May 6: The March of the Strays

Today we woke up bright and early to travel to La Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, our host university.   We readied ourselves to take the public bus to the university, which was comparable to being a bean inside a maraca.  Once at the university, we stood in awe at the front façade of the university, which I have conveniently taken a picture of for you:

Next, two students gave us a tour of the campus.  We climbed the hill to the main building, and experienced its beautiful Neo-gothic architecture and stained glass windows.  We were amazed to see the university’s outdoor pool in the midst of a grassy courtyard.  The facilities management had made an admirable effort to keep the campus green by planting various species of flowers and trees around the area.  We then were shown two workrooms where students learn to use various machines and program robotic arms.  It was interesting to learn how Chilean students’ lives are similar and different to ours.  Chilean students live at home or in apartments mostly because there are no dorms on campus.  

Also they seem to like the Simpson's:

Finally, we were taken to a lecture hall.

In the lecture hall Jaime, a business and economics professor from the university, greeted us.  He lectured us for about 3 hours about economics in Latin American and Chile specifically.  We learned about Chilean exports, relations with other  Latin American countries, and discussed somewhat the roles of the companies we are going to visit in the Chilean economy. 

After lecture, we had another unique experience: university lunch.  Unlike at Pitt, the USM does not have a variety of lunch options.  All of the students receive the same meal sometime between 1 and 2 in the afternoon.  We were unlucky, according to our guides, in that today was the worst meal of the week.  We received each received an unfortunately tough slab of meat, a small salad, and a piece of bread.  I look forward to more rousing meals at USM in the future.

After we finished our university adventure, we were handed to 2 other Chilean students, Tomas and Rudolpho.  They were charged with guiding us around the city of Valparaiso.  We first toured the main part of the city, visiting the central plaza, La Armada, and the port.  We visited La Sebastiana, the house of Pablo Neruda in Valparaiso.  We also visited a lookout with statues of various Chilean heroes.  Here are some pictures:

  We traveled through a part of the city called the Open Sky Museum, in which the buildings were adorned with artwork from local artists.  On our journey we assembled quite a following of stray dogs.  Later on, we would realize that they liked us because we were tourists and expected us to give them attention.  Here are some pictures of the artwork:

 Afterwards, we took an incline up the hill to see an amazing view of the city:

Ultimately, our day was long and arduous, yet we managed to pull through and had many amazing experiences along the way.  I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!