la bicicleta verde

Deephers in Chile!

Saturday July 18

Bike tour day! Myself and a few others were slightly nervous about riding a bike since it has legitimately been years since i've been on one. And it only made me a little less nervous when our tour guide said that for the MOST part we would be on small roads...only large roads sometimes...ha! Our tourguide was an American who found himself in Chile for the past year and a half after living in Moscow and not wanting to return home. He was from tennessee. His accent was strangely refreshing. Maybe it was just the english part of it.

Anyway, so all 20 something of us get on our bikes and put on our helmets and follow each other all around the city. it was so great. It was beautiful out and it was just so nice to get a sense of the city and see new things like Bella Artes, La Moneda from the other side, differt parks, etc. The coolest thing was the mural on the Gabriela Mistral cultural center that they are rebuilding. If you go left to right, this block long mural depicts Chilean regions and cultural icons from north to south. It was beautiful. I was totally in my happy place all afternoon. We even got some political and history lessons. AND ice cream!! Well, the ice cream was gross. but still! what a great deal. My butt is sore.

THEN we went to a korean/japanese restaurant in Bella Vista. There were 18 of us and they sat us right away...okay so that was promising...but the menu was totally in KOREAN and the spanish words for the korean food. luckily there is one girl on the trip who is fluent in korean, spanish, and english. How lucky were we? She literally had to translate the entire menu for all of us. It was a nightmare. I was being adventurous and ordered some octopus dish. it was spicy and delicious and flavorful. I am all about the food here in chile, but a lot of it is simple and no spices or flavor. this was such a delicious change of pace.