It's not even an Island

I know just yesterday I posted a man sized post, but I've got some time, so I figured I would let the stories continue flowing from my brain to my fingertips.

It has actually been 2, count them, 2 weeks time since the happenings I wrote about in yesterday's post. Since then much has happened, and much has changed. (Did anyone get the Obama reference?) Actually that happened before my last post, so I'll write about it anyway...

Inauguration day all the gringos went to 'the american bar' it's called 'Basic Bar', and it's situated in a central location that is more or less pretty difficult for all the USAC students to get to. It's run by an old USAC alumni from Reno, I guess. It's an OK place, nothing too special, except for the whole English language thing.

Here's some Reno guys, some of you may recognize them, Will and Max.
I miss you Sierra Nevada, there is NO pale ale down here. Also take note of Frances in the bottom right mirror. Hi Frances!!
Americans
Bret, Jaron, and myself


After the inauguration party, those of us that (thought we) lived close together took the bus. We ended up missing our stop by 5 or so blocks, getting a bit lost, and finally finding fascination in a very large door at the entrance of Rebecca's host family's apartment building.

About 2 hours after leaving the bar, I found myself finally in my bed. All in all it was an interesting night.

The weekend after our trip to Lonquimay I spent the weekend more or less in Santiago, It's been my first weekend in the city. Friday we all went to Pomaire and 'La Isla Negra' with the USAC program, and our director Luis.

Pomaire is a small town outside of Santiago known for their pottery especially that used to cook the traditional dish of 'Pastel de choclo' which is definitely delicious. They are also known to have resturants that serve 1kilo empenadas. That's 2.2 lbs of empenadas. I took this as a challenge.
And boy did I win, I ate the whole thing, the best part was I wasn't hungry all day after that.
This is Pomaire, it's a beautiful town with tons (literally) of pottery.
The next destination was 'La Isla Negra', a town on the coast, famous for the house of Pablo Neruda, one of Chile's and South America's most famous and well know poets. He's pretty good, he had 3 houses in Chile, Valpariso, Isla Negra, and Santiago. He also has one in France, but I dobut I'll get there on this trip. Here's his house in 'La Isla Negra'
Now, this town (La Isla Negra) translated means 'The Black Island" isn't even an island at all, it's just next to the ocean. It used to be called 'Seagull', but Pablo Neruda is such a cool guy that he re-named the town La Isla Negra.
Here's me hanging out with Pablo himself:
He wasn't actually that tall in real life, he was a short dude, otherwise he would have died from back pain from living in the houses he had.
A bunch of USAC folks hanging out just outside the house of Pablo Neruda, just above his final resting place.


What does this sign mean?
This is a famous metal sculpture outside of the Neruda's house.

This one of his bars that he had in his house, the guy knew how to party.He loved boats, and collected boat stuff, thus the masthead in the previous photo, he also had a room that was filled with them. Outside he had this structure, next to his boat that he never sailed.
He was burried at his favorite house with his favorite wife.


After the bus took us back to Santiago, I rode the bike home, and it was Mike's birthday. We celebrated in a fashion that made me feel a lot like I was at home.

We had some beers in a park. Illegal -I don't know, Fun - yes, Cheap - yes.
That's the birthday boy on the left there, Hi Mike, Happy birthday.

The rest of the weekend will come in a later post due to it's large quantity of awesomeness, copyright infringement, and nudity.