Cerro Santa Lucia

Last Saturday, we went sightseeing.  We started out the morning with a scavenger hunt, looking for really random things, like hydrogen peroxide and kleenex.  The tissues have been useful, though, because we all seem to be having sinus problems.  I was on a team with Kelly and Tanner and we had fun running around the city.

We had lunch in a plaza with sandwich shops around it.  Our shop had several counters in a tiny area, made worse by the fact that you ordered your meal at one counter and paid for it at another, then brought the stamped receipt back to the first counter to get your food.  My sandwich was really good - it had tomato, avocado, and queso fresco, a soft cheese a little like mozzarella.

After lunch, we went to an artists market at the base of Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the middle of Santiago with an old Spanish fort on the top and fountains at the bottom.  There was a lot of interesting stuff there and it was funny to see how much of it had come home with my grandma as souvenirs for me from her trips in the past.  Then we walked up the hill.  The view from the top was really pretty, but really smoggy, too.

The base of Cerro Santa Lucia

A fountain

Entrance of the fort higher on the hill

Going even higher

View of the city 

View of the city with a lovely haze over it due to the smog

After we got back, we planned to go to a nearby sushi place, but it hadn't opened when we got there.  We arrived about 30 minutes after they were supposed to have opened, which is later than even things here tend to be, so we figured they were closed on Saturdays and got Chinese instead.  It was pretty good, but one of the girls with us is vegetarian and her tofu stir fry had chicken in it.  On our way back, we discovered that the sushi place just opens much later than advertised.  Back at the hostel, we watched one of the worst movies ever, I Am Number Four, but mocking it was fun, so we got something out of it.

Sunday, I spent my whole day at or going to church.  A friend invited some of us to the church his father preaches at, so four of us went to that.  It started around 11, but didn't end until after 2.  Everyone there was really nice, and the sermon seemed okay from what I could understand, but it was very charismatic/pentecostal, so some of the people with me were a little uncomfortable during parts of the service.  Then we went back to the hostel for a quick lunch before going to a different church (the one we had going to the week before) with the whole group.  During church, it started to rain, so we ended up walking a little more than half a mile through the steady downpour.  It was a pain then, but the next day turned out to the clearest day we've seen so far since the rain got rid of some of the smog.  In my next post, I'll put pictures with before and afters of the rain, because it's a little gross to realize how bad the smog gets sometimes.