We are not hippies, we are happies!

Today we ventured to the Chilean coast.  Why not?  Having a toddler and 2 week old should not stop us, especially since we want to make the most of our short time in Santiago.  We finally bought a car last week (did I mention that yet? Guess that'll have to be another blog post at some point...), so we are more mobile, and Aunt Vicki is here to provide some much needed help (instead of taking an hour to leave the house it only took us 30 minutes!)  So, we went to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, two places along the coast that are quite popular among Santiago-ians as well as tourists.  All the pics are from Valparaiso since we didn't have time to get out of the car and just drove through Vina (which is basically the wealthier, well-groomed neighbor of the more eclectic, artistic Valparaiso).

The cities were gorgeous and the weather was perfect - sunny and fairly warm for this time of year (60s).  Valparaiso is a very colorful, artsy town, with many of the buildings various vibrant colors and quite a lot of art galleries as well as artistic graffiti.  We went to the part of the city called Concepcion going up the ascensor (or elevator, of which they have about 12 or 13 in the city since the city is built on a hill side surrounding a bay).  This area was very charming and had tons of churches, cafes, restaurants, galleries and cobblestone roads.

The entrance to the ascensor concepcion.  It was down a very narrow alleyway - you would hardly even notice it!

 The view from the bottom to the top.  A short distance, but VERY steep!

Aunt Vicki and Sadie getting ready to go up

The view from the top

 A fun way up another hill (it was like San Francisco with all the hills and windy streets...).  The top says "We are not hippies, we are happies". 

Family of four (and a stray dog whose ear had been bitten off... recently...)

Aunt Vicki and her bestie

Family of four in front of a really interesting graffiti mural

Besties again

We were trying to take a picture of me with my two kids, but of course Sadie wasn't cooperating, so Steve chose to capture the moment.

Pretty view!