Chile, Argentina, Uruguay

Having never been further south than Peru (with Kenya a close second), I decided that visiting Santiago and Buenos Aires had been on my list long enough and finally got tickets for a 9 day trip in March, 2016.

Tickets from the states to Chile and Argentina are not cheap, and I ran into the age old problem of friends wanting to go but not being able to actually solidify plans. BUT! My mom could go, and that was awesome because now that I live in Boston I see my family less and less. So with mamasita coming on this trip I could combine family with new, exotic experiences... which is kinda my thing. So my mom met me in the Santiago airport and we were good to go!

Santiago and I got along well right away. It is an extremely European style city, with efficient public transport and tons of parks.

The first park included a castle, so we were off to a good start as far as I was concerned. 

Santiago is well known for its cable cars (funiculares) that take you to the top of the city.

At the top of the cable car ride you get to a hill that is sometimes used for religious services, there is some colosseum seating made of rock benches that all have a  nice view of this statue.

It reminded me of Christ the Redeemer, and also how much I want to go to Brazil.

Mama and I looking over Santiago. It's always a bit foggy, which makes the beautiful mountains hard to see in pictures. 

At the base of the hill there are many adorable restaurants. This restaurant was called "Amapola," or in English "Poppy (flower)." The most recommended beer variety was Austral, from the Punta Arenas area of Chile. Don't forget, however, that all beer is gross and you should have Moscato instead. 

Downtown Chile has a lovely mix of colonial buildings, modern buildings, and palm trees.

The Chilean flag is often confused with the Texas flag, just remember that the Texas one has a blue area across both white and red stripes, whereas this one is only "half way."

I was extremely pleased with the number of red buildings. 

The Pre-Colombian Art Museum

Edificios rojos

Around dusk, you could start to clearly distinguish the mountains around the city.

Here's the exact flag that was flown when Chile successfully fought their last battle for independence from Spain in 1818.

Did you know that Santiago has the tallest building in Latin America? The Gran Torre has 60 floors.

I searched for ages for a spot that showed the gran torre, some of the city, and the mountains. 

A lizard crawling on Fort Lucia.

We took a bus tour and the guides gave us dulces.

A pic from a walk I took on our last day in Santiago.

From Santiago, we flew over the Andes mountains into Buenos Aires, Argentina - the land of open air impromptu tango performances by unreasonably sexy people. The best place to see tango (except for perhaps a random street corner, as it was in the old days) is in the Caminito (little walkway) neighborhood right by the water. This place reminded me of Montmartre in Paris - clearly a spot for bygone poor bohemian performers. Aside from tango, the neighborhood is known for its brightly colored buildings. No one, however, had warned me about the proliferation of strange puppet-statues peeking out of almost every window.

Pope Francis is awesome and also from Argentina, this is probably as close as I will ever get to him. 

Puppet people watch your every move. 

Again with the puppets. No warning.

A tango alley in Caminito

Venturing beyond Caminito, you'll find that central Buenos Aires, like Santiago, is extremely European. Large boulevards with grandiose statues run perpendicular to small streets that are tightly packed with tiny apartments, most of which have balconies.

I asked a local where I could go for a jog, and was immediately told about Bosques de Palermo, a huge park featuring ponds and gardens. I was somewhat wary when I was told that it was safe to go to the park late at night (this Boston girl has learned that lesson already), but found myself hankering for a jog around 9pm and sallied forth.

It might as well have been 2pm. There were hundreds of people in the park: roller blading, doing sit-ups in the grass, doing soccer drills, pushing baby strollers. As I got past my shock and jogged along, I thought about what a shame it is that many city-dwellers just give up the expectation of being able to visit a park at night and perpetuate the acceptance of criminal activities after dark. There's no reason to! Add this to my list entitled "Revelations Amanda swore to take up as a cause upon return to Boston and then remembered she's scared of crackheads."

A roundabout in BA

Street art: "The pretty women are the ones that fight."

 The one last thing I was dead set on visiting in Buenos Aires was the burying place of Evita Perrón, former first lady of Argentina who is so loved by all Argentinians that she is almost a religious figure. Mom and I decided that Eva (or as everyone hear lovingly refers to her, "Evita") enjoys a similar fame and cult following as Princess Diana of England, perhaps especially because she also died when she was quite young.

