Monday

Sunday we flew all afternoon and night.  The flights were pretty uneventful.  On the trip from Dallas to Santiago the woman in front of me leaned back all the way and was basically in my lap all night so I didn´t get much sleep.  From the plane windows we could see the sunrise and it was really pretty.  It was pink and purple and orange and you could see the Andes in the distance.  It took a really long time to get through immigration and customs but after about two hours or so we finally got to go outside and be in the 80 degree and sunny weather.

We took a bus to our hostel which is pretty nice.  There is a rooftop deck where we hang out a lot.  It is right downtown-only a few blocks from the main square.  After we got in and settled for a few minutes we went to this restaurant called the Clinic.  It had a lot of political art.  It is apparently based on an underground newspaper. 

After eating we went up the rooftop and sunned for a long time.  I got a nice burn on my stomach that is still here 4 days later.  Oops.

At night we went to the main square, and saw a performance from Santaigo a Mil.  It is too extravagant to even describe, it was like nothing I'd ever seen.  There were these gigantic costumes that looked like gumdrops on wheels and they turned out to be the bottoms of dresses and ladies came out and sang.  Then there was this heavy metal band that played on an apparatus where two guys flipped up and down.  There is really no point in trying to explain this because it clearly doesn't make any sense.  But basically it paraded through the streets and everyone followed it up to the presidential palace.

Overall Monday was a good day.  Very exhausting.