Sunday, December 9th, 2007 Day at the Beach with Courtney

Sunday, December 9th, 2007 Day at the Beach with Courtney

I woke up early and headed to the bus stop to go hang out with Courtney in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. She and I had planned on spending the day at the beach since November, so I was excited to go. I met Courtney in Valparaiso and we spent a while walking through the Sunday market. We both bought soccer jerseys and some delicious candies to share while we shopped. Then we took a bus over to Viña del Mar, the beach town on the other side of the bay. We walked around of a while and then found a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Don’t ask why, but we’d both wanted Chinese food, which is known for being good in Chile. After a yummy lunch, we walked along the beach until we found a nice spot to camp out for the day. We spent the afternoon laying on the beach even though it was pretty cloudy. After a while the clouds cleared and the sun shone through. Courtney, in her usual amazing, fun spirit asked if I wanted to go swim and we spent almost half an hour diving through and getting totally manhandled by the huge waves. I think the Chileans were giving us weird looks; the two gringas must have looked silly diving through the waves with the little Chilean kids.

When we’d gotten enough of the waves, sand and sun, we packed up and went to our beloved Bravisimo, the delicious ice cream shop that Courtney and I can’t pass up when we are together. We shared a fancy brownie Sunday sitting in the park. Then we took a bus back to Valparaiso. We got our bus tickets back to Santiago and headed home.
Olga welcomed me home and we had dinner together. Again I had a relaxing night at home and spent more time packing and getting ready to go home.