We spent a big chunk of Thursday walking around downtown in an area called Provedencia. We walked through Parque Balmaceda to start.
Puente Racamalac--there is a beautiful yulr mosaic on the steps of this bridge over the Mapocho river.
We stopped for a little at Santa Lucia. It's another park, but this one is on a steep hill with multiple buildings and fountains.
Fuente Neptuno--from the early 1900s. It's an impressive fountain.
Part of Castillo Hidalgo.
The pathways cut into the rock were crazy steep in some spots.
From up above, we could see a garden and a canon. We did a lot of climbing to get up to that view.
The view of the front of the castle.
Next, we walked to the government buildings.
This is La Moneda, which is basically the equivalent of the White House. There were guards out front and a fence all around the block, so we couldn't get close.
After all the walking, we were starving! The empenadas pino are muy delicioso! I think I could happily eat these every day.
And this is a berlin . There is a German population, especially in southern Chile. This was almuerzo, and we just found a bench in a park to eat. It's considered bad manners to eat while walking around, even though they sell many hand held foods from little stands.
From there, we grabbed a taxi to get back to the apartment so we could have a little while to rest before we headed out to the sector to visit a couple friends of Steve's.
Rodrigo was a teen when Steve knew him. His mother, who Steve calls mamita, fixed us "once", which is the typical light dinner--small sandwiches, tea or mate, and she made a lemon pie.
Rodrigo was incredibly kind, and we'll connected. He called up another man Steve had known and we walked over to his house for a bit, and he found the missionary from Livermore who we needed to connect with so we could deliver the care package his mom had sent.
My Spanish isn't great--I struggle to understand what anyone is saying besides Steve. I have to concentrate so hard, and then, I'm still 20-30 seconds behind any comprehension so the conversation has moved on by the time that I have an idea of what they are talking about, haha. So I didn't say a lot, but was able to pick up bits and pieces. It has made me understand why people tend to stay in communities of people from their own country when they immigrate. It's hard to feel connected to people if you can't have a natural, free conversation. Being able to talk about the weather and ask a few questions isn't the same as sharing jokes and ideas and thoughts. And it takes so much effort to do that in a non-native language. I'm sure it gets easier as you practice, but I can see why some people don't want to bother.
