by Adela Kelemen
Santiago has many neighborhoods. It has neighborhoods like Providencia, Bellavista, Recoleta, Ñuñoa, and many more.
My neighborhood is Providencia. I live in a small, two-bedroom apartment, three bathrooms, small kitchen and living room and a deck. In our neighborhood, we have a metro station, we have the Centro Costanera (which includes Gran Torre Santiago, the tallest building in Santiago), and stores selling anything from food to lapis lazuli jewelry. Another cool thing about Providencia is that they close some of the roads to cars on Sundays and people bike, roller skate, run, walk and skateboard all day long (from 9 to 2) – just like Sunday Streets in San Francisco.
Bellavista has my favorite place in Santiago yet. Bellavista is the neighborhood with the zoo. The zoo has been my favorite place in Santiago because I adore animals. The zoo is on a hill, which means, for some of the animals, you can look down into their enclosures. Most of all, the zoo has my favorite animal, the red panda. I also like Bellavista because it has lots of stores selling lapis lazuli jewelry and other gemstones. Lapis lazuli is a beautiful blue stone that lots of people put in jewelry. For example, if you have ever heard of lapis blue, that’s about the color of it. Lapis is mined in the Andes mountains in northern Chile.
Recoleta is the neighborhood with one of the biggest farmers markets in all of Chile. One thing you can’t help noticing about La Vega is its noise. Venders yelling out foods, friends talking, carts and boxes being pushed along the floor, and most of all, people walking, taking, laughing and yelling. La Vega is packed with people buying, selling and trading food, treats, toys and clothing. To be truthful, you can find almost anything there! Another thing I noticed about Vega was how it is so rich in culture. They have fruits you can only find in South America, Chilean flags all over the place and in the vendors’ little area, knick knacks of all sorts, books, food and drinks. I just can’t help wondering, “Is this how I would want to live my life, working on a farm and bringing my food and drinks and treats to La Vega? Do I think the vendors enjoy it?”
Ñuñoa is the neighborhood next to Providencia. It is the neighborhood where we are looking at a school to attend. It has a delicious açaí store. If you don’t know what açaí is, it’s like ice cream but made from fruit and covered with toppings like bananas, strawberries, honey, granola and so on (it’s actually from Brazil, but we found it here). One of the funny things about Ñuñoa is we came across a street called Calle Jorge Washington. We cracked up when we first saw the street name. I’m looking forward to exploring Ñuñoa and the rest of the neighborhoods of Santiago.
Dylan’s thoughts on the neighborhoods: Visiting the neighborhoods has been so fun and exciting because we get to learn about different parts of a great city and new cultures that we’ve never heard about ever before. My favorite neighborhood is Las Condes because it has a nice parks and it is very modern.
Matt’s thoughts on the neighborhoods: We’re on the eighth floor of our temporary place, which is the highest I’ve ever lived. Have to say, little things take getting used to, like having a doorman/doorwoman and taking an elevator to get home. It’s also been a trip to take the kids to visit apartments where we might live. You learn a lot about each other’s tastes when you do that job together.
Jeannette’s thoughts on the neighborhoods: Today we took advantage of the CicloRecreoVía that Adela mentioned above to get from our current neighborhood in Providencia all the way to La Plaza de Armas which is the main square of Santiago. From there I turned back and challenged myself to climb up Cerro San Cristóbal — also known as Parque Metropolitano and “the city’s green lung”. It’s the second highest peak in the city at 880 meters. Normally you can see sweeping views of the city, but the drizzle and rain limited my visibility. I didn’t mind though — it was great being among the city dwellers out to get some exercise without the choking company of cars and buses.