Wednesday. Therefore we did next to nothing. My friends were still feeling sick, so we went to the mall, bought yet more McDonalds, and went to a subtitled version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Reviews were uniformly deliriously high, perhaps because we have all become pop culture starved in our time down here. Dave dissented to a certain extent, but that´s because he is apparently a "Harry Potter purist." He is also under the impression that this is a socially acceptable thing to be.

The next day we took our test, which consisted of 37 short answers involving political systems from various countries around the world. Just like that, we were done with class. We were leaving the next day at 10 a.m., so we packed all of our stuff up and headed to our farewell dinner. At the dinner we drank some wine, various people made toasts (Stretta made a wonderful one, but will not tell me about it accept to say that it was wonderful) and the dinner was capped off with several songs played on guitar. This includes a stirring rendition of Green Day´s "I hope you had the time of your life." How Dave reached deep and came up with such an obscure homage to time spent with friends is beyond me. Really gave us a pop culture gem though. That night we all went out to our very favorite club, Club Voltre. That is where I´ll leave the story of the evening, but we all had a great time and crazy hijinks, tomfoolery, and ballyhoo were all part of a night that stretched to around 5 in the morning.

The next day at 953 we woke up, shouldered our bags and staggered to the bus, only to emerge from the bus 8 hours later with the barest impression of time having passed and feeling blue eyed, bushy tailed and ready to take on...

Santiago. Santiago is huge, smoggy, and as we soon learned, not created with any particular worry about the ability of tourists to find an inexpensive restaurant close to their gringo hideaway, the hotel Bonaparte. So, the guys split off from the group and decided the only thing to do was walk approximately 12 miles to an upscale Peruvian restaurant called La Overchargo, or something to that effect. Bottled water - 1700 pesos (3.20 ish). The use of one of their apparently in demand seats - 2000 pesos (4.00 ish). We got fleeced, but the food was excellent and they had the best Pisco sour I´ve yet had down here. However, something about spending 30 bucks on dinner makes you hesitant to hit up the club and bar scene. Therefore we came home, watched Panic Room in our panicing-about-going-bankrupt room, and called it a night.

This morning we got up at 9 and started a walking tour of Santiago at 10. This tour headed into the center of town where we saw statues of various leaders of Chile over the years. We went into a beautiful cathedral in which the hearts (yes hearts) of four Chilean soldiers were in a box in a shrine. Also, there was a fingerbone on display. Quite weird, but the cathedral was beautiful. After that we went to the edge of town and rode a huge tram up the side of a hill and took in an amazing scenic view of Santiago. Pictures forthcoming if Dave and Stretta get their acts together. After that we wandered back to the hotel, stopping on the way to get an inexpensive, amazing lunch and buy trinkets for loved ones. After a catnap we are readying ourselves for crazy Chilean nightlife, after a dinner of what is hopefully authentic Mexican first. Miss everybody, and we´ll let you know how tonight goes hopefully sometime tomorrow.

Matt Bailey