Day 11, May 18, 2011: Bolsa de Comercio and Santiago

Today started off very, very early, at about 8:00.  We hopped on the bus to head to Santiago, which is about an hour and a half bus ride.  Our first stop in Santiago was the Bolsa de Comercio, which is the biggest stock exchange in Chile.  Sadly, we didn't get much of a tour, as the trading floor was closed for construction.  Instead we just got to watch a video and a presentation.  Then there was time for questions.  To be completely honest, I was kind of disappointed, the part I was looking forward to most was seeing the trading floor.  After leaving the bolsa, we walked around Santiago a bit.  We first stopped at La Moneda, which is like Chile's white house.  It was pretty impressive.  Oddly enough, there was a large number of younger Chilean students there, and they kept wanting to take pictures with several of us.  After leaving La Moneda, we stopped at a local cathedral.  The cathedral was beautiful, and reminiscent of many European cathedrals I have visited in the past.  We then made a short stop at the Chilean National Museum.  At this point, all of us were starving, so we soon headed for lunch.  We had lunch at a restaurant inside the large fish market in Santiago.  The food was pretty good, and the market itself was a sight to see.  All of the seafood setting out, fresh and local.  After lunch we went to the top of a small mountain in the middle of Santiago.  There we found a pretty spectacular view of the city, and were able to see how massive it really was.  In my opinion, it was great way to end the day.  After that stop, we headed back to the hotel.