Equipo Williams

A few weeks ago, we were in Santiago. Santiago is the capital of Chile. It’s basically in the middle of Chile, latitude and longitude-wise. We were there for many reasons, mostly Omi and Granddad coming, but that’s another story for another blog post. We went to a Sheraton (not because we wanted nice, because we could get it with points for basically free). They made us park in front of the hotel because, as usual, Haruka Maru could not fit under the ceiling of the parking garage.

We wanted to eat as diversely as we could, because although Chilean food is wonderful, it’s all basically the same and we had been eating the basic meat, French fries, and bread for the past couple months. So, the first night we ate Thai food at a fairly hole-in-the-wall place with two tables outside. It was really good and they had way more options than some of the other fast food like places we saw. The second night we ate Indian food at a place called Rishtedar that we actually went back to after Omi and Granddad left. It was so good and they served all their food in little dishes over candle fires to keep everything warm. They also gave me and mama those sticker dots that you put on your forehead. The third night we went to a higher end Asian restaurant and got Japanese sushi, miso soup, Chinese tofu, and more Thai food.

We also went to many museums in Santiago. We went to Pre Columbian Art (my favorite), Natural History, and Fine Art. Pre Columbian art was in an enormous building that had very fancy ornate wall details. The first exhibit we went to had artifacts from indigenous Chilean people. We saw mummies and learned that the indigenous people here developed the art of mummification well before it became popular in Egypt. Here they took out the muscles and limbs of the dead, replaced them with sticks, and then wrapped them up. We saw enormous wooden statues that had very creepy upside-down-pyramid looking ponytails and decided to make one and randomly leave it in Rock Meadow to scare some unsuspecting  person on a morning walk. We also learned that some of the cultures here had Shamans who inhaled hallucinogenic dust and dreamt that they saw little men running around. My favorite thing that we saw were some conch shell necklaces.  Apparently the indigenous people went out in their boats to the Pacific and dove for the shells. The entire museum was super informative and very pretty and even I, well known museum-hater Audrey, enjoyed going there. 

The natural history museum was okay, but nothing was in English so it was a bit frustrating for everyone. There were replicas of a bunch of different Chilean animals and a room explaining the difference between Guanaco, Llama, Alpaca, and Vacuña, the four camelids of South America. The whole entrance hall, which was probably as big as two houses, was full of information about monkeys and monkey evolution and all of the different kinds of monkeys. I won’t go into much detail, but I will say that some of the taxidermied monkeys looked quite scary. The whole museum was great, but it would’ve been better if we could read the signs.

We went to the Fine art museum with Omi and Granddad once they came, mostly as a thing to do and a place to escape from the heat. It was really pretty and had quite extraordinary architecture, but I mostly just sat with Omi in the grand hall and admired all of the art and statues. I did look at some of the art with Mama, but had to leave because I hiccuped REALLY loudly and the employee gave me a dirty look. That museum was also great, but everyone was too tired to really appreciate it.

The last thing I will talk about that we did in Santiago was the metro. The Bip! Is the card you use to tap into the metro, which is the train line under Santiago. We rode it at least ten times and I loved it because it was really fun and I could finally reach the handholds that hang from the ceiling. I enjoyed tapping your card to get in, riding with the bit of wind blowing you cool, and taking the escalator back up into the busy real world. Anyways, our time in Santiago was a big success and everyone enjoyed it.