Around Santiago

Inspired by my recent travels to Argentina- and the beautiful weather! Spring is here!- I've spent more time wandering around Santiago, and have been really delighted with what I have found!
On Saturday I finally made it across the river to La Vega Central, the big vegetable market. Chile grows some amazing produce (the geography and climate are a lot like California, and like our Central Valley there is a huge agricultural region down the middle of Chile). Unfortunately, I think they export most of their good stuff, because the fruit and vegetables you can get at the supermarkets here are... less than inspiring. But like any city, the market is the place to really go.
Obviously a very local outing, a lot of people were doing their weekend shopping and the place was really in full swing. With every color imaginable and a plethora of produce, it was heaven for me. I'm particularly a sucker for nicely arranged food- green lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, brussel sprouts, GIANT celery, red peppers and strawberries, pink potatoes, purple beets, yellow lemons, all in their neat pyramids, piles, or baskets. Then there were bags of dried fruits, buckets of homemade pickles, and no vegetable market would be complete without a case of chicken feet right?
I bought basil, cilantro, clementines, strawberries, zucchini, broccoli, eggplant, peppers, and some palta (avocados) for less than US$8!! I love vegetables!!!

My excitement carried on as I walked back home through Plaza de Armas, the main square that the Spanish colonizers built when they first arrived and set up Santiago as a city (I've been going on great walking tours of the city through my Spanish language school here and have been learning so much about the history of Chile and Santiago!). But because Independence Day is coming up here September 18, and this year marks the 200 year anniversary of independence, the city is really starting to buzz with excitement. The patriotism is actually really nice to see- there are flags everywhere, including on many taxis and buses. Even our lobby is decked out with red, white, and blue crepe paper! But anyways... back to Plaza de Armas. They happened to be having a competition for the cueca, the national dance. Tina, Morgan and I first learned about cueca in watching Martín Rivas, our favorite telanovela that takes place in the 1800's... but that's another story! It was fun to see a lot of the traditional outfits, and people of all ages were dancing.
After dropping off my groceries and recovering from all the excitement, I really couldn't waste the rest of my day inside and decided to go get some ice cream. This was clearly the best decision because a) the gelato like ice cream here is fantastic (raspberry mint with dark chocolate peppercorn? YUM) and b) on my way over, I saw a man with his llama in the street!! He was going into a convenience store on the corner, and decided to tie his llama to a tree. In downtown Santiago. My favorite part is imagining where they came from and how they got here... it wouldn't be out of the question that they walked along the side of the highway. Near our field station there are a lot of small farms, and people still plow their land with horses, and have horse carts to transport their produce. It blows my mind.

Sometimes I get caught up in the mundane details of life- reading papers, staring at spreadsheets, sending emails- that I forget to look around. And when I do, I'm constantly amazed.