First Friday Off – Visit to Palacio de La Moneda, Parque O-Higgins

Palacio de La Moneda

Imani posing with the stalwart guard

Brittany looks excited to enter!

The Stanford crew meets with the tour leader

One of the many paintings that adorned the walls of La Moneda

Our first Friday and our first “day-off” (although frankly it feels more like a “week-off” already), we paid a visit to Palacio de la Moneda, or simply La Moneda, which is the seat of the President of Chile. It was originally a colonial mint where they manufactured coins from 1814-1929. Designed by Italian architect Joaquin Toesca, La Moneda officially became a presidential residence in 1845.

The main conference room

A model of a real cannon used during the military coup d'etat against

Socialist President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973

Model of the Palacio

Coins of all of the presidents of Chile except for Pinochet

Imani and Ariel with their new friend

The official chapel of the President

Brittany being silly before the Stanford alumnus arrives

Stanford students can spell C-H-I-L-E!

Left to right: Imani, Brittany, Eliza, Keryn, Ariel, Michael, Alex, me, and Lynsey

Stanford in Santiago Winter 2012

Stanford alumnus Claudio Seebach from the General Secretariat of the Government

We also got to meet with a Stanford alumnus, whose name I forgot. He gave us a speech and formally welcomed us to the Palace. We were all a bit tired of walking, so we decided instead to create the word “Chile” with our bodies.

Afterwards, we all went on the metro towards the stop Los Heroes so that we could transfer to the yellow line to Parque O-Higgins, which is where we would have our first encounter with Chilean students! I have to say, we were all excited to get to meet students our own age. We of course had more walking to do, but it was definitely worth it. The park was beautiful, and there were girls jumping in and out of sprinklers getting wet and crazy. It was a sight to behold.

We ended up meeting some Chilean students on the way to the BBQ spot, and we chatted for a while about things like university life and how much the fee is for private universities. It’s quite sad that most of the universities are private and thus very expensive, even though they hold the better quality education in comparison with public schools. It’s hard for students from low-income students to have access to higher education unless they have scholarships based on income.

Me trying out the ribbon activity

almost there...

Made it!

This crazy guy who can do it upside down.

Brittany exercising her muscles

Kevin too!

The food at the BBQ was amazing; we had different types of empanadas and hot dogs. It was definitely fun and entertaining, to say the least, to interact with the students. I remember I met a couple students, Alfredo and Thomas, who were both really cool and fun to talk with. Afterwards, there was this gymnastics ribbon game that some of the guys were doing. I became interested in trying it out, and it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. It takes a lot of strength to bring yourself up, and your hands are constantly clamping on for dear life. Turns out I did okay, and I got a pretty good picture of myself.

Visiting the Engineering Department Building in the University of Chile campus

Posing with the statue at the entrance of the building

Afterwards, the Chilean students offered to give us a tour of the University of Chile. The campus was really big, and it was brimming with students. I was a bit surprised because I expected there to be no students during the summer, but it turns out that many students need to take or retake classes during the summer in order to catch up on classes they missed out on because they were busy with protests during the school year.

Some Chilean students trailing us

I met another student, Diego, who turned out to be very skilled in guitar. This one guy, Ignacio, was noticeably friendly towards one of my friends, Brittney; it was very entertaining to watch them interact.

Brittany and Ignacio being silly

Me and Lemuel (right) and another Chilean friend whose name I forgot

Emily and Laura

Michael providing booty space for Ariel

Black Luv moment #2

The students showed us a little shop downstairs where they sold snacks and drinks. This was the first time I willingly bought carbonated water (agua con gas) since normally I think it tastes disgusting. Shout-out to Eliza, who is the matron of carbonated water and introduced its joys to me for the first time. However, when you’re dead thirsty and hot, carbonated water is God’s special gift to Robi Bucayu. We left for home soon afterwards to grab dinner with our host families, and some students were kind enough to accompany us to the metro.

Dinner today was mashed potatoes, sausage, eggs, tomatoes and banana!