Walking tour 2

19 Julio
Fuimos a (we went to)
- Pablo Neruda's house La Sebastiana. Neruda was an awesome dude. I officially love every single one of his houses. This one had a great view of the beach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda
- walking tour of the street art
- had a traditional dish AKA huge fat lunch. It consisted of french fries, egg, onion and a huge I MEAN HUGE pile of meat. This was a beast. I ate way too much of it. But hey, it's a cultural experience right? It was in this amazing cool resturant with nick nacks all around the room and people wrote on every possible surface. I am pretty sure they only surved the fry dish too. The place is J Cruz and was in Valpo (cool website below)
http://www.jcruz.cl/

- bought my ticket to Peru after extensive deliberation
- went to class around 6:30 then the sniffles came into play, full force. In class we learned more about the chilean education system. This link talks about it more extensively http://www.mineduc.cl/
-was miserable and had to take a cold shower when I got home. Needless to say, my cold is sticking around :(

Hoy necesito descansar. Today I need to rest. Class this morning was interesting but yesterday was a very long day.

Hoy y ayer: Un foro Education forum y walking tour

Ayer: Yesterday: cloudy for the most part then it cleared up in the evening

Yo, Martha, Dana Lyn, Katie y nuestros profe went to a education forum they were having at the Maritime Museum.  It started at nine and our professor picked us all up in his car and drove us there.  It is on the top of a hill and at times it was a little scary to be a passenger in his car.  But we arrived safe and sound.  I was so thankful he drove us too because it would have been pretty difficult to find.  The forum was completely in Spanish but very luxurious.  It was in the center plaza area of the museum and it served cafe/te (tea and coffee) with cookies then a lovely lunch with wine and juice.  There was also ceviche with salmon that was SO YUM.  The presentations were pretty easy to understand. Some of them were a little boring. It was kind of interesting because it was a ton of scholastic 'good ole boys' who at times seemed very pompous.  For the most part they were all very liberal as well, but I think that happens in academia.  Our teacher was just cracking us up the whole time.  He is so blunt.  He talked about how when he was a young man and started getting recognized he was so arrogant as a result of the attention from his work.  It was also weird to think that all of these older Chilean men have lived through a coup and then a dictatorship where most of them fled.

There were presentations then they all sat at a table and discussed subjects. That was a bit more boring because some of them dragged on and held the floor. Even the men were bored. Passing notes etc. Playing with they eyes glasses.

Martin Carnoy, from Stanford, spoke with us quite a bit. Mostly because he spoke English.  He was an interesting man, but like the others really enjoyed to hold the floor. He is very knowledgeable about education and technology.   After all the presentations we went to look around and got to see the sunset on Valpo.  It was so beautiful.  There were some artisans selling things by the lookout.  It was overall a great day.

Then that evening I went over to Katies house and met her parents chilenos and watched the thunder game.  Her house is very lively with a bunch of kids (our age mostly).  It was fun to meet them all.

Hoy: cloudy all day then rained in the early afternoon to night
We went on the walking tour and got to see all the street art and took a gondola (the acensador) elevators to the top and bottom of the hill it was a blast.

Also, I think it rains 50%+ of the time here

boy on the train spoke spanish