Life, erupted: A Chilean Adventure

Slowly but surely, I will get through this vacation. :)

Wednesday. Wednesday was fun. In the morning, we went to a couple art museums, Bellas Artes and The Museum of Modern Art Chilean equivalent (in it's Spanish name. I'm too lazy to look it up.) (No I'm not. Museo de Arte Contemporaneo)

The museums weren't big by any means (compared to the Walker or the Minneapolis Institute of Art), but they were pretty cheap to get into - ~$1.50.

This was in the entrance to Bellas Artes. There was an identical "sculpture" on the opposite end of the great hall.

Zach and I spent the outing going through each room and picking our favorite paintings/artwork. Most of the time, we picked the same one. :)

The two museums are joined, but you have to leave the one to get to the other (separate entrance fees). The contemporary museum had an exhibit in the basement that I was pleasantly surprised by. There was a group of artists that traveled the Pacific, and all of this artwork was based on that trip. There were videos, still images, sculptures, and paintings. I took pictures of a couple:

I have no idea how canvases this big are made.

This piece of art was upstairs in one of the galleries. I liked it. :)

After the museums, we hopped on the subway to head over to the winery. Earlier that morning, we booked an English-speaking tour at the winery, Concho y Toro. We took the subway to the edge of the city (end of the purple line) and caught a taxi over to the winery. The taxi driver either wasn't sure how much it would cost to drive us there, or wasn't sure how much he could charge us. I'm sure if he told us 10 luca (10,000 pesos ~$20), we would have said yes. We weren't sure how far it was either! He charged us 4 luca. Concho y Toro is the second largest winery in the world, both in production and land ownership. It was a BEAUTIFUL afternoon to walk around the winery. We got a little history lesson, got to walk among the grapes and taste them, see a cellar (although I think that one is just for show), and drink some wine! I think my favorite part of the tour was tasting the different types of grapes. We were able to see what the grapes looked like that went into each type of wine they made. When I have wine, the only thing I can tell about it is that it is either red or white, but in tasting the grapes, I was able to tell which would be a drier wine and which would become a sweeter one (sweeter>drier). I took a lot of pictures, so I'll just post them here.

This was the house in which Mister Concho y Toro lived.

Look dad, they look just like ours! Except no bird problem.

Our first wine "taste" (it was really a full glass) was a Trio. It wasn't three different grapes mixed in to a wine, it was one kind of grape from three different valleys. It was a pretty tart and light wine. That's the extent of my wine describing abilities.

Next up was the cellar. It was pretty cold in here. Each of these barrels cost between $500 and $1000 apiece. EMPTY. Then you add 300 bottles of wine to it and BOY does it get expensive.

He really does love me, I swear. At least, he says he does.

Then we went to the more "touristy" part of the winery, Casillero del Diablo, or The Devil's Cellar. The name comes from the local rumor that the devil himself lurked in the depths of the winery. But it turns out that this was actually put about by the owner of the cellars, Don Melchor de Concha y Toro, to deter would-be theives. The word is that he even had a tunnel built from his mansion, so he could walk the cellars, clad in a long black cloak, keeping an eye on things and giving credence to the rumor.

I had to take a picture for my work buddies! (McLagan is owned by Aon, which sponsor(ed) the soccer team Manchester United. We lost the sponsorship to Chevrolet beginning in 2014 because we were outbid)

After the tour, we had to QUICK get back to the city to meet Noah for supper. We were able to catch one of the guards at the winery and have him call us a taxi (he didn't speak English, good thing "taxi" is the same!). This taxi back to the subway only charged us 2.5 luca. He was very nice and willing to try and converse with us as best he could. We were able to tell him that we were visiting, it was our first time in Chile, and our friend taught English at a school! We were about an hour late to Noah's place, but he didn't mind. He started to get a little worried (we had no way to contact him), but we arrived safely.

Supper that night was STEAK. Zach had a steakhouse recommended to him, Bariloche, so we headed over there. The following three pictures were Zach's and my meals. We're good at sharing, especially because we usually get things the other would like to eat as well. My (our) steak was ONE POUND and STILL MOOING. Like seriously people. On the inside, it looked like raw liver. It was a little too rare for me, so I cut it up into strips and cooked it a little more on the skillet. :) But it was DELICIOUS. Definitely would eat that again.