Friday, October 5, 2007

Cena Bing, Wine Tasting, and Santiago Challenge

On Wednesday night, we had our first Bing dinner of the quarter. For those who don't know, the Bing family funds cultural events on Stanford overseas programs. For the quarter long programs, this includes dinner at good restaurants. So our dinner was at the Restaurant Akarana in Las Condes. The restaurant is very elegant (we were instructed beforehand to dress very nicely). We were provided with drinks before dinner, appetizers, a main course, two glasses of wine, and dessert. Before dinner I tried a pisco sour, which is a famous Chilean drink. It tasted like rather sour juice with a zing. It also is very strong, so I only drank a half a glass of wine (Chardonnay) afterwards. For the main course, I ate salmon, and dessert consisted of fruit and ice cream.
My table at the Cena Bing

Friday morning we went to ViƱa Cousino-Macel. We tasted vino gris (grey wine), so called because it is made with black grapes and the technique for white wine.

Our tour guide explaining how they make wine.

A wine library- samples of red wine of different types over many years.

In the afternoon we had the Santiago Challenge, which is a sort of scavenger hunt to find landmarks around Santiago.
La Moneda (presidential palace)

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Wow, you've been to a lot of museums already. Do you have a favorite part of the city you hang out in? Like a favorite park, cafe, bench, etc.?

Lauren said...

I really like sitting in the cathedral at the Plaza de Armas, but apart from that I haven't really found any particular place to hang out yet. There are a few parks close to where I live, but they are small enough that there is still a lot of traffic noise and they aren't terribly relaxing. As I explore more father away I will probably find more places that I like.