Santiago 2 day 1

 I had a good nights sleep.

I am starting to reconsider my plans of visiting Mendoza and Cordaba.  This involves a lot of time on the bus, more short stays and also more expensive than just flying directly to Buenos Aires.

After some thought. Before and after breakfast

I cancelled my stays in Mendoza, Cordaba and Buenos Aires. I booked a flight to Buenos Aires and re-booked a longer stay there. Now I am ready for the today.

First thing was to collect my clothes to take to the laundry. After dropping off my clothes, I came across this wonderful park. I first wanted to sit for awhile because there was a young man playing nice clarinet music.  Also, in the park, I noticed this dog house condo for street dogs.

When the clarinetist finished, I moved across the street to enjoy a coffee and avocado toast at a street side cafe.

From there I went to a woodworking museum. What a find! I thought it was just a collection of antique woodworking tools. Wow, was I wrong. Yes it has an impressive collection of antique tools, but also much more. I have only included a few pictres here. Visit the museum website to see much more.  https://museotaller.cl/

It is also an experience activity for young children to put together simple race cars to race down a ramp. The kids were having a great time. The is an active workshop where employees and volunteers were working putting together projects for older children 

Hans, a German from Berlin that comes 3 months a year to volunteer at the museum, introduced me to the founder and owner of the museum, Franciso Dittborn Baeza.  Franciso has advanced ALS so he can no longer speak, but uses a sketch pad to write out words. Even so, he still comes to museum everyday.

Hans showed me around other parts of the museum. Some complete, others in the expansion plan and still under developement.

The completed area has a collection of operated printing machines, used for demonstrations. Another room for making paper, another houses a collection of antique telephones.

In developement is a small forest project and a few rooms dedicated to weaving. I would love to come back and volunteer there in my off season from the Library, but travel costs may be a deterrent.

After the museum I came back to the hostel for a short rest, but then headed out again taking the subway into the central business area to buy some more micro SD memory for my tablet.

I was on a tight schedule then to get back to the laundry before they close. I got there just in time. Other wise I would have had to wait until Monday. They are closed on the weekends.

With this done, my chores for the day were complete.

I started back to the hostel with the plan to stop at the supermarket to buy some groceries. Yes, I am going to cook in tonight.

On the menu will be sauteed vegetables, pasta and chicken breast.

Now that I have decided to stay (forced by a prior flight I booked that could not be changed), it was nice to have a chance to cook. I enjoyed a meal of artichoke, pasta and sauted chicken with onions and garlic, supplemented with a little Chilean red wine I still had left.  Very nice. 

Chile is a big exporter of wines. They make a Malbec, Merlot and several other reds and also some whites. I can get bottles here for as little as $3 usd. In Mexico it is hard to buy wine for less that $5 or $6 usd.