Museo Histórico Nacional and Santiago Cathedral

I wrote this post earlier, and scheduled it to post now.  We're actually traveling right now!
 
Two weekends ago we went to the Museo Histórico Nacional and then stopped by the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas.  Both were free (since we went to the museum on Sunday) and both were really cool!  In the museum, there was a lot of cool historical stuff from Chile, going from very old to much less old but not too recent.  Here is a map of where different groups lived in Chile before it was conquered by the Spanish and made into a country.  I think that yellow region in the middle is the Mapuche area, which is a group we've learned about and whose culture still exists today:

This statue is a stairway to the sky, as I recall:

I think this was the founding of Santiago, but I took the picture because Sam said it looked like a Dominion card:

If I had this dress and this were the fashion of the times, I would never have to worry about my hips!

Sam is excited and sleepy about the cannon:

An upcoming post will explain why he was so sleepy that day (it's a great story, one we'll tell the grandkids :) ).  Here is a painting of a woman fighting in battle.  This is something I'm not sure I have ever seen before!  I wouldn't have even noticed it if Sam hadn't pointed it out.

This is "The configuration of an Elite" in some time period.  I guess this would be a better description if I remembered the time period.  Oh well!

I guess being an elite involves having a fancy box to stand near:

I took this picture of some cool old doors for Jenn:

Look how giant the keys were!  I guess it's hard to tell the scale, but the smaller one is thicker than a pencil and the bigger one is just comically large:

I liked this spiral column:

I think this is another one of the founding of Santiago.  I'm pretty sure those guys are San Martín and/or Pedro de Valdivia:

A cool old carriage:

This is an old Chilean flag.  I'm not sure why the picture turned out so bad:

I really liked this painting of some sailboats:

This is a cannon with a cannon ball in it.  And you could touch it!  You probably aren't supposed to, but Sam investigated and it turns out you can pick up the cannon ball:

The traditional Chilean cardboard desk:

Just kidding, I'm not sure what the deal is with the cardboard, but I don't think it's a real Chilean tradition.  But here is a cool old telescope:

And a cool old sword and scabbard:

We had been seeing a bunch of portraits of famous guys that have streets named after them in Santiago, streets that we are often either on or crossing.  Then Sam said we'd seen almost all of them, except Manuel Montt.  Then I asked him if he was just kidding because this was right behind him:

And guess who that is?  Check it out:

You can't plan that sort of thing!  Here we are in the reflection of a fancy old mirror that was functional, unlike another one in an earlier room:

This picture of an old sewing machine is for my mom:

Speaking of street names that are named after old guys from Chile, here is our patron guy:

Vicuña Mackenna, the guy our street is named after!  So he really did exist!  It's a pretty good street, too:

A really epic ship battle scene painting for Keith:

Here I am in the second floor of the courtyard in the middle of the museum:

Then we went to the Cathedral.  It had some cool stained glass:

This is a statue of Mary that was on top of the front of the cathedral until it fell off in the major earthquake in 2010:

Now she's inside the cathedral, hopefully on a more stable support.  There has been a lot of restoration on her too:

Another cool shot of the inside of the cathedral:

Here is a lot of silver:

A view from the back towards the front:

And a little side room off to the left when you first enter: