Four on the Floor: Plaza Italia

I guess I’m continuing my favorite places in Santiago list with another no-brainer/somewhat cheesy place. And I suppose “favorite” is something of an overstatement: I’ve had friends get beaten up and robbed, I had a hooligan try to steal my purse (he really should have gotten it too…he was a very bad thief), and I was once surround by a group of drunks who proceeded to just stare at me and then get closer and closer…like being on the Metro but on a street corner with no one else around (save my taxi driver, who swept me away).

So I should hate Plaza Italia. And yet, there are so many reasons not to:

1) I lived there, and moved in the day that Pinochet died, hauling my belongings into my apartment to the increasing swell of chanting and noise from outside the window.

2) It’s the perfect meeting place, even for clueless gringos in their first week of volunteering.

3) Giant puppets pee in the street.

4) The Paulistano Schoperia – Best place to watch a futbol game….if you’re Brazilian (this is also the scene of the infamous “blondy girl” incident.

5) Dog fights.