Eva is buried in La Recoleta ("tranquil, isolated place") cemetery. This place is really impressive. Sorry for all the Paris references, but it will definitely remind you of Père Lachaise, except la Recoleta's tombs are even MORE ornate. Some of the tombs have staircases in them and truly resemble little houses. Some of them resemble big houses. 

This one has an interesting story behind it, and a poem in Italian.

Rows of tombs looking startlingly similar to a city block. 

The Duarte tomb, where Eva is buried.

If you ask Argentinians what they do to relax and get away from city life, you will probably hear about Colonia del Sacramento at least once. This is a tiny town just across the Rio de la Plata (Silver River, which also explains why Argentina is named thusly... the periodic table abbreviation for silver is Ag, short for Argentum, Latin for silver), which means you are actually going to Uruguay!

We really liked this little town. We hired a guide that initially seemed shady but turned out to be great.

Had the best meal of the trip at this restaurant.

Street of sighs - once exclusively brothels catering to sailors who would come in on the river. 

I bet you wanna know why there was an old car there, but I don't know so you'll have to settle for this pic.

Awesome Uruguayan car held together by dirt on a lonely but verdant street in Colonia.

Lemonade with mint is big in Uruguay, I didn't require much convincing to gulp it down at every opportunity.

Coming back from Uruguay, we had one more night in Argentina. We decided to see a real, professional tango show, which was a really good idea. The show was almost like a circus and set in a gorgeous old building with tables arranged around a circular center stage. There are several spots in town that offer similar shows. We went to Señor Tango and were not disappointed. 

The bar inside Señor Tango

Whoa wait guys did one of the svelte señoritas escape from the show!??!?!

Homage to Evita on random buildings. People are obSESSED.

Our table for the show

Front row!

So if you are going to South America with limited time to explore, I suggest doing what we did. If we had had more time, I would definitely have visited Patagonia and the Atacama desert, and maybe tried to work my way into Brazil.

Note: next big trip on my list is New Zealand, aiming for January 2017. Wanna come?

I leave you with a tango video, this was in a random plaza and not in Caminito.

Rome and Sardinia

Though I've been to Italy several times, I had never been to Rome until Summer 2015. I had the perfect situation to visit, I was dating a Roman I met in Boston who needed to go home to visit family, so I tagged along. We stayed in Rome a few days, then went to Sardinia, then back to Rome before coming home.

It was amazing, mostly because we stayed at his place which was on Via Baccina. I should be used to such things after visiting Europe so frequently, but it still amazes me to be in an apartment that is within walking distance of Roman ruins. Here is the view from "our" street; that is quite literally the arch that people from all over Europe filtered through as they came to the city to do business, etc (you know, like "All roads lead to Rome" style).

It was a fantastic base to set off from to explore the city via moped. I had never been a passenger on a moped before but I knew I couldn't go to Rome and not ride one, especially since I had the once in a lifetime chance of riding with a native Italian who had been driving vespas since he was a kid. I was still terrified but I sucked it up, and it was as fabulous as you probably imagine!

Hey guys!

One day we were speeding along and took a quick stop on the moped, and this was sprawled out in front of us:

Rome, dahling.

I insisted on doing some touristy things, and I'm really glad I did, because there was this awesome "show" at the ruins that I loved. It's basically one of those things where you have headphones that tell pre-recorded stories in your language, and you sit in some stands and look at the ruins. As a narrator explains what each building was, projectors kick in and fill in the missing pieces to show you what everything looked like 2,000 years ago. I highly recommend this!

Projections fill in gaps where ruins have faded or crumbled, and add color.

Awesome history lesson

We also visited the Pantheon, which for some reason I always thought was on a remote hilltop somewhere. It's actually in the middle of the city. Edit: turns out I got it confused with the parthenon. 

From there we flew to the island of Sardinia (or Sardegna to spell it like the locals), off the west coast of Italy. It's your typical paradise-style beach. The exact town we visited was named Alghero.

Pin at Alghero

Beach at Alghero

The Italian and I aren't together anymore, but we're still friends, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't have had a better trip to Italy thanks to him!