Yes, I'm alive: here's proof
I know I have been absent from blog for a little while. Brooks and I have been wandering around Santiago, going to museums, different restaurant destinations and trying not to let the smog get us down. Anyway, here are some pictures from some recent explorations. Below, you will see me sipping on some raspberry juice (jugo de frambuesa) and next to be is the national drink of chile: a pisco sour, which we have seen just about everywhere. It seems to genuinely be what they drink regularly. It's a little sweet for my taste. This lunch was at a place called Lomit's where locals go to get a barros luco which is a stake and cheese sandwich (and overflowing steak and cheese sandwich.) Brooks enjoyed it.
Yesterday, we went to the museum below La Moneda which we saw the other day. It is a museum of Chilean Cultural History. There is a large section on Chilean film history and then couple rooms that deal with mesoamerican art, which is interesting because it is from Mexico and Central America rather than Chile. The architecture is cool. It is below ground with opaque glass which allows light to get in from the plaza above. It is very much like the Louvre and the Museum of (Modern?) Art in Washington DC, where there is a very modern, stark atrium area below ground:
From that museum we headed over to the Mercado Central, which is next to Rio Mapocho. Inside is a seafood market that smells absolutley awful. But our guidebooks say you can't miss it for lunch. So, we first did a walk through of this incredibly busy market, with people yelling at us the whole time to come sit and eat in their respective restaurants.
In the end, we settled on our guide-recommended Donde Augusto where we ordered some very slimy looking things. And what I thought was crab cakes was actually crab-slop (crab pie? crab casserole). It was interesting. What was pretty cool was the view we got from the upper floor where they seated us. You can see the bustling inside of the market below:
From the Mercado, we headed to La Piojera (piojo means "louse" or "filth"), which is a local bar that was going to be destroyed before it was saved by protesters. So this is the nondescript entry door on a little side street near the Mercado Central:
You walk through a little, wet and back-ally type entry until you come to this small courtyard, then straight for the door of the bar:
Inside (I dont know if you can see it well) is a dirty little bar that is filled with locals. We looked somewhat ridiculous there. At each table it seemed that people had each already consumed 2 or 3 forties of beer. There was a small mariachi type band walking around serenading the tables and the locals.
We ordered some "classic" drinks that were recommended. One was the chicha, a type of Chilean cider. And the next: a terremoto. Terremoto is the word for earthquake. This drink (that I am sipping below) consists of some really, really low-grade wine (think grapes sitting in Grandpa's cellar for like 15 years and became wine on their own) and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was...intense. You couldn't drink it very fast.
We walked back from that part of the city to the Museo de Arte Precolombiano, which was basically more of what we had seen below La Moneda, except a more broad look at all the different groups of indigenous across Latin America. Before getting to the museum, we walked by the tribunales de justicia (courthouse). Look carefully: is it ironic that their justice building is seriously cracking?
And finally, the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art. They didn't allow photos inside, but here is a picture of me in the courtyard:
Today, we went to Las Condes, a more northern/western part of the city. We had lunch in a local pub and this afternoon we are going to some horseraces and then to a jazz club. Tomorrow we will probably go to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar and hopefully stay in a hotel next to the ocean which should yield some nice pictures since the sun is actually/finally out. And I finally wrote.
Yesterday, we went to the museum below La Moneda which we saw the other day. It is a museum of Chilean Cultural History. There is a large section on Chilean film history and then couple rooms that deal with mesoamerican art, which is interesting because it is from Mexico and Central America rather than Chile. The architecture is cool. It is below ground with opaque glass which allows light to get in from the plaza above. It is very much like the Louvre and the Museum of (Modern?) Art in Washington DC, where there is a very modern, stark atrium area below ground:
From that museum we headed over to the Mercado Central, which is next to Rio Mapocho. Inside is a seafood market that smells absolutley awful. But our guidebooks say you can't miss it for lunch. So, we first did a walk through of this incredibly busy market, with people yelling at us the whole time to come sit and eat in their respective restaurants.
In the end, we settled on our guide-recommended Donde Augusto where we ordered some very slimy looking things. And what I thought was crab cakes was actually crab-slop (crab pie? crab casserole). It was interesting. What was pretty cool was the view we got from the upper floor where they seated us. You can see the bustling inside of the market below:
From the Mercado, we headed to La Piojera (piojo means "louse" or "filth"), which is a local bar that was going to be destroyed before it was saved by protesters. So this is the nondescript entry door on a little side street near the Mercado Central:
You walk through a little, wet and back-ally type entry until you come to this small courtyard, then straight for the door of the bar:
Inside (I dont know if you can see it well) is a dirty little bar that is filled with locals. We looked somewhat ridiculous there. At each table it seemed that people had each already consumed 2 or 3 forties of beer. There was a small mariachi type band walking around serenading the tables and the locals.
We ordered some "classic" drinks that were recommended. One was the chicha, a type of Chilean cider. And the next: a terremoto. Terremoto is the word for earthquake. This drink (that I am sipping below) consists of some really, really low-grade wine (think grapes sitting in Grandpa's cellar for like 15 years and became wine on their own) and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was...intense. You couldn't drink it very fast.
We walked back from that part of the city to the Museo de Arte Precolombiano, which was basically more of what we had seen below La Moneda, except a more broad look at all the different groups of indigenous across Latin America. Before getting to the museum, we walked by the tribunales de justicia (courthouse). Look carefully: is it ironic that their justice building is seriously cracking?
And finally, the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art. They didn't allow photos inside, but here is a picture of me in the courtyard:
Today, we went to Las Condes, a more northern/western part of the city. We had lunch in a local pub and this afternoon we are going to some horseraces and then to a jazz club. Tomorrow we will probably go to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar and hopefully stay in a hotel next to the ocean which should yield some nice pictures since the sun is actually/finally out. And I finally wrote.
posted by Lauren at 12:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home