Santa Lucia

Yesterday I decided to go to una feria (where you would buy artisan crafts and other touristy stuff) in Santa Lucia with two other exchange students, Mike from Wisconsin and Katerine from Paris. When we met up at the Santa Lucia metro station, we ran into some of Mike's friends who were planning on taking a tour bus though downtown Santiago. We decided to join them, and we spent some time together walking around and taking pictures of the scenery, but in typical Chilean style, the bus still hadn't shown up after an hour of waiting so we decided to just head straight to the feria. It turns out that on Sunday's, Santiago is pretty much a ghost town, with many shops being closed. Luckily, most of the stands we were interested in were open, and we all ended up getting some shopping done.

National library of Chile.

Me standing in front of an Easter Island look-a-like statue.

Purses hanging from a stall in the feria.

A warm alpaca jacket and some gloves I purchased at the feria.

Once we had finished shopping, we had planned to climb to the top of the Cerro Santa Lucia which is essentially a giant hill that lets you look out over the city and see some amazing views. But unfortunately, it decided to start raining pretty hard at that point, so we decided to seek shelter in some nearby shops until some of Mike's friends from Colombia came to join us for dinner. Both Mike and Katerine were in the mood for Peruvian food, and I had never tried it, so we decided to eat at a pretty nice looking Peruvian restaurant. They recommended that I try the Ají de Gallina, which is a specialty in Peru and incredibly delicious. Despite it's peculiar color, I was really glad I tried it!

Jeraldin and Jhosep.

Mike and Katerine at the restaurant.

Ají de Gallina

All in all in was a good day and a lot of fun. And I was especially happy since the Colombians complemented me on my Spanish! :)