A Week Without Sleep

Fiestas de Patrias. Oh lord. Where to begin. So for those of you who don't know, Chile's "Independence Day" is September 18th. This year, the date happened to fall on a Tuesday. Usually students and workers get both the 17th and the 18th off, and for some reason, this year they decided it was necessary to cancel school for the 19th-21st as well. Meaning I get an entire week off of school. But hey, I'm certainly not complaining! Anyway, after my Thursday night class, it was officially party time! Thursday and Friday actually didn't contain much... Friday I went to the beach to read for a bit which was really nice! However, I kid you not when I tell you that I couldn't have been there for more than 30-40 minutes, and that night, I was fried. Mamá told me that the sun here is a lot stronger, and I definitely figured that out. Apparently I'll be wearing sunscreen everywhere I go once it starts being more consistently sunny! Anyway, here's what has been happening the past couple of days:

Saturday: My host sister, Leslie (23), invited me to go to this party with her about a week ago. She had been talking about it everyday at lunch the whole week prior, and I was really excited to go out with her! She and her novio (fiancé) picked me up at 7pm, and we went to their house in Valparaíso.  We weren't going to leave until 10:30 or 11, so I was a little concerned about why I was being picked up so early, but as I've learned down here, Chileans like to take their sweet time doing things, including getting ready to go out apparently! Leslie let me borrow a dress (if you could call it that... it was SO tiny) and heels (also too small, ouch feet) to go out, and she did my makeup and hair for me. Needless to say, after 3 hours of getting ready, we looked gewd.  Memo (novio) drove us to the bar, and on the way we picked up some of her friends. Memo's car is perfect for 4 people. It's very small, but 4 is definitely doable. The 7 people we ended up packing in there however, was not a very comfortable/safe situation... especially driving down the crazy hills of Valpo! I mostly just kept my eyes shut the whole way, ignorance is bliss right?  Then we went to Bar Barcelona, had some drinks with her friends, and afterwards danced the night away! On the way back to my house, we all stopped at McDonalds and enjoyed some french fries at 5:00am. This is often how my nights out end here in Chile. These people love Mickey D's. But who doesn't love some good salty fries at the end of a night out!? Overall I had a great time this night, and it was really good bonding for my sister and I!

Sunday: Well, because we didn't get home til 5:30am from the previous night out, I definitely slept in on Sunday. Until 2:00pm. Yup. Dad, you can be proud, I'm finally sleeping in! Although I'm sure you're not too excited about the whole going to bed at 5:30 thing... sorry! When I did wake up, my host family and I had lunch together, que rico! Usually our lunches here last a little bit longer, just because it is the biggest meal of the day, but this day we were at the table for two and a half hours just talking and talking! This is one thing I really love about my host family, and am so grateful for, they just love to talk! And they really try to include me in conversations! I attribute all of my improvements in Spanish to them. They are so helpful, and really try to make sure I'm always understanding what's going on. At the end, my stomach was filled to the maximum (per usual) and my brain was a little tired after focusing so much on spanish! That night, my host sisters Leslie and Coté were taking me to las ramadas.  Las ramadas happen only during Fiestas de Patrias, and are basically a giant mix of a carnival, barbecue, dance, and outdoor shopping market thing. Basically, just a lot of fun! We rode some of the rides, drank Mote con huesillos, and had a good time.  Mote con huesillos is a really odd drink... basically, it has something similar to oats/oatmeal things at the bottom, peach juice, and 2 small skinned peaches in every cup (it's eaten/drank with a spoon). It sounds really weird, probably because it is, but it was actually quite delicious! I was really tired from the night before, but I knew that I'd be getting to go home at a decent hour this night to get some sleep! However, as I've learned here in Chile many times, things are never what I think they're going to be! When we left la ramada, my sisters informed me we were going dancing. I had no choice in this decision, just was told! Oh well, así es la vida! We went to a bar in Valpo, ordered Terremotos for the table, and danced the night away yet again, this time only until 4:30am. So early! Ha. My host sisters seemed to know a new dance to every single song that came on, while I just awkwardly danced to my own beat.  I've definitely got some learning to do on the hip moving... Oh, and do I have a jóte story for you all! So, as we were all dancing, a guy came up and started dancing with us, he then started talking to me, which was fine, he seemed nice enough, that is until he stuck his tongue out. I'm not sure if I misinterpreted what was happening in our conversation or what, but I'm not really sure how talking about what I'm studying here in Chile and his tongue have in common. He apparently had a big urge to show me his tongue ring... yup, that's right. His tongue ring. He then went on to say how much the ladies like it, and I decided that was my cue to get the hell out of dodge and pull the, "Necesito ir al baño, chau!" move. Thankfully he was gone when I came back. Phew. Crisis averted. Overall, another good night, especially because it also ended with really healthy food... more peach juice and snickers bars! Yum!

