idk, my bff Diego Rivero?

Of course not my best friend, but one of the closest friends to Nobel prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda. Today our Wisconsin-Michigan group took a trip to one of his three homes near Santiago called La Chascona. Chascona is a word that means "uncombed" and refers to a woman with tousled hair. Neruda built this home in honor of his third wife, Matilde Urribe, and as you can see in the painting depicted of her, she had quite the mess of locks. That painting was indeed painted by Diego Rivera as a gift for Neruda and as we walked throughout the house we were able to see many of the things that were gifted to him by other famous artists, authors, and government officials. Not really a big deal or anything.
The house was built in 1953 and was designed by the poet himself and as we toured through we were able to see his secret passageways, his beautiful collections of dishes and other odds and ends, as well as see into the mind of the extraordinary poet. The tour was given in Spanish and it felt great to actually understand everything that the guide said! Slowly but surely our comprehension is improving each day! Another neat aspect about this house is that it was designed to resemble a boat; there are the round windows that are found on ships, the overlook shown in the picture is designed as the bow of the ship and inside the house there are a lot of little details that relate to water, ships or the sea.

After the tour we walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant called Como agua para chocolate, which is a nice restaurant in Barrio Bellavista. There were some great appetizers, delicious juices (pineapple, orange-banana) and the main entree and dessert were top-notch. One of the dishes they were offering today they brought out wrapped in tin foil and lit it on fire! It was pretty cool to see the waitress holding a flaming tray of fish and only minutes later be able to open it up and see the steam coming out. We left the restaurant all a little loopy from everything we just ate, but it was a great day spending time and laughing with the other students in our program.

Tomorrow is another wonderful Sunday and I will actually be here in Santiago! What a treat!

Here is a link to a video that I made recording our penguin adventures from Chiloé: enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwVSCjNGlP4

Until next time!