TBT: Helado, Valpo, y Más(po)

Hey friends!

{Full disclosure: I began this post two weeks ago, and never finished it. So I have lots to tell from the last two weeks, but that'll just have to come soon in another post! But the time specific phrasing is out of date, and I don't feel like changing it, so just bear in mind it's all actually about two weeks ago. :) }

It's only been a week since I last wrote, but man, there's already a lot to talk about! I'm thinking I'm going to do a whole separate food post, because there's just too much to say, so stay tuned for that.

I'll start with my Friday adventure. Fridays, I finish with classes at 11, and so I decided to take the day to finally do something fun in Santiago. It had come to my awareness that there is an icecream shop in Santiago which is rated one of the top 25 in the world by The Daily Meal - while I'm not sure what that means, exactly, I had my heart set on finding it and getting me some of that icecream. So after finishing our classes, some friends and I made our way over to Emporio La Rosa and got ourselves some icecream. It was definitely delicious, and the flavor selection is supreme. I sampled flavors such as rose, lemon mint basil, and mango passionfruit before deciding on frambuesa mente y chocolate araucano (raspberry mint and bitter chocolate), both of which were supreme. Rest assured, I will be making return trips to Emporio La Rosa.

After icecream, we made our way through a park to Museo Bellas Artes, one of the free public museums in Santiago. The museum currently has an exhibition of art done by Mexican artists, the only one of which I had heard of before (I'm not very educated when it comes to art, I admit) was Diego Rivera, who was the husband of Frida Kahlo. All in all, good people, good art, good icecream, good day!

El Museo Bellas Artes

El interior

"Maternidad" - Diego Rivera

Un barco

Upon getting home from the museum, I immediately packed up my things and headed off with my friend, Ellen, and her host family, toooooo.... Valparaiso! Valpo is a city along the coast of Chile, and is famous for its colorful buildings and murals/graffiti everywhere. We arrived late on Friday night, and then on Saturday, we spent the day exploring. We walked around the city, and made a trip with Ellen's host mom to Viña del Mar, another beautiful seaside town. As we walked around Valpo, we came to one walkway with a slide going down it to the lower platform! There are also ascensores all around the city, which are basically elevators which move down an incline rather than vertically.

Valpo from close to our house!

One mural of many

The Little Prince

Later that day, we walked around some more and went to a palace which had been turned into an art museum. It was a beautiful building, and interesting, but far MORE interesting was our visit to Pablo Neruda's Valpo house, La Sebastiana. It's a beautiful house, and full of interesting artifacts that Neruda collected from all over the world. Neruda, in addition to being an incredible poet and an international liaison for Chile, was a pretty quirky person, and the inside of his house reflected that. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, unfortunately, but the view from the house was incredible - you could look out over the entire city, the port, and the ocean. 

Found a portrait of myself as a child at the art museum #thathaircuttho

 

Valpo at night

 

Mango chocolate cake for breakfast, mmmm

 

View from Neruda's bedroom... can I live here?

 

Empanada of the day: cheese, tomatoes, pineapple, fried dough

 

Mango juice + scenic overlooik

 

This really doesn't do it justice, but we saw the most AMAZING sunset on the drive home

 All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, and it was followed by several more! Stay tuned for more of my extremely belated blog posts, friends. Hope those of you in snowy regions are weathering the storms with few problems!