Come one, come all to the great gringo circus.

This is officially my last post from Chile. I definitely haven't been here long enough to be completely comfortable or fluent in Spanish but I am ready to get home to my family. I also cannot wait to be home for a white Christmas. It's hard to be in the Christmas mood in Chile when I spend half the day on the beach. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Tuesday morning, we arrived in Vina del Mar. Expecting to spend the next 4 days working on our tans, we were more than disappointed to find nothing but clouds. There was not even a small break to give us a sliver of hope that the weather would improve. Therefore, our first day was spent shopping in the markets and watching the weather with a hawk's eye. The forecast predicted sun on Wednesday so we were disappointed to wake up to clouds yet again. Instead of just sitting around, I went to the movies with my friends, Penni and Emily, and saw Harry Potter. Later, we met up with the group and shopped at a huge market. There, we saw a number of street performers including a clown, an organillero, and a chinchinero. The organillero is a typical Chilean street vendor who walks around with a music box and a cart of toys and trinkets to sell. Sometimes, he has a trained parrot or monkey with him as well. The chinchinero is also known as a one-man orchestra. He wears a drum on his back and cymbals on his feet. He also dances as he plays his instruments. Both the organillero and the chinchineros are pictured above.

Yesterday morning, we went on a tour of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, the neighboring city. Built on 42 different hills, the technicolor buildings of Valparaiso follow the curves of the land as it slopes into the Pacific Ocean. Since Valparaiso is constructed on the series of steep hills, there are a bunch of cable cars, known here as ascensores, that the people who live here use to get to their homes at the top of the hill. These things are little more than a rickety box pulled up a steep incline by a piece of fishing line. Nevertheless, they have been around for years and haven't broken yet. In Valparaiso, we also visited the house of the famous poet, Pablo Neruda. I had absolutely no idea we would see his home when the tour began yesterday morning. When I first arrived in Chile, my sister gave me a book of Pablo Neruda's poems to read. I have become captivated by his poetry. Needless to say, I was more than enthralled to be able to stand in the exact spots from where he drew his inspiration. Holy cow.

Later yesterday afternoon, the clouds finally broke for the first time. We grabbed our bathing suits and rushed to the beach. It wasn't exactly warm outside and the water wasn't exactly up to a reasonable swimming temperature but we didn't care. This was what we came here for. The beach was full of giant sand sculptures (pictured right). There was even a nativity scene. While on the beach, we somehow attracted a herd of stray dogs. No matter how much we yelled at them, they would not go away. Eventually, after all of our carrying on, everyone on the beach was staring at us and cracking up. Even when we picked up all our belongings and moved to a new spot, the dogs followed. Next time we make a spectacle of ourselves, we will have to charge admission. Come one, come all to the great gringo circus.