Mote con huesillos

I stole this picture from a friend on facebook... la ramada!

S

Monday: Slept in until 11am today, I just couldn't sleep anymore! This day was so great, I got to spend more quality time con la familia. I learned how to make empanadas! And not just a couple, we made over 60!!! And these things are big, and time consuming to make! Once we made all the ingredients for the insides, we started working on the dough, and then the empanada making began! I was in charge of filling and folding, and my host family said that I had the prettiest empanada folds they'd ever seen... bacán! (Bacán is chilean slang for "cool!"). There are a couple types of empanadas, and today we made  pino, napolitana, and a jamón, queso, y pollo one.  The pino empanada is a chicken/sweet onion mixture, with two quarters of a hard boiled egg on each side and an olive in the middle. Napolitana is basically like pizza in an empanada, and the other one is pretty self explanatory, ham cheese and chicken! The whole time we were making them, we listened to traditional cueca music and just overall had a wonderful time! This was really good bonding again with the whole family. After a long day of empanada making, we went to the ramada again as a family, ate some cotton candy, went on some rides, and had a great time overall. Another cool thing that happened on Monday- I found out that one of my photos was chosen to be on DU's homepage to represent study abroad! My name was even mentioned! Celebrity status over here people. Watch out world.

Mamá and I sharing cotton candy!

Learning how to make empanadas!

Watching the fuegos artificiales (fireworks) in Valpo!

My first empanada!

DU famous!!

Tuesday: Fiestas de Patrias! The day finally came! So much celebrating led up to this day, and finally the real deal was here. My family had a big empanada lunch, and then later my friend Rachel and I went to some Chilean friends apartment for an asado/to hang out! We ended up having some delicious meats, chicken, choripan, the works! We also played beerio kart. I mean, how many people can say they've played beerio kart in Chile!? Not many I'd say. Good stuff. We ended up just hanging around the apartment playing games, dancing, and having a great time. Didn't get home until 6:30am this morning. Brutal. It's a good thing this week is almost over, I can't handle the schedule of going out!

Today (Wednesday): Slept in until 2:00pm. Yup, 2:00pm. I'm turning into such a bum. Waking up though was really pleasant thankfully, as I was awoken with the smell of barbecue! My family made anticucho again, and we had lots of other yummy meats and sides as well! Mamá also made a typical Chilean drink for the family, it's called Cola de Mono (Monkey Cola). It's so delicious! It has no type of cola in it, so I'm a little confused as to where the name came from, but again it's just one of those things that I've decided not to ask questions about. It has vanilla, coffee, milk, a liquor called aguardiente, and a couple of other ingredients. It's served cold, and is really tasty! Mamá is giving me the recipe and taking me to the place where I can buy the liquor so I can make it at home :) This lunch was again a rather long one, about 2 hours, and the conversation was wonderful as always. However, the overall best part of todays lunch conversation had to do with my family learning a new word in english. Now, this word they learned was not a "good" word, so if you for some reason care to avert your virgin eyes, now would be the time. So how this story starts... Kiika, my sister who knows a little english, was describing to me in spanish that today in Chile is called "Día de concha tu madre".  Basically the day after the independence day where everyone is hungover, and this saying is something that people apparently say when they are frustrated, like when they burn themselves cooking or hurt themselves or something. I thought it meant something along the lines of son-of-a-b... and asked that, and she said, "No... concha es más como...pussy!" And of course, being the mature person that I am, I immediately started giggling. I don't really get the saying, I think it's one of those things where literally translated it doesn't mean the same thing. Anyway, my host parents, who both really like learning new english words, both started repeating, "pushee? pussay? pushay?" trying to get it right... and all the while, I am laughing the hardest I have laughed the entire time I've been in Chile. I was crying. At this point, every member of my family at the table was trying to pronounce this word, all saying it over and over, and I'm just sitting there with my head in my hands trying to breathe. So there we were, me craughing (cry-laughing), my family laughing and repeating the word over and over... just one big happy unconventional family. They obviously didn't really understand what it meant, and I tried to explain to them that it's just not a word that people commonly say, and it's not necessarily a terrible cuss-word, but it's also not a nice word to say. Oh man. Quite the day.

And now, here I am, finally resting and hopefully going to bed at a decent hour tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to a small beach/fisherman's town with a couple girls from my school, it's called Horcón! We are renting a small condo for 6 people, and just going to relax and hopefully have an overall good time doing nothing but being lazy. You'll have updates later this week I'm sure. For now, that's all I have! Sorry for the long one again. ¡Nos vemos!