Santiago, California

City of Santiago
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Ok so I´ve been slacking.  But updating this blog is hard work.  We are now in Buenos Aires, but the last 9 days we were in Chile.  I´m joking with the title, because Santiago is a lot like California, except everyone speaks Spanish.  Oh, wait everyone in California speaks Spanish.

The first day we were there we took a city tour.  I recommend this in any city as the first thing you do so that way you get a lay of the land.  We learned that Santiago is the 2 most polluted city in the world.  And it shows.  Santiago is surrounded by the Andes which were not visible from the San Cristobol hill in the middle of the city, but really the mountains are right there.  While that took a toll on our lungs and allergies, the tour itself was pretty cool.  We rode a Funcular (sort of train elevator) and a "sky ride" over the park.  Then we were driven through the Hope Ranch (an area in Santa Barbara, CA) of Santiago.   Literally it even had the road La Cumbra (the road the California Rao´s live off of).

The Presidents House
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The next day we checked out more of the city and then went to the markets.  They have all these crazy markets: a fish market, several meat markets, produce, you name it, they sell it. This same day we toured La Chacona (which if I spelled it correctly means crazy hair).  La Chacona is Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda´s 2nd home.  He was a crazy poet and political figure and has these wacky homes.  La Chacona was named after his mistress and then 3rd wife, because of her crazy hair.  The house was modeled after a ship and has a bunch of funky stuff he collected like shoes (my kind of guy).

The Fish Market in Santiago
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What is funny about travelling is communication.  One day we decided to go to an Mall and check out a movie and have lunch.  So knowing my limited Spanish, we got 3 different answers for "are the movies in English?"  :Yes they are, Some are, and none are.  We we just rolled the dice and decided to go.  Luckily it worked out, but then you have funky things like they only have kettle corn, no popcorn with butter and salt.

We spent 2 days in wine country.  Toured 2 wineries and one liquoria. The Liquoria was cool.  At night you go to this hippy couples home, they have a unique home with a garden and candles lit every where.  Here they ferment every kind of fruit, plant and spice you can think of.  They give you a tour, in Spangish and then you taste a bunch of the liquors.  It was really cool I just sipped them, but Michael was taking shot because he didn´t want to be rude and leave some liquor, but later the woman told him he didn´t have to drink it like that.

The Markets
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We spent 2 nights in Vina del Mar which is a rich beach town 2 hours from Sanitago.  We ended up splurging one night at this 5 star hotel with a roof pool and view of the ocean, all for just $230.  Also I got 2 spa treatments for way less than one of the treatments at Camelback Inn.  I would compare this pla