May 9, 2008

Today was the day of my company visit to Bolsa de Comercio, a Chilean stock exchange in Santiago. The ride to the city is about an hour and a half, but I slept the whole way so it might as well have been five minutes. When we got into the city we were dropped off at a big open square with a large gathering of people in it. There was a sort of "changing of the guards" ceremony going on. We watched it for a few minutes and then continued on to the exchange. It was in an older, interesting looking building with lots of marble and artwork decorations. We were presented with an informative video on the exchange (in English) and a short PowerPoint on the finer details of Bolsa de Comercio. With the boom in technology nowadays it has almost made trading on the stock floor obsolete. Only 2 or 3 people are usually found on it at a time which is crazy when compared to the hectic shuffling of people that the market once had on the floor trying to do business without computers. Overall the visit was very good, especially for our group. The company presented us with a wealth of information in the presentation as well as a folder with a business card and a booklet about the stock exchange. From there we moved on to our next stop atop a large mountain bordering the city and took a cable car even further up to a mountain top church. On the peak of this mountain was a very large statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the city. The view would have been astounding if there had not been so much smog clouding our sight. Since we had only one company visit we had a lot of time to do other things and see the city of Santiago. For lunch we went to this open marketplace full of restaurants and retail. We ate at a seafood restaurant family style with everyone sharing the different plates of food. There was a myriad of different fish with highlights being the Chilean sea bass and a local fish called "Loco." We also had some indigenous shellfish to Chile which did not at all look appetizing, but were in fact very good. I think if you have an open mind when visiting a different place, often times you will be pleasantly surprised. We ended our Santiago tour at an outdoor market selling various knickknacks, jewelry, and clothing items. Overall it was a really nice, laid-back day.