This past weekend was a very busy weekend. It was my host sister's 13th birthday and my host grandparents' 55th anniversary, and I also got to meet up with my American cousin! It was a jam-family-packed three days. I spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday nights with various extended host family groups, went to mass for the renewing of the vows, and enjoyed several delicious meals (of course).
Then Sunday I took a bus to Chillán, a city about 3 hours north of Angol, to meet up with Jess. She has been backpacking through South America, and spent some time in Santiago so we thought it would be nice to meet up somewhere in between (and Chillán happened to be about halfway). That city is known for its beautiful ski slopes nearby, which I have heard are some of the best in Chile, but we didn't have time for skiing so we just thought we would walk around the city and catch up instead (we were only there for a day). We had picked out a cheap residencial (a scaled down hostel) I found online, and met up there Sunday night, but unfortunately it left much to be desired. The lady who ran it was very sweet though! She was more than happy to take our picture for us out front.
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this place was quite the experience... |
We couldn't find much open Sunday night, since it was an election day* and all places selling alcohol were closed (so, most restaurants). So we just grabbed a quick dinner at the only place we could find, and came back the next day to see the city center and stroll through the market and the shopping mall. It was actually a very nice market, with lots of little crafts and beautiful fruit stands outside. There was an indoor market as well, with your standard mountains of meat, but I have no pictures of those because I can't stand in front of those glass cases long enough for a photo...
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wish I had asked what these are! |
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and even after having been here four months, I still get excited when I see piles of perfect fruit like this |
We spent a while scoping out lunch options and ended up back at a little kitchen in the market where we had seen people eating delicious-looking bean soup. It was all we had dreamed of and more! And we happened to sit down at a table across from a guy who turned out to speak perfect English, which was a nice surprise. He was also kind enough to take our picture, with our beans.
After lunch we did a little shopping, including buying 3 kilos of apples, bananas, and oranges to divide between us. Then unfortunately we had to go our separate ways: Jess, back to Santiago to go skiing the next day and then on to Argentina, and me back to Angol and my students! But it was such a nice day to spend with a familiar face from home. Good luck with the rest of your trip, Jess! : )
*It was the presidential primary elections, and Bachelet (former president, center-left) and Longuiera (conservative) won the spots to run for the general election in November.
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