5/7/13

Today was a little bit rough waking up because I didn’t get much sleep the night before. So waking up at 7 was slightly unpleasant. The hour and a half bus ride into Santiago provided a very pleasant napping experience. Santiago is a much busier city than I thought with just as many stray dogs as Valparaiso. We first went to the Stock Exchange, which was very interesting to me. Surprisingly, the floor of the exchange was empty save one broker because most brokers now work electronically. Let me just say that I admire the people that do that for a living because a lot of what she was telling us was going right over my head. After the stock exchange, we ventured around the city, stopping to see a cathedral. Cathedrals always amaze me with their intricate structures and art. We went to a museum about the history of Chile. It was pretty cool looking at the art and things but it was hard to read because I don’t know any Spanish. I had to rely on the translations of others. The lunch we had was very good. I had swordfish with seafood sauce and French fries. The ketchup in Chile is different. After lunch we went to the Presidential Palace. We had to give our passports and got an official badge. It was awesome being able to be that close to where the president lived considering in the United States, we never would be able to even get close to Obama. After that, we went up an incline sort of vehicle to overlook all of Santiago. It was an amazing very and the city was enormous. There was lots of smog, however, which was something I had researched about before. Then we rode the bus back to our hotel and grabbed a quick empanada with mushrooms and cheese. Until tomorrow…