Day 1 - Touring Santiago

Buenas noches!  After the orientation and lunch, we had a very interesting tour of the city of Santiago.  Here are a few random facts that we found out on this tour:

1. The name Santiago means St. James
2. The population in Santiago is 6 million - in Chile as a whole 16 million
3. The oldest church in Santiago is the San Francisco Church which was finished in 1618 - two years before the pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower.  It is also the oldest building in Santiago.
4. The Government Palace is called La Moneda (The Mint) which is what it was originally used for.  It was built in 1805.  It is now the Chilean equivalent to our White House, however it doesn't house the head of state.  The President is "homeless".  The Chilean government doesn't provide housing for the head of state so they choose where they live. 
5. The inflation rate in Chile for this year is NEGATIVE 0.1%.

Our first stop was the Plaza de la Constitucion where La Moneda was.  Our guide, Gustavo, told us many interesting things about this city and country including what the three colors in the Chilean flag stand for - he said that it was based on the French concept of liberte, egalite, and fraternite (apologies for misspellings).  Surrounding this main plaza are many government buildings including the one housing the Ministerio de Hacienda where we will be tomorrow morning. 

Following that we saw the Chilean stock exchange as well as strolling along the Alemeda and the Paseo Ahumada. 

We spent significant time at the Plaza de Armas - the city's historic center and what is said to be the actual center of the city.  The first corner of the plaza brought us to this very interesting statue in honor of native americans.  We understand that this caused no little controversy when it was erected.  You can see the entire group in this picture.  We also saw the statue of Santiago's founder Pero de Valdivia - pictured, of course, on a horse. 

We then got back on the bus for a ride to our next stop.  We were lucky to wait for the bus next to this fountain - that water felt so nice!  A sign in the bus said the outside temperature was 30 degrees celsius!  That is 86 Farenheit for the rest of us!  What made this all the more amazing was the snow that we could see capping the mountains.  It was also quite striking to notice that many, many of the apartment balconies had an abundance of folliage growing on and from them.  It seems as though the owners had created their own abundant outdoor space. 

Following this we went to the Centro Artisanal de Los Dominicos which was a very quaint shopping areas of small shops.  This was were we got our first sight of goods made from lapuz lazuli - a beautiful blue stone that is only found in Chile and Afghanistan.  Lapaz is used to make all kids of goods from jewelery to letter openers, to the seemingly upbiquitious penguins.  The water is very cold along most of the Chilean coast and penguins are often found further north than you might expect. 

Thus concluded our tour of Santiago.  We went back to the hotel and went our separate ways.  Many went to the Patio Bellavista.  This was a charming "town square" area with a number of restaurants and shops.  One of the most fun, and tempting, was the crepe stand where we treated ourselves to crepes with fruit and chocolate or fruit and dulce de leche.  What a great way to start a meal!