There are no homophones for Valdivia

Back to overnight buses...death! I forgot just how much I hate them and just how painful the are, but our first one in Chile was brilliant! We litrally purchased our ticket, went to the platform as directed, got onto the bus at the correct time and off we went. The bus was clean and the seats were very wide...and they reclined back more than your average seat and there was this random slanted leg rest that simulated a beddish type apparatus. They played an English movie with Spanish subtitles, but they turned the sound way down low...it was midnight afterall. The best part was when the busdriver assistant came around with your choice of a complimentary beverage...unheard of. Alex is displaying our selections...it was too wonderful a deal to just get water so I opted for juice and Al had a Coke. There was a bathroom onboard as well and we got a tiny baby breakfast pack with some more juice, some mints and a weird cookie type thing with some chocolatey caramel in the middle...like a sandwich cookie. Pretty much a box of sugar and your pancreas's worse nightmare, but it was free. The bus was not that crowded either so Al and I could spread out onto 4 seats instead of just our two assigned seats...despite all of this we were still unable to sleep, but it just didn't seem so bad.
We arrived in Valdivia mid-morning and it was rainy and cold and a ghost town..I swear I saw tumbleweeds blowing through at one point. We remained open minded and still do at the point of writing this blog, as Lonely Planet, Travelocity and pretty much every single traveller we have met have said how absolutly amazing this town is...honestly, my open mind is getting cloudier and more closed by the second, as I remain unimpressed.
It is an old Spanish Colony that won its' independence during the Chilean Independence War in the early 1800s and many German immigarnts setteld here when the newly formed Chilean government wanted to "jump start the economy." Because of this, the town has a lot of interesting buildings and landmarks, as well as a cultural diversity which makes it a tourist hotspot and has garnered it the title "La Perla del Sur" (thank you Wikapedia me and my dad's favourite website).
Now, I don't want to be negative, as I am a glass half full kind of gal, and I most certainly do not want to be the one person of millions who can't get into the whole Valdivia thing, but honestly I ain't feelin' it. Maybe it is the 'lovely' hostel we are staying in complete with dust, wild Chilean dogs running in and out at all hours of the night, no heating, staff that are not only rude, but also make fun of your broken Spanish when you attmept to communicate, or the flies swarming the kitchen, or the staff smoking in the main room...need I go on? It was the cheapest hostel available in this town due to the fact that the hostels also double as student housing during the school year and that has just begun...like today. But, honestly, minus that this place is just so-so,
Now, it is very hard to be the one lone person (well two, as Al totally agrees with me) to stand strong amongst the masses with our opposite opinion and I am reminded of a time in the 4th grade. My family had just moved to Texas from Chicago and I already had enough issues with my short haircut and rat tail hanging down the back wearing a Micheal Jackson sparkly white glove and a red and black matching Michael JAckson track suit, so it wasn't as if I needed anything else to make me different. But one day, my teacher decided to do a poll of the most popular breakfast juice and it was tied between oragne juice and apple juice and everyone was screaming, "APPLE, APPLE!!!" I thought about it for a moment and chose orange...needless to say this was met with a roar of booing and I was further ostracized from the clique, but I stood strong to my belief that orange juice is the best. Alex would have been one of those screaming appple, as she just loves a bit of apple juice, but she would have still been my friend on the playground...I digress.
Valdivia is just not that great. There I said it. Nothing is really happening there. We did go to the fish market, which was kind of cool, as the fish mongers are all in a line along the river bank and after gutting, scaling and de-heading the fish, they toss the waste into the river below and dozens of giant sea lions, black swans and seagulls flock to this spot for some tasty treats. It is quite special to watch this, but after that we were a bit at a loss of what to do next.
Valdivia is one of the areas in the middle of the Lakes District so there are numerous islands around that can be reached by boat, but this is at a cost and we don't have those kinds of funds at this point so the only other activity was a walk over the bridge through the university to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic. I know that may sound quite nice to all you lovely readers, but when you have been travelling on a budget for almost a year, you would have already ventured to every single botanical garden in said world, as they are free of charge. I swear if I see one more rose bush I may just scream.
We decided to save this activity for the next day (today), as yes, we have 1 more whole day in Valdivia before leaving for Pucon on a 3 hour bus on Tuesday. We returned to the grocery store for the third time that day and purchased some more cheap food to ensure that we had our brunch and dinner for tomorrow, as breakfast is NOT included in our shanty of a hostel and we returned for a siesta and some dinner.
Today, we will walk to the botanical garden through the university as planned and just sit for a while...I suppose it will be nice to just relax a bit...when we had the Jucy we could just go and go-go-go we did. We would have blown through this town and probably 4 others by now. Maybe there is something to be said about being "stuck" somewhere and just taking a load off...I don't think we actually know how to do that...maybe it is high time we learned.