Castles and Dead White Guys

This is the building that we parked down the street from in a... FREE PARKING SPOT!!!!! Well almost free we got a cab back to the spot because we were tired and hungry, 1450 pesos (<$3). Parking is hard to find downtown and is expensive underground.

Now, today was the Dia del Patrimonio Cultural en Santiago. It is the day when once a year all the private, cultural and governmental buildings are open to the public free of charge. More than 100 buildings around the city and region were opened up and available to tour. We got a late start on the day so once we parked we only got to go to two of the buildings but they were probably among the coolest. The first place that we went to was Castillo Hidalgo. It is near the center of downtown Santiago and sits atop a hill that is surrounded by a tall stone and metal fence and gardens all the way up to the castle. The building is used today as a place to host fancy parties and balls in the city and is usually closed unless you are invited to a party there. It think it was used in the past as a fort because of the vantage point that it affords to the surrounding terrain.

Castle Gate (random guy to be photoshopped later)

The second place that we went to was La Palacio de La Moneda, the Chilean version of the White House. There was a long line to get into the building but it moved pretty quickly. Once we made it to the front of the line we (Christina and I) found out that we needed our passports to get in but the let us in anyway because we were with Alexis and Tatienne. After a brief pad down and metal detecting buy a large police officer in Spanish, we went into the Palace. The name of the building translates to "the coin" because it was a colonial mint back in the day. 

 Under the ground and fountain of the plaza in front of the palace is a Museum.

 Statue of Arturo Alessandri Palma

I wasn't allowed to use my flash inside the palace so alot of the pictures didn't turn out. Sin flash = Con Blur. Inside we got to see the different rooms each with their own color that are used for hosting guests of the state and house all the busts and paintings of the past presidents and other important people. We also got to see the First Lady's office which was pretty cool and the press room. No word on where the President was. 

Earthquake Damage in the Bernard O'Higgins Room

There were several plazas in the interior of the building that we could walk around. The biggest of them was the Courtyard of Oranges where they had an old police car and an old Presidential Motorcade. I'm not sure if they still used the car to transport the President because it looked old but the escort motorcycles in front of it were brand new BMWs. We also got to take pictures with some police officers, they were really nice.

After we left the Palace all the public buildings were closed so we didn't get to go to the national vault. So, we hopped in a cab and went back to the car and headed over to Domino to get some sandwiches and hot dogs and then came home. All in all it was a good day and tonight I'm going to relax and catch up on some sleep.

Cab Ride *jazz hands*