Part 1: Valparaiso and Vina del Mar

This is part 1 of our vacation after the program! I'm going to let Jason do part 2 even though I really wanted to do it! :) So, of course the blog thing is being lame and these pics are quite out of order...for whatever reason I can't move them. Oh well. I will put little blurbs under all of them! :) So our first three days were spent in Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. I believe there is only one picture of Vina...the rest are Valparaiso!

So, in Valparaiso Jason and I went to Pablo Neruda's house. He's is a very famous Chilean writer and politician. His house was super cool with an awesome mix of things from all over the world. He had a map from the 1600's which showed California as an island. I really wanted the map! It was super cool. So, this is Jason on the balcony with the ocean in the background!
Here is Pablo Neruda's house from the outside! Such a funky house! It looks like a boat to me!
This is actually in Vina del Mar. It's about 10 min. from Valparaiso on a metro. Like we said, it was very rich and didn't really have that much to offer as far things to see. They had this flower clock though which was pretty cool.

Currently in Chile there is the election for the presidency...and senators, etc. Basically it's election year. Right now there are a hideous quantity of campaigning posters. There aren't many restrictions on where to put them and how many you can do so it's really out of hand. Well, maybe there are restrictions but they aren't enforced. So, we found this one in Vina del Mar on the side of a busy road. We decided to put our heads through. Everyone stared at us of course! haha.

So, this is BACK to Valparaiso. Look at this tiny house that they put on this insanely high foundation! That's the way they did it though in order to get all the houses up on the steep hills.
A mosaic pole in Valparaiso that we had some fun with! :)
I loved all the colorful houses everywhere in Valparaiso!
More colorful houses!!!

So, this is a funicular. These are used to get up the steep mountains to the houses! This one was particularly steep. This is looking down from the top. It's a little strange that people use these daily in their lives to get around.
This is the same funicular but looking up from the bottom before we went up.
So, in order to use the funiculars you have to pay and then walk through the little twirly bar things (like in the amusement parks)! They are so awkward to walk through...especially with a ton of stuff. Jason captured it well I'd say! haha
A tower in Valparaiso! We walked through a tunnel to get through to it and then went up an elevator to get to the top!

This is the view from the top of the same tower! :)
Another picture of the view from the tower.
This is the tunnel that I mentioned above that we walked through to get to the elevator that went up the tower. It was a cool tunnel and it was weird to think of that being a daily part of your life to get to your house! It's fun to see how other people in other countries live so differently!
A picture of the houses in Valparaiso and the staircases that go up (this is not steep at all). It's a bit marred by the power lines but it's a beautiful city none the less!
More colorful houses in Valparaiso!!!

It's a bit hard to tell but this cool, old house is literally on the cliff just hanging there!!!
We took another funicular to get up here to see this view! We watched cargo ships get loaded and unloaded! I thought it was super cool! I've never seen that before! Valparaiso is a big port and so there are always a ton of ships. I like this picture because of the colorful cargo containers. They look like Legos!
This is the same blue house a couple of pics up that I said was on the cliff. Now you can see it better in this one! It also has another funicular to go up! :)

So, that's all for part 1! Hope you enjoyed it! Stayed tuned for the Pucon part 2! Woohoo!!!