Getting Caught Up

I realized that I’m getting quite floja (lazy) when it comes to blogging, so here’s a quick highlight reel of the past couple of weeks.

Halloween:
Many of you have asked me if they celebrate Halloween or el Dia de los Muertos in Chile. The answer is: not really. People do often go to gravesites of loved one on November 1, the feast of All Saints’ Day for the Catholic Church.
Little kids take advantage of trick-or-treating and a few bars/clubs might also use the occasion to celebrate, but it is definitely as not as big of a deal as it is in the States. However, us gringos refused to be denied this holiday, whether or not Chile would decide to celebrate with us.
Conveniently, there was a Toga Banquet at the U on October30, so the fabric we bought for our togas would double as our Halloween costume the following night when we would become Greek goddesses. The banquet was pretty fun, basically 3 solid hours of sitting and eating…interspersed with some dance numbers from countries all over the world. None of us really understood why we were wearing togas…
The next night, a group of girls met up at Brittney’s to get ready. We then rode the bus to Renaca (even more conspicuous than usual because most of us were wrapped in bedsheets and none of the Chileans were dressed up) to start the party with the “navy boys.” There was a group of USA navy boys also on exchange (though they have already left) and they invited us to celebrate Halloween with them. We ended up going to McDonald’s for dinner and having a mini dance party. After that, we went on the best bus ride ever back to Brittney’s for a bit, and then met up with the navy boys again at Goose, the discoteque. Overall a great night, lots of funny stories, and the best Halloween we could have had in Chile.

The next weekend, Andria, Jess, Beth, Emily, and I went to Santiago. We decided that we didn’t have a great impression of it from our group trip, and we wanted to give it a second chance. We spent a couple of days wandering the city—we rode the funicular to the top of a hill to see how far the city spread out in every direction. A statue of Mary was also located on the top of the hill—she lit up during the night and became our “North Star” in the sense that we’d say “Follow the Virgin!” to get back home.
Some highlights:
· Mexican restaurant (Chilean food is a lot more bland and a lot less like Mexican food than we’d all thought…so we were all craving it). Beth’s uncle lived in Chile for a bit and his friend’s daughter is our age, so we met up with her at the restaurant because her pololo (boyfriend) worked there. Each table had crayons so you could color the brown paper “tablecloth” while you waited for your food.
· Market—most of which ended up being seafood restaurants…and fish markets are the worst as far as piropos (compliments paid on the street) go. Being mistaken for a model is always an ego-booster, as is being called “reina del pescado” (queen of the fish)—which is one I surprisingly had never heard before. We were hassled by the fishmongers until we finally sat down and ordered “Joyas del Mar” (jewels of the sea)…which was a sampler platter of a bunch of types of shellfish. Some we honestly had a hard time with, especially the ones we called “tongues.” The snails still had their little antennae. I think we had more fun playing with our food than actually eating it—it was an experience for sure!
· Adorable puppies in the plaza—they were so tiny. They were either street puppies or recently abandoned…so sad, but so cute we played with them for a long time.
· Museum in the plaza—saw a whale skeleton and saw some mummies, including an 8-year-old boy who was naturally mummified when he was put into a chamber as a sacrifice.
We had a ton of fun on this trip, but it’s really difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what it is that we did—for the most part, we just wandered the city to get the feel of it. And we really liked what we saw—Santiago has a lot of personality.

Another perk (and the main reason we chose this weekend to go to Santiago) was that my parents and sister visited Chile! I managed the Santiago Metro and bus to the airport on my own as well as bargaining with the transport guy to lower the price to get to the bus station. I think that earns me a few bragging points J
It was a lot of fun to show my family around—taking 3 gringos who speak little to no Spanish on the city buses was definitely an experience. I got to show off how much I knew about my temporary home city and the surrounding area as well as being a translator (which finally made me feel like my Spanish is getting somewhere!) We ate a ton of typical Chilean food, toured Renaca and Valpo, hung out with my host family (a choque (crash) of my two worlds!), and hung around the ever-beautiful Vina del Mar. It was great to have them see my life here, and the week went by so quickly! I’m not going into detail because the things I did with my family are things that I’ve blogged about before—but they were all things that I loved and so was incredibly grateful to have an excuse to do them again! It also meant a lot to me that they’d trek down to South America to see me.

The day that they left, the group went on a tour to the last of Pablo Neruda’s houses, Isla Negra. His decorating style is just so quirky—almost everything can be traced back to his love for the sea. The living room was full of the wooden ladies that you see on the front of ships; he had a room for his many collections of boats in a bottle, masks from Africa, bugs, and lots of other random stuff; and his bedroom window faced the ocean—I would kill for a view like that. Good ol’Pabs also had a room built especially to house his horse statue (located outside of his downstairs bathroom) which did not have a tail—so at this one party he threw, 3 friends brought him tails for this special horse. And Pablo put all 3 tails on it. This is not surprising when you consider the fact that he has another room dedicated to his narwhale horn—seriously, besides a few shells, that is the only thing in the room. However, his poetry is absolutely stunning, so I suppose he has license to do whatever he wants.

As I look at the calendar, I realize that not only has it been 3 weeks since my last blog, but that I’m returning to the US in 4 weeks from tomorrow! Although I’ve LOVED being here, I am also excited to go back home—and count myself incredibly blessed that I’ve built a life in the States that I’m looking forward to returning to, even as I’m enjoying the end of my time here in Chile.

Classes are starting to pick up again…all my major exams/essays/projects are due December 8 (perfect timing—I’ll be basically free by my birthday!) actually, right now I’m in a café “working” on my art paper! Speaking of which…probably time to get back to that…