Me gusta Pomaire

I got to go on an adventure today! Unlike Europe, I can't just hop on a train and check out a new city every weekend. Attractions down here are much more spread out and trains and much less available. That's why checking out the city (town) of Pomaire today was extra exciting.

Today, my host mom, grandma and aunt took a drive about an hour and a half (two because we got a little lost) to the southeast. We came across this little town that is seriously just a giant artisan fair. This region is known for their pottery and boy, was there a lot of it! Every store was full of mugs, bowls and vases. And every store that wasn't full of pottery was full of jewelry, sweaters, mirrors and anything else you could want. A lot of the pottery stores sold fire hydrant replicas (for only about $10) and I wanted one so badly! How funny would it be to have a fire hydrant in your room? But I wasn't so sure about bringing it home...

All of the restaurants in the area are typical Chilean food and the four of us ordered a giant meat platter. It was actually pretty terrifying. It consisted of chicken, sausage, beef, ribs, liver (from a mystery animal) and other intestines. I took a picture of it about ten minutes into the meal so keep in mind we had eat already eaten at least one piece of meat. 

While we were eating, we got serenaded by two musicians playing typical Chilean music. They finished their song and the first thing the man said to me was, "Are you from Miami?" No, I am not from Miami! Why would you ask me that? Gosh darn it! Do I really stand out THAT much that you immediately know I'm American. There are 195 countries in this world. I wasn't even speaking so there was no accent involved. My host mom was nice enough to correct them and say, "Colorado!!" to which the man smiled and said, "Still the United States!" What does that even mean?

After that, we stopped by San Antonio, the second largest port in Chile after Valparaíso, and then Isla Negra, where Pablo Neruda had one of his three houses. I was hoping to check it out but we were running low on time so instead we just drove through. Overall, it was a wonderful Chilean Mother's Day and I'm glad I got to spend it bonding a bit more with the fam. Hope you all had a very happy mother's day too!