Chile, Day 2

Well, we started with breakfast, as any sensible traveler does. We discovered that the coffee in Chile is not nearly as strong as the coffee in Brasil, so we had to live with weak coffee all week. We also found the wonderful delicacy of pan chileno (Chilean bread) that melts in your mouth. I could have eaten it for every meal!
We took a city tour around Santiago. We drove by several historic landmarks, and I understood little of our guide’s “Portanhol” (that would be Portuguese mixed with Spanish). We went into a coffee bar (around Santiago some of them are called “café con pernas” which means “coffee with legs”) and were a little shocked at what we found inside. It definitely was not a place for ladies -- there wasn’t even a women’s bathroom! There was one man in our tour group who insisted on talking politics with our guide. We got to see the Chilean army marching in a park, and the man made some very obnoxious comments about how the army was a job for people who couldn’t find any other job. That was just the beginning, but our tour guide finally gave him what for with a 5-point speech. The rest of our group was eternally grateful.
At the end of the tour, they dropped us off at the mall, where Amy and I got some great shopping done. I was very surprised at the number of American (and worldwide) brand names that were in stores. We had walked around the mall for a good while and lo and behold, there was a Starbucks! We don’t have Starbucks here in Brasil, and so it was a great taste of home for us.
After we left the mall, we took a metrobus to the metro station. It was amazing that we could get on a bus (we weren’t really sure where it was going but it said metro on it), get to the metro station safely, and get on the metro and get home, all without worrying about where we were or whether our purses would get stolen.
For dinner, we went to a fun little restaurant called “Aqui Esta Coco.” It’s apparently really popular and we should have made reservations. We showed up at 8pm (Chileans eat late) and they had a table left in the wine cellar. Apparently that’s where they put the tourists. We didn’t mind, though. I had a wonderful dinner -- a swordfish steak marinated in black butter with capers. Mmmmm! When we were finishing our meals, the man at the next table asked if he and his friend could come to sit with us (because they were in the corner and it was apparently cold and drafty). The man was from Belgium, and his friend was Russian-Italian and lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We didn’t mind a bit, and we stayed and talked with them while they ate. We got into some very interesting discussions and thoroughly enjoyed exchanging ideas with people from other parts of the world.