Palacio Rioja and Quilpue

Last Friday Emily, Holli, and I set out for some adventures in Vina. We began with the Palacio Rioja, which is just down the street from the Stake Center. It was neat to see the fancy interior of the early 1900s building, but my favorite part was the information packet's English translation. Being an editor and perfectionist at heart, it truly made me cringe to read sentences like, "he was the found of this area in 1907." Ugh. Simply dreadful. But it made me wonder if English to Spanish translations were just as bad. After the Palacio we went to the Mall, and I was quite impressed. It's pretty big and I thought it was interesting how there was a grocery store inside. That evening we went to Quilpue via Micro (the cheap bus) with our Chilean friend Raul and I have to admit that we feel really cool having an authentic Chilean around us gringas. It was a day full of learning and laughs.

I was just thinking about how much I wanted to play my violin when I saw a man at the Metro Station with one. He was kind enough to let me play his violin, but now I lose sleep at night because I forgot to give him some money as a token for my gratitude...

Holli and I in front of the Palacio Rioja.

Me, Holli, and Emily



On our way to the mall we walked past a huge Catholic church with open gates. There was an opera type song playing and the church was full of people. We had no idea what was going on. Holli and Emily felt uncomfortable and went to stand outside, but I went to a pew and discovered that it was was a funeral service. We were the only ones that we not dressed up, oops.



We went to a Karaoke activiy at a church in Quilpue, which was a 30 minute ride on the Micro. We were there about an hour early, and about two hours early in Latin time. To pass the time we all played the piano for each other and tried to teach Raul some songs. It was quite entertaining.