Early Bird Gets the Worm

Another week in Santiago...another weekend trip to plan. We were thinking of flying to Buenos Aires and Paige found $150 flight on Pluna for the weekend. We would be flying into AEP so we wouldnt even have to pay the $134 recipriocity fee. Super sweet deal. What did we do? We wait to book it at lunch and the flight was back up to $850. YIKES! Lesson learned. Must act quickly! So we decided to stay in and around Santiago this weekend to explore some more and see the presidential election on Sunday.


We went to Luke Soy Tu Padre briefly on Friday night before heading to Subterraneo, a club. I was SUPER excited to go to Luke Soy Tu Padre, a bar that I walked by every morning and afternoon going and leaving my spanish class. With a name like that, I expected a Luke Skywalker or Star Wars shrine inside the bar. Alas, no. Most disappointed!! Its completely normal inside. So we went to Subterraneo, a popular club. It was happy hour (uh...happy hour until 1am!??! can we get that instituted in the states?!?!) so it was buy 2 drinks for the price of 1. I ordered gin con gin and it was more like gin con gin con gin con gin con more gin... It was basically half a glass of gin with a tiny little can of ginger ale. Alas...it was enough to power me through on the dance floor until 4am. Yes, the girl who sneaks out of bars to go home at 12:30, 1am stayed out until 4 am. Miracles do happen.




My hangover cure the next day was to visit a winery, Concha y Toro (most of us wine drinkers in the states would be familiar with their Casillero del Diablo brand). Paige's classmate Joel, who was out with us last night, had volunteered to accompany us and drive us out there. It is about 1.5hr outside of Santiago which we could have reached by metro and taxi but Joel made things a lot easier for us :) Not to mention we got to see the pretty countryside. The winery is huge and really pretty!! Our guide who Paige thought was cute, I thought was slightly serial killer-ish. He didnt smile much and was very intense (in hindsight, I think he was probably just tired). It was especially creepy for me when they dimmed the light in the 160 plus year old cellar to tell the story of how Casillero del Diablo came about. Luckily, I made it out alive to taste some of their wine that isn't sold in the states (a total shame!!!).




Today is the presidential election day. In Chile, if you register to vote and you don't vote, you get in big trouble. Interesting tactic. While in search of dinner, (Almost EVERYTHING was closed today b/c of the presidential election) we stumble upon Pinera's campaign headquarter at the Crown Plaza Hotel. Pinera is the candidate who won today. It was maddness!! People running around waving flags (Chilean and Pinera), throwing confettis, and shuting chants of "Pinera! Pinera!". Cars driving by waving flags and HONKING non-stop. Can someone explain to me the purpose of honking non-stop to show your support?!? Is that really necessary?!?

I think I am going to have to find my ear plugs to sleep tonight. Wish me luck. Sigh.