For at least the last few weeks I have been feeling like I am exactly where I should be. Things are happening all around me and the cycle of positive energy is twirling my body to the current, making me shake my hips and nod my head all day and most of the night!! I arrived to Santiago and picked a hostel out of the book that was in a cool neighborhood and seemed decent. Understatement of the century. The hostel is the coolest I have been to thus far with free pool table, tv/millions of movies, internet, foosball and rooftop patio. I immidiatly made friends who all told me that the thing to do is grab some beers from the Botilleria and hang on the roof...so of course that is what I did. Hostal Bellavista is located in the Bellavista barrio which is billed as the trendy, dare I say hipster, neighborhood. There is so much street art and every evening the main drag is filled with red chairs and loads of people eating completos (hotdogs) and drinking Escudo (local lager beer). My first night was somewhat mellow as we just chilled on the roof and had a few cold ones then retired around 3AM which is amazingly early for Chileanos.
The following morning I was up for the free breakfast then decided to march up the hill to the Virgin Mary for a view of the city, a little exercise and some conversation. I rolled with Paul aka North Paul (as there are two) from England. Super cool dude. Upon returning to the hostel I bumped into Ben (from New York but living in Barcelona) who was heading out to a few museums and of course I wanted to go! First museums for me on the trip and I was excited. The first was free and my favorite installation was photos of the street art which is pretty funny since you can basically get the same just walking down the streets. The second museum was more modern and my favorites there was a Warhol and another Warhol-esk. Then we stopped for lunch and headed up another smaller hill more in the center of the city. Needless to say, I was in desperate need of a siesta and easily fell asleep after half a page of my new book. I just traded for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and since I havent seen the movie I get to paint the picture in my head aside from Jack Nicholson who is the perfect character.
I woke up at the perfect moment as Ben was just heading out for dinner with two Finnish girls who are studying in Santiago. We were going for a nice meal which was the first for me. OH my goodness the salad was delicous and so was the wine and so was the conversation. Such a cool group of people at this hostel. Post dinner we grabbed some brews and went to the rooftop. There is a very colorful character at the hostel named Storm who is about 50 and drinks all day. He was wasted on White Russians and invited himself to the club with us. Right before we were about to leave he turned to our small circle and was about to say how drunk he was when he smashed his face down on the table....ay carumba!! Dude split his head open. Good thing North Paul is a doctor so he did what he could given the limited supplies and we headed out for a little dancing. Allen, a Bostonian that has been living in Santiago for a while was rolling with us too which made for a great posse. The first spot called Concepcíon had a hefty cover so we went to another spot but that had a cover too. As we were heading back to Concepcíon we ran into a street guy I had met both nights while grabbing beer and he was like ´no, just roll with me and I will get you in for free´...The cover dissappeared and so did we into the club. More reggaeton which I like but decided that I was going to take a break from it and find some other music the next days which turned out to be easier than I thought. The night ended with a small group on the roof, one playing a guitar and all laughing a lot. I got up the next morning and headed to Valpairiso. The plan was to do one day in Valpo then a day in Viña then back to Santiago for the weekend but that has all changed. Wait till you hear about Valpairiso.......One evening, one full day and so much done in Santiago.
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