Chile Segundo

So, I´m in another internet cafe in Chile. Apparently, they are abundant here. (I guess they are in the states too, but I´ve never needed to use them) The one I am at is about 1/2-1 mile from my sisters place. She exchanges time on the computers here for time working with the owner on his english.

I´ve had tons of good food and drink since last I wrote. Much too much of it to comment on all of it. I´ll make it back to the food on a future post. For now, it´s about the other experiences.
We´ve pretty much been running around non-stop. We went to all three of the houses of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize winning poet from Chile. One of them had closed for the night, so we didn´t have a chance to ´tour´it. (All of his houses have been converted to museums per his request in his will) The houses were awesome in and of themselves. They also housed many interesting and amazing things. He was obsessed with ships, so there were women masthead figures from actual ships all over. Also rooms that were architected to seem as though you were actually on a ship. There was also original art from many famous artists. Among these was a painting of his third wife by Diego Rivera. My memory may be failing me (which it seems to do more and more so as the days go by), but I beleive that Diego and Frieda housed Neruda for awhile during the whole Allende, Pinochet "thing".

There´s so much more I´d like to write about the trips to the Neruda houses, but I only have so much time before this place closes. I should write when I have time when I get back, but of course I probably wont. Anyways, on to the next thing.

I went snowboarding in the Chilean Andes! Actually, there shouldn´t really be an exclamation point. I was pretty dissapointed with the conditions and the equiptment that I rented. However, the mountains were beautiful and I can imagine how incredible they must be after a good dump. (We went a couple days after just the second storm of the season) The trip up and back was pretty incredible though! haha It was filled with steep climbs and tons of switchbacks. You could look up or down the mountain and see 5 or 6 roads full of cars criss-crossing each section of the mountain. Pretty impressive both during the day and night.

We´ve also had the chance to visit a few museums. Pre-Columbian art, history of Santiago, and an exhibit from a Chilean artist by the last name Chavez (can´t remember the first). All pretty neat stuff, especially the art from Chavez. Look him up on the internet, because I don´t have enough time to describe his stuff in this post. In fact, I need to get going so I can try and sort some stuff out with the movers that will be moving me a couple days after I return!!!