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After the week of the conference, many people from the conference went to Valparaiso to vacation for a bit considering many were in Chile from other countries. ¨Paraiso¨ is spanish for paradise and i´d say that description is pretty accurate for Valparaiso. It´s a coastal city directly west of Santiago and where I´ll be studying until December. Connected to Valparaiso is another city called Viña del Mar. They are very close to each other and similarly sized cities. I´ll be living with a family in Viña del Mar while I study at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (The Catholic University of Valparaíso). I stayed
in a hostel with the local committee from Buenos Aires which was a lot of fun. Of course we had to go to the beach on Tuesday and enjoy the summer weather. Tons of Argentines (and Chileans for that matter) flock to Valparaiso/ Viña del Mar during the summer because of its nice beaches, so it was pretty crowded. I spent the evening with the group from Uruguay going to the supermarket and getting lost trying to find our way back to the house they were staying at. I found that MacDonalds is a popular late night snack for those in Viña del Mar. I ended up eating MacDonalds both of the first two nights after the conference only because that´s where everyone I knew was going and quite possibly it was the only thing open in the wee hours of the morning.
After the week of the conference, many people from the conference went to Valparaiso to vacation for a bit considering many were in Chile from other countries. ¨Paraiso¨ is spanish for paradise and i´d say that description is pretty accurate for Valparaiso. It´s a coastal city directly west of Santiago and where I´ll be studying until December. Connected to Valparaiso is another city called Viña del Mar. They are very close to each other and similarly sized cities. I´ll be living with a family in Viña del Mar while I study at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (The Catholic University of Valparaíso). I stayed
in a hostel with the local committee from Buenos Aires which was a lot of fun. Of course we had to go to the beach on Tuesday and enjoy the summer weather. Tons of Argentines (and Chileans for that matter) flock to Valparaiso/ Viña del Mar during the summer because of its nice beaches, so it was pretty crowded. I spent the evening with the group from Uruguay going to the supermarket and getting lost trying to find our way back to the house they were staying at. I found that MacDonalds is a popular late night snack for those in Viña del Mar. I ended up eating MacDonalds both of the first two nights after the conference only because that´s where everyone I knew was going and quite possibly it was the only thing open in the wee hours of the morning. On Tuesday, I checked out Valparaíso which is really nice city. The buildings are painted a wide array of colors while the limits of the city stretch up onto the surrounding mountains. A Chilean who had spent a while living in Germany approached me and started speaking to me in German. After he saw my confused look, he started talking in Spanish. I told him that I was in fact American not German and we talked for a bit. He had moved to Germany and married a German woman while he still owned a house here in Valparaiso, and he and his wife were on vacation. He was a really nice guy. After I told him that I was going uptown, he insisted that he give me a ride. After making my way back to the hostel, I went with the crew from Buenos Aires to the supermarket. We bought some salad makings, some hamburgers, and of course the salt (Lots of salt is a requirement of any Chilean meal; put on everything from meat to salad to sandwiches). I was quite surprised at the level of security in the supermarket. To enter, you must pass through a turnstyle with a security guard collecting all bags that could possible be used to steal food. And then another 8 or so guards were dispersed through the store keeping watch on all clients. All employees were dressed very professionally with all of the same uniforms. In the produce section, there was a person to weigh your produce and tag it with a barcode. There was a number of employees working in the meat section, another couple in the deli section, another in the flower section, one in the section of bread, and or course the cashiers and baggers. The bread in Chile is so much more delicious and cheap than at home which is really nice. For the night we all went to the club. We had dinner around 11, then went to a friend´s house, and then finally we went to the club around 2. It was pretty packed being that it was the summer but the music was quality. We danced the night away and didn´t leave until it closed down around 5am. We walked the long way back to the hostel, but it was a good night.
On Wednesday, after 4 or 5 hours of sleep, I joined the group from Buenos Aires as they went to Isla Negra (Black Island),
which is actually not an island at all. It is a city on the coast, south of Valparaíso. It was about an hour and half bus ride down until we came to the city. It´s generally a small coastal town. It´s known for being the home of Pablo Neruda for some time. He was a famous Chilean author who is world renowned. We visited his house which was full of things from ships, particularly the part of the ship that sticks out on front with many times the carvings of goddess women or something like that. He had those hanging up all around his house. Afterwards, we went over to the beach nearby to enjoy the afternoon. There were huge rock formations near the beach which made for nice climbing. The water crashing onto the rocks made for some spots where slipping into the water could be quite a bad situation. After traveling backing to Viña del Mar, I had to spend a night of rest instead of heading to the disco club.
which is actually not an island at all. It is a city on the coast, south of Valparaíso. It was about an hour and half bus ride down until we came to the city. It´s generally a small coastal town. It´s known for being the home of Pablo Neruda for some time. He was a famous Chilean author who is world renowned. We visited his house which was full of things from ships, particularly the part of the ship that sticks out on front with many times the carvings of goddess women or something like that. He had those hanging up all around his house. Afterwards, we went over to the beach nearby to enjoy the afternoon. There were huge rock formations near the beach which made for nice climbing. The water crashing onto the rocks made for some spots where slipping into the water could be quite a bad situation. After traveling backing to Viña del Mar, I had to spend a night of rest instead of heading to the disco club. 
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