buen dia

It was glorious outside today, which would have made even the most boring or crappy day great. And my day was not boring or crappy. I woke up late, around 11, showered, made myself some breakfast (this made me feel really great for some reason). Then Luz Maria, David and I went to la feria, which is this enormous open-air market where people are selling all kinds of food and toiletries and clothes and toys and basically whatever you can think of. The best part of is, by US standards, it's insanely cheap. Like, 200 pesos for a kilo of oranges. That's right, 2.5 pounds of oranges for around 40 cents. So cool. We walked around for a while and I took some nice pics of la feria con la cordillera atras (below), and Luz Maria bought lettuce and little tiny oranges and potatoes and tomatoes and a bunch of other stuff. La feria was really fun, chock-full of all kinds of people and all the vendors were shouting and there were a couple of guys walking up and down playing guitars and singing. I'll definitely be back with a luca to buy a ton of cheap produce (a luca is mil pesos, or a little less than 2 bucks).

We came back and ate a huge lunch of chicken and rice and fresh veggies and empanadas (not in that order) and then I cleaned up my room a little and called Izaak. We met up at 5 and took the metro into Santiago Centro, where we walked around the pedestrian streets near la Plaza de Armas (the oldest and most central plaza here). A friend of his from Wesleyan who also happens to be on his program met us after much confusion and we went in the Cathedral and then walked to la Moneda (the main historical government building that Pinochet bombed the living daylights out of during his coup--interesting conspiracy theory about American involvement in that, I'll elaborate sometime). She took us to an exhibit underneath la Moneda of Mesoamerican Precolombian art. It was really neat and some of the pieces were really staggering, particularly one of a conch shell. I wish I could have taken pictures. Anyhow then Izaak got nervous about his family worrying about him--oh Izaak--so I took the metro back with him (we have the same stop) came back here and ate dos completos (hot dogs with avocado, tomato and mayo--very popular here) and now I'm writing this. Gotta choose courses tonight, I'll post the lists as they narrow. Tomorrow there's a thing at the COPA office at 9 and then a cool-sounding seminar at PUC que se llama "Miremos al mundo desde Chile" (looking at the world from Chile). The aforementioned pics are below. The cordillera was a lot clearer today but doesn't photograph well from the city, apparently. It is stunning and you will get sick of me talking about it.