Yesterday we took a day trip to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. At first I wanted to spend more than a day in Valpo, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to see there. I kept hearing how cool it was but not getting any details, so I agreed with the rest of the group just to make it a day trip.
I was excited to go because I had heard Valpo was a cool spot and also one of my favorite writers, Isabel Allende, is Chilean and set a few of her novels there. I wanted to see in person the town that she's so vividly written about (by the way, I recommend her book Daughter of Fortune, which is partly set in Valpo. It's a very good read.) After walking in streets of Valpo I could see how her descriptions of the city shaped the characters and the overall stories in her books. It was kinda cool to see in person what I had imagined in my head.
The bus there was only an hour and once we arrived we signed up for a tour. The saleslady for the tour was a little pushy, even as we negotiated back and forth in Spanish. But we came to an agreement and I think it was just easier for us to take a tour instead of navigating the city on our own. While on the tour We saw the usual touristy stuff- the Congress building, a main square, an arch that Britain gave to Chile, and more. At one point in the tour we had the choice between checking out an area with local crafts or going to the Pablo Neruda house museum. The other three traveling tarheels chose the crafts and I chose Pablo. Visiting Neruda's former house, called La Sebastiana, was the highlight of the tour for me. Neruda is Chile's most famous writer and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. When I was in my undergrad at Central Michigan University we read many of Neruda's poems in my Spanish classes, so I was a little familiar with his work and excited to see one of the houses that he lived in. Yes, I'm a nerd but that's just me.The coolest thing about his house was his study/ writing room. It had amazing views of the city! The house is on a hill and overlooks the lower houses and the ocean. One wall of his study is almost all windows and the view is amazing. I can see how easily he was inspired to write in this place. I could sit there all day, looking out of the window and just imagining things to write. It seemed like a very tranquil and open place to let your ideas bounce around until they formed a beautiful poem.
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| With Tiffany on the peer in Valparaiso |
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So in honor of Neruda, here's one of his most well known poems:
Poem 15
It pleases me when you grow silent, as though you were absent,
and you hear me from afar, and my voice does not touch you.
It seems that your eyes have flown from you
and it seems that a kiss has closed your mouth.
As everything is filled with my soul,
you emerge from everything, filled with that soul.
Dream butterfly, you resemble my soul
and you resemble the word melancholy.
It pleases me when you grow silent and are as if far away.
As if moaning, butterfly lulled to sleep.
And you hear me from afar, and my voice does not arrive:
let me quiet myself with your silence.
Let me speak with you also with your silence,
clear as the lamplight, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, quieted and clustered with stars.
Your silence is of the star, so far away and simple.
It pleases me when you grow silent, as though you were absent.
Distant and dolorous as though you were dead.
One word then, one smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that that is not so.
(Translation: Terence Clarke)
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