Greetings from Santiago! Getting here takes FOREVER, but if you must travel, take LAN airlines. It takes 13 hours from LA (with one interminable stop in Lima), but they treat you right. We got 3 hot meals, free wine, a pillow, blanket, eye shade, ear plugs and an enormous selection of movies and TV shows on a small screen on the seat back in front of you. (key for a shorty like me - if it comes out of the ceiling, half the time I can't see it). Watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and St. Vincent. The first was weird in a Darjeeling Limited kind of way. For a movie set in the 30s with Adrian Brody playing a character named Dimitri, I just don't get an American accent. St. Vincent was wonderful Bill Murray should have gotten an acaemy award. Also read All The Light We Cannot See - beautiful book.
Santiago is a big city - 7 mllion people in a country of 17 million. It's pretty smoggy and the buildings all look like they were built in the 60s or more recently. It wasn't until we started walking around that we saw some older ones, and then only from the late 1800s. Apparently the earthquakes here are a form of urban renewal. RIght now it is the end of summer, so it is hot, sunny and very dry. Our guide drove us around and we did a little walking. They have a fish market that would put Pike Place to shame. We did buy some lapis lazuli which this area is famous for. Then back to the hotel room, a shower and a nap!
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