Santiago!

Today we went to Santiago and wow what a trip. Santiago was amazing it was such a beautiful city with huge monuments and detailed architecture. It reminded me a lot of New York city because of how big the streets were. However it looked a lot nicer and cleaner (besides the pollution). We visited the Santiago Stock Exchange and watched a brief video about the history and what are some key components involving the exchange. Our presenter was very nice and her English despite what she kept saying was good. We then took a tour down to the trading pit, which wasn’t busy at all. We learned that most brokers or people selling stocks don’t need to be in the pit because of how much technology is used. In our presentation we saw the evolution of how the stock exchange. It first started with chalkboards and a lot of commotion in the pit. Evolving to three round circles where traders still traded. Evolving to a broker sitting at another location with about eight computer screens conducting business sitting down. It is amazing to see how far our technology has come, through a global perspective. After our tour we walked through the streets and through one of the central plazas. One thing I noticed was that Santiago had many fountains, which were perfect for pictures. It was a little overwhelming the amount of people in Santiago compared to Viña and Valpo. It was also fun to see the street performers and how they could control a crowd. This was another thing I was used to seeing in New York.

Lunch we ate at a Central Market and had fresh Seafood. It was very delicious and we learned in our cultural lectures that seafood is distributed from Valpo directly to Santiago. We new it was probably the freshest seafood we would get. After that we took an incline up to the top of one of the mountains in Santiago. The view was amazing. You could see the entire city from the mountain. We were able to see the smog first hand by barely seeing the tops of the Andes. It was something very special. At the top of the mountain was a statue of the Virgin Mary and it only added to our spectacular view. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something as breathtaking as that in my life. I accomplished more shopping and then it was time to go. We rode the bus back home and I think we are going to go to a local bar with the Chilean students. A great day in Santaigo!