Day 7 - Saturday

Saturday was our first of two free days. We woke up after 9 am, a good start. A group of us went to check out some of the museums in Vina in the morning. It turned out the museums were closed because of damage from the earthquake. While we were finding this out, we took a detour and walked around inside an old church. The church had some pretty bad damages inflicted from the earthquake. After we realized we couldn't go into the museums we went to a main street in Vina, Valparaiso St. and walked around. We stopped at a bakery to get some really yummy desserts, we did a lot of shopping at some artisan shops, and just explored the city. Lunch was at this cute little Italian place near some of the markets. (On a side note, a bunch of us on this trip have noticed that vegetables are not a staple in the Chilean diet. Meat and carbs are pretty much all we've eaten.) After lunch we went back to our hotel and got ready to go shop some more! We went down to the beach and shopped along the boardwalk. There were a few really cute shops there... and shopping is one of my weaknesses! After shopping Alexa and I played volleyball on the beach with a couple of Chileans that we met, Nico and Fifo. We played (myself in jeans, gym shoes, and a long sleeve shirt by the way) until the sun started to set. Dinner that night with the whole group at an Italian place near our hotel. The food was, as usual, delicious!