Weekend in Valparaiso

We spent the first weekend my parents and Molly were here in Valparaiso. If you remember from a previous post, Valparaiso is the port town about two hours away with lots of painted houses and murals. When we first got there we went down to the port and took a guided boat tour. We were about to get in a private boat with a guy who had been hassling us until we realized he was completely ripping us off and the group tour was much cheaper. The guide spoke in Spanish and so my parents and Molly didn’t understand anything and kept asking me what he was saying but I was just enjoying the scenery and not really listening so I wasn’t much help. A picture from the boat...

The rest of the day we spent walking around in the hills with the painted houses and murals which I think are so cool and so we went back to some of the same places I had already been. Some more painted houses and mural pictures.
my mom walking down a painted street


The next day we went to Viña del Mar for the day to go to the beach. It was a beautiful day and Molly and I planned to go swimming in the water, even though we knew it would be freezing because that is what we do. We got to the beach and it turns out you are not allowed to swim, you can only wade. We heard there was a beach further down where you could swim so we started walking and realized that it was really far so we decided to just stick our feet in. Well the water was about a million times colder than we had expected and way to cold to swim (it was nice out but not that hot) and so I guess it was good we never found the swimming beach. We wandered down to the pier for lunch. Molly ordered a hamburguesa completa (a hamburger with everything on it which means mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, tomatoes, and avocado), and this is what comes…
Notice how it is significantly larger than her hand, it was probably about the size of four hamburgers and she didn’t even like it so only took about three bites of the whole thing.

The next day we went to the Open Sky Museum which is just another hill with lots of murals on houses but they were all painted as part of a project and are labeled and there are maps. These murals were all much more abstract and I didn’t like them as much though there were some that I liked and some fun houses.





And the family picture we kept meaning to take all weekend…

We came back to Santiago Sunday evening and my parents got on an overnight bus to go to the Lake District for the week. Molly wasn’t leaving until Monday night and so spent the night with me. The next day Molly and I wandered around Santiago. We went to see an exhibit of Spanish artists, Picasso, Miró and Goya. The exhibit was really good and the venue was also very cool. I forgot my camera so I don’t have any pictures but it is in this old train station that is now used for art shows and concerts. We also went and walked through the Palacio de la Moneda which is the presidential palace and is completely open to the public. Molly was only staying for a week because she had to get back to school and so I brought her to the airport Monday night to go home.