Chile... Day 2

After a day of traveling, and trying to go to a birthday party Kelsey, Sarah, and I ... who I will now refer to as "the ninas"(little girls) were VERY tired!! I hate to admit it but we slept for 12 hours that night!! It was such a good sleep! Finally Lucia woke us up around 12:30ish and told us we were going to leave in about 45mins. Leo and her were going to see a futból game. They were going to drop us off in Vina del Mar so we could check out the city and the beach if we wanted.

First I should explain this... Vina del Mar is the main city... but the following citys are all connected such that you would not know when you were switching cities... from the north its like this. Concon (Leo lives here), Reñca (ren-ya-ka),Viña del Mar, and Valapariso (Val-par-ah-eee-so). Concon and Reña are more residential while Viña is more touristy with a lot of beaches, and Valapariso is touristy with a lot of commerce.

So at 1 we headed out of Concon and Leo and Lucia dropped us off in Viña del Mar... our goals for they day: Eat lunch, visit the beach and small fairs / markets along the beach, and hit up a Starbucks! After they dropped us off we headed down the main street along the beach in search of somewhere to eat.... WE FOUND PIZZA HUT!!! I WAS SOOOOOO EXCITED! :)

This was one of the first of MANY encounterments of feeling like true ninas. The Chile currancy is very confusing... everything costs OVER $1000! We tried to have leo explain it to us so it was easier for us to convert, but apparently we didnt get it....

Here is a picture of the menu... you can just barely make out the prices on it...


We settled on buying a pepperoni pizza and just like in the U.S. they were offering a deal.. mom would have been proud :) The promo was Buy one Large get on for free! We couldn't resist the thought of having Pizza Hut left overs!!




IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!

Untill we got the bill... :? I dont know if you can see it but the meal was about $14600!! AHHH!! Of course we had an approximation of what this meant, but we really were not QUITE sure...



As it turns out, in the niñas first encounter with Chilean Money we spent about $50 Argentine pesos or about $12-13 US dollars each... i Guess its doesn't seem that expensive but when you consider that we can usually spend $5 US dollars on a meal a day that was a BIT pricey... none the less it was GREAT FOOD! :)

....


If there is one thing in abundance in South America ... its STRAY DOGS!!! While Ill admit I do feel a bit sorry for them at times... i think they are disgusting.. :/ They are just dirty. We left Pizza Hut with a box and headed for the beach...


...the box of hot pizza OF COURSE Attracted a stray dog!! Ugh.. ! :) I tried to convince Kelsey and Sarah not to "lead it on" but they insisted on giving it food... Meanwhile the beach was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!!





I ended up taking a lot of pictures of the sea because there were TONS of ships in the "harbor?" I thought it looked like Pirates!!!! I think my best friend from home, "C", would have enjoyed it!

I've only been to California once, and from what I can remember the water was COLD then too... the water in CHILE WAS FREEZING AS WELL! :(



Sarah and I found out we both have sisters! Hers is Older and mine is younger, so we laughed A LOT talking about how when we were together we each seemed to play our respective sisterly roles...
In the above picture Sarah insited she take the picture just as the waves came in so it would "look cooler"... really i think she just did it so she could watch me get wet and yell because the water was soo cold!