Out of the big city....

I just woke up from a wonderful nap at my new host family's house in Curicó. We traveled here by train today (2 hour ride) and got scooped up and taken to our new abodes where we will remain for 4 nights (until Thursday). Melinda, my teammate and I, are staying at the same house with Jimena (yes, another Jimena!) Adrian and their son Adrian, but we both have our own room. The house is beautiful and sooo quiet with a huge back yard, complete with pool and 2 doggies! Definitely a breath of fresh air after 11 days in the noisy city of Santiago.

To catch you up on the last few days, I'll share some pictures.
On Thursday our group spent the day in the town of San Bernardo, which is about 25 minutes outside of Santiago. In this picture, we are standing outside of a snail-breeding greenhouse. One of the San Bernardo Rotarians, Clara, recently started a pilot project which allows mentally handicapped people to raise snails (that is what she does professionally). Who knew that raising snails was such an interesting and lucrative business?! She exports her snails to distributors to sell as escargot to restaurants and also sells snail "spit" to laboratories who sell it to cosmetic companies to put into creams and make up.

In San Bernardo we also visited the town hall and met the mayor and saw their modern cathedral. After eating lunch at the Rotary club and doing a brief presentation there, we visted a winery that is run by the army (could you imagine that happening in the states?!). Everthing there was done the old fashioned way...by hand! We got a kick out of the whole process and enjoyed our wine tasting. We headed back to Santiago in the evening.

On Friday we spent a wonderful day at the beach in Viña del Mar and Valparaiso, which are two beach towns that have grown together into a metropolis of about 1 million people. It was beautiful! We walked on the beach in Viña and then headed to Valpo for the afternoon. We rode up to the top of the city (similar feel to San Francisco) on a furnicular to see the beautiful views of the city and enjoyed a Pizco Sour at the top and a little bit of shopping before heading to lunch at a wonderful seafood restaurant. After lunch, we visited the Congress, where the national legistalture meets and had a very informative tour. We headed back to Santiago that evening after sunset, exhausted and ready for a good night's sleep.

On Saturday, I spent the morning reading and journaling and in the afternoon our group presented at the Rotary District Conference. Our presentation went really well! After that, we celebrated with a "completo" sandwich in downtown Santiago. Then Jimena and I went shopping before meeting up with Javier and Mike and his family for dinner at Tip y Tap. It was a wonderful last day in Santiago.

It was kind of sad to leave the city this morning, though being in the countryside feels like ahhhhhhhhhhhh.
Shortly we are headed to a BBQ with the rest of out group. I hope to be better at blogging this week!