alright, so last night chile played brazil in the preliminaries for the world cup and lost. and while all hope is not gone because we have more games in october, lets forgo discussing the depression i felt after chile held the ball for the majority of the game, and couldnt pull through. what you really want to know about was who i watched the game with. apparently, it was a mistake to go out right as the game started because all of the bars were to capacity, but such my luck i went down to pio nono (rep it if you know it) with my friend brit and jackie, jackie of which has bright blonde hair aka gringa hair because people in chile think its the be all end all to have blonde hair. so we are sitting outside some random bar that looks like its at capacity, but no. they make room inside for the three of us. magical.
so jackie and i sit in one corner with some 40 year old man named samuel, who as we later find out, is a chilean poet. and not only is he a poet, he created this rubrics cube contraption that when you move the cubes, creates a poem no matter which way you turn/read. how do we know this? samuel pulled two out from his briefcase and personally autographed them for the each of us. he proceeded to tell us that he sold his idea/cube to barnes and noble. so if you happen to be in your local store and should stumble upon this little toy, you now know its wonderful origins.
after the game, we politely refused salsa dancing and intended to create plans after talking to the other kids. but wait, we happen to walk by a bar and see theres a camera crew. because the three of us can barely speak enough spanish to maintain conversation, we werent expecting anything more than something to watch. luckily, the gringa hair raised us up to a whole new playing field. the crew asked us if we were interested in getting interviewed under the condition of only using spanish. obvi, it was a done deal and not 2 seconds later we were filming slash singing the futbol cheers slash some other random chilean from the street was pole dancing on the metro stop pole and singing. all in all, it was a pretty good night (minus the whole losing part). and should i fall upon the video from last night, i promise you i will post it.
i think this is a great opportunity to emphasize how much fun chilean futbol games are. for example, on saturday chile played venezuela and austin, emily (2 of the other americans living it up down here) and i started the night by going to a place called aliens, aliens, aliens. sounds legit, yeah? because it is. we quickly made friends with the two chileans sitting next to us in this big open room with a screen to watch the game. it should be noted that one of the chileans was wearing a great pair of black leather pants with a matching leather overcoat. what, what. people here go crazy; chilean hats, flags, horns, the whole shebang. fans are constantly chanting and yelling, commenting on the game and just enjoying the moment. without a doubt, i am an official fifa fan.
last thursday, i went out with out with one of the other girls, heather, and her chilean friend who brought his chilean friend. i know this sounds complicated, but i was getting at is that both of the chileans go to the same university as me and heather and thus i have seen the friend, aka alejandro, on campus several times now. i must say, it is really magical when you know someone other than an american in another country. alejandro talks to me like i always know what's up. but in reality, i pretty much only catch about half of the things he says. i guess smiling and nodding your head goes a long way.
speaking of chileans, literally everyone i have met and talked to is super nice. it probably has to do with the fact that everyone kisses cheeks before and after all conversations. it has been mutually decided that this breaks the ice in any given situation, so if you're not down to kiss cheeks i encourage you to change your mind. its customary here to invite people over to your house on the reg, which is still a little bit creepy in my head and will take some getting used to. basically every time a group of us has gone out someone (aka a chilean) will ask us if we all want to continue to party at their house. ehh, im not so sure on that custom chief.
i also wanted to mention that using the public transportation is officially not necessarily safe, but always fun. the bus drivers speed, run through red lights and basically think they can do whatever they want. and considering they are buses, not many people are going to get in the way. if that wasn't enough, we get entertainment on the buses on a pretty regular basis through musicians and/or random others who jump on the bus and try to sell goods. i may or may not have had several singers attempt serenation via guitar en route to school. jealous?
it's finally warming up to the point of t-shirt status during the day, but it's really cold at night. im heading to the coast this weekend, so while it won't be wonderful beach-going weather i'm hoping for some crazy adventures. i love everyone, and hope you are having a great time wherever you are <3
