"Had lunch in a rather old-fashioned resturant where, it would appear, mostly businessmen come. They seem to spèak Spanish funny here, and even my few words of Spanish weren´t doing me much good. I could hardly make out anything the waiter was saying. But we muddled through. I had the "menu nacional" lunch, which was a salad with hardboiled eggs, consume, a meat dish (I went for pollo, which turned out to be oven roasted), dessert (the only one I could understand was plantanos, which was served with some kind of sweet syrup), and coffee (espresso like). Quite tasty, and all for about $7.50.
"I´ve spent the afternoon wandering around. Valparaiso is not really a touristy town, but still quite interesting. A strange mix of San Francisco, Italy, and the French Quarter. Lots of old Victorian-style buildings, some in better shape than others, and painted funky colors. A fairly clean city, and (unlike many Latin America cities) virtually no beggars. I had a brief stroll up into one of the hillside neighborhoods, and I´ll check those out some more on Wednesday.
"It´s 5:30 here, just about sunset seeing as how it´s winter. Sunny and pleasantly cool this afternoon, very similar to San Luis Obispo winter, but will probably cool off quite a bit tonight. After a big lunch, I think I´m just going to have a snack and something to drink, then head back to the ship. Most of the students are heading up to Viña del Mar, Chile´s most well known beach resort about 10 miles or so north. That´s where all the nightlife is supposed to be. Many will come straggling back aboard just before their 2 a.m. curfew."
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