Santiago

This morning we took our first visit to the capital city of Santiago.  We attended a presentation at the Santiago Stock Exchange and then had a tour of the trading floor inside the building.  It was interesting to see all of the different Chilean markets and companies up on the screen.  After our tour at the Stock Exchange, we walked around the city and got to see La Moneda, which is the Chilean White House.  It was amazing how close were able to get to the building since the Chilean president was working inside.  There were plenty of guards surrounding the building to keep the president safe.  We continued our tour of the city by going inside the Cathedral of Santiago.  The altar, stained glass windows, and painted ceilings were spectacular to look at.  This cathedral was much different than the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh.  After walking through the Cathedral we continued our day by visiting the Museum of National History.  It was fun to see some of the important artifacts of Chilean history.  After the museum we went for lunch at a Chilean seafood market.  I had Chilean salmon con papas fritas and we also ordered calamari as an appetizer.  Once lunch was over we ended our visit in Santiago by going on another incline.  This incline was up the side a huge mountain and the views at the top were indescribable.  At the top of the incline there was a church and a giant statue of Mary overlooking the city.  These have great meaning to the large Catholic population in Chile and they were very cool to see.  We rode the incline back down to the bottom and then took a two hour bus ride back to the University for our Reggaeton dance class.  Reggaeton was very different than Salsa and I think it was even a little bit harder to dance.  Salsa is a more structured dance while Reggaeton is basically dancing crazy and having fun.  I was definitely more tired after dancing Reggaeton than I was after dancing Salsa.  Tomorrow we have our first company visit and I'm looking forward to being in a Chilean business environment.  We also have two lectures at the university so it's going to be a very long day.  I need sleep so I'm off for now.  Hasta luego!