Valparaiso and La Sebastiana

Valparaiso is beautiful. I can tell why the famous poet Pablo Neruda decided to stay there. Today was hazy so you couldn't see the ocean very well but the hills were pretty. The best part about them was that all the houses on the hills were painted all sorts of obnoxious colors taht were awesome!!! My favorite house was a light blue one with purple shutters on one side, green on the other and a bright red door. By the way our hostel is bright pink, you can't miss it! After dropping off our bags we headed out for some chow. Lunch was delicious. Stuffed squid rings followed by pork chicken and sauteed vegetables topped off with tiramisu, cherries and strawberry sauce... I don't think anything gets better than that. After lunch, a quick zip up to the hotel to change then to one of the many houses of Pablo Neruda, La Sebastiana. Good thing: We got there. Bad thing: We walked up like ten hills. I do think it was worth it though. The house was five stories tall and would of been spacious but stuff was cluttered everywhere. When I mean stuff I mean everything you could imagine. We got audio recorders to guide us through the house since there weren't that many staff and tons of people. There were so many things that it took forever to walk through. Every collection I'd seen put together wouldn't be as big as this one. The reason why was because he didn't have to collect just one thing. He saw something he liked, and he took it or found out a way to get it. Some of his crazy objects included: Merry-go-round horses, gold pillars of angels, lots of plates, a cow bowl used to serve punch, big old maps of the americas, stone murals and much much more. The top floor was my favorite floor, with veiws that could best even the highest skyscraper. I loved it. You definately don't get views like that everywhere!!! Finally the "guide" said it was time to go. We went to the information office and played on the playground a little before we started the long walk back to the hostel.

I really like Pablo Neruda and this was the first poem I ever read of his. Hope you enjoy!!!

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Pablo Neruda