Thursday, January 20,2011 Valparasio Chile

Today was an in-transit day.  People were leaving the ship and others coming on. We are still on Yeah!  So they had a tour for us to go to Santiago.  It was a full day tour and I am exhausted.  we are thinking room service tonight we will see.  Anyway it was 1 1/2 hours to Santiago from the Port in Valparasio.  The city reminded me of New York with all the traffic except it is prettier (sorry judy) but they have trees on all most all the streets and lots of parks, kind of looks like Brooklyn but a big city. They have sections just like NY we went down a couple of blocks and all the car part stores where then then we went down and all the lighting stores were there.  The traffic is all over and to make it even more special they had  a parade for us.  Well it was for the President of Peru and of course streets were closed! but we went to the famous race track where they had hordurves (Shrimp) and wine and walked around there.  Then we went back to town to go to the town square by then the president of Peru was gone and we were able to get out and walk around the square and see the Cathedral.  After this we went for lunch all the way on top of a mountain overlooking the city.  This lunch was not my favorite of all the tours we have been on.  They started with A Pico Sour not my cocktail of choice really sour.  Then they poured white wine yuck to sweet then they gave you red wine that wasn’t bad.  they had pumpkin soup for the first course.  Marrianne your’s is much better than the main course was rice and broiled SALMON....  Now you all know I HATE FISH and what I don’t hate I am allergic to.  Anyway I did eat a piece of it.  Then for dessert we had this super sweet piece of cake I only ate a couple of bites it was even too sweet for me!  After lunch we stopped off at a jewelry store to buy Lapis well every other tour we never have time to shop so I didn’t have my charge card and of course I found a great necklace.  Oh well I guess I didn’t need it!  then we headed back to the ship and stopped to take some pictures of he harbor in Valparasio.  so we left at 8:00am and didn’t get back to the ship till 5:30 EXHAUSTED isn’t even the word.  I had to take a pain pill at lunch because everything here is steps!!!!!  ah tomorrow is  a sea day and then we will be entering into the Chillean fjords.  Not sure if we will have any internet so if you don’t hear from me you will know why!  Last cruise was so empty not even 400 people it was like having a private yacht.  This cruise is a sell out and we have a couple of groups yikes!!!!!!!!!!!  Saw more people today then all of last cruise.  stlll having trouble posting pictures so will when I can