Santiago

For me is a little bit difficult write about places to visit and things to do in my city, because honestly, I think Santiago is pretty boring. Here in Santiago, we don´t have beautiful places to visit like the south of Chile or interesting things to do for a foreigner, because all the things to do are common, there are no originals things to do.

I think the places a foreign should visit are probably Cerro San Cristobal, Cerro Santa Lucía, The National Library, Patronato and Quinta Normal Park.

Cerro San Cristobal is the biggest hill in Santiago, There are a lot of things to do in the east side of the hill (in the west side is the Metropolitan Zoo, but is a pretty ugly and depressing Zoo, so I don´t recommend you to visit it). In the weekends people go to Cerro San Cristobal for many reasons, some sporty people go up the hill running or riding a bike, and other people just walk. There are Tai Chi groups and a Medieval Wrestling school. There is a Virgin Mary statue in the top of the hill and there is a big mass every Sunday. Cerro San Cristobal is a beautiful place to visit and I recommend you to visit it on Saturday or Sunday, wear comfortable clothes and be prepared to walk.

Cerro Santa Lucía is another hill to visit in Santiago, is smallest than San Cristobal but is very beautiful. There are no many things to do there, just walk around and spend a quiet afternoon. In front of the Cerro Santa Lucía is the National Library, it is a beautiful place to visit too, because is a really old building, of colonial times and you can find a lot of books and news papers.
Patronato is a very different place, is a commercial neighborhood with a lot of different stores, mostly clothes stores. The neighborhood is very old and some time ago it was full of Arabian people, but now there are a lot of Chinese and Korean people too. I recommend you to visit Patronato with some money, because you will find a lot of beautiful (and chips) things to buy, but be prepared to walk all day long.

Finally, the last place I recommend you to visit is Quinta Normal Park. It is a very big park and there is the Museum of Natural History, founded by Claude Gay in 1830, so is very old. The museum is not so interesting, but you can spend a nice afternoon visiting the museum and then walking through the Park, enjoying nature and native trees.

Coke

I consider myself as a very healthy person, I don´t drink, I don´t smoke, I do a lot of exercise and I try to keep a healthy way of life, I don´t even like chocolate. My only addiction is…COKE.
You may think that coke doesn´t affect my life in the way other addictions could, but the truth is that Coke is a really bad addiction. It has a lot of phosphoric acid and that affects the entire body, my teeth and my bones will eventually suffer the effects of acid. The other main problem of coke is that it has a lot of gas and that produces cellulite. Finally, coke has a lot of sugar and that is not helpful in keeping my weight.

But the real problem is that I really need coke, I can´t lunch if I don´t have a coke and I spend a lot of money buying coke.

I can´t tell you what was my life before my addiction, because I been drinking Coke since I was very little, in fact, my mom drank a lot of coke when she was pregnant, so I can´t even remember the first time I drank coke.

I don´t know if I can beat my addiction, I think I will never stop drinking coke, but I am trying to drink less every time, because in the future I´m going to need strong bones and teeth in order to keep a healthy way of life.

Finally, my advice to you is that you try to keep a healthy way of life, do some exercise, eat healthy and don´t drink coke or any other soda drink, drink water or juice, is better.


Chuck