Day One in Santiago

After a great night's sleep, we ventured out into the city. Today we took the subway into the center to reserve Keith's steps for new territory. He has healed very well from his paragliding injury two summers ago but still hurts on a daily basis and needs to rest often. This is no problem for anyone with as much time as we have on this adventure (six months!).
We stopped for a cup of expresso, YUM!, at a cafe just outside the subway terminal. The owner of the establishment took an interest in us and sat down with his bottle of beer to chat with us for 45 minutes. It was difficult to understand him because the spanish spoken here in Chile is very fast and the words run together for us. But he didn't give up, he gave us recommendations of restaurants and various tourist sights in the city. Mario had lived in Spain for 20 years and has visited many countries around the world. It was fun hanging out with him.
The Museum of Fine Arts was in a grand building though the collection was small. It is located on a long thin strip of green space that runs alongside a river. The water is running fast, most likely spring runoff from the nearby snowcapped mountains. Four large markets are located at one end of the Parque Forestal. The first one was a fresh fish market with many seafood restaurants. Across the river we visited a second market full of fresh flowers. This latin city is like others we have explored in that shopkeepers that sell the same type of item are gathered in one place rather than spread out with varying types of stores around town. There were markets selling fruits and vegetables and then another with a variety of necessary items such as electrical goods and household items. After observing life in the market we headed home via a wonderful cobblestone walking zone with interesting cafes and galleries, one that we will want to spend time in on another day.
Our hostel has a wonderfully supplied kitchen so we stopped at the local supermarket for supplies before returning to our room. We are loving our new reading 'tools', the Nooks that we broke down and invested in at the last minute before leaving the USA.
No pictures to publish; we forgot to recharge the battery!