feliz dieciocho!

This weekend marked the 199th year of independence in Chile, and thus there was a huge celebration. And by huge, I mean I cannot really think of a holiday to compare it to in the United States. We did not have classes on Friday, so Thursday evening I went downtown to La Moneda in front of the President's offices to enjoy the second biggest concert I have ever been to (the biggest one was def. the free concert on the Mall for the Inauguration. Reppp Garth Brooks and Beyonce). This concert definitely held it's own; the music ranged from the traditional Cueca music in Chile, to futbol chants to what I think was Chilean rap, but I am not 100% sure because it was one of the strangest performances I have ever seen. What I really liked about the entire situation was the representation of the Chilean people. I realize this sounds dumb, but it was cool to be around people our age, as well as families with young kids and the older adults. Everyone was having a good time and strangely enough, I think everyone knew all of the songs. At midnight there were fireworks <3

After the concert, a few of us went over to a friends house, but not before stopping at a liquor store whose owner randomly gave us shots of Chicha on the house. Chicha (I hope I am spelling this right...) is an alcoholic beverage that is more or less just a seasonal drink to celebrate Independence day, think in terms of eggnog during our winter season.

On Saturday, my host mom Maria and I headed over to a barbecue at her ex-husband's family's house (I know it seems weird, but they are all still on good terms). It was especially endearing when I arrived at the house and got the warm welcoming of "The Gringa is here." Bueno. But, I am getting used to being called a Gringa. Besides the point, the family was so nice to me and lunch lasted for well over 3 hours. It obviously consisted of some good wine, fresh veggies and empanadas (which I have yet to get sick of).

Today, I went to a fonda in the indie sector of town. Fondas are more or less festivals here that consist of a wide range of things to do: vendors selling all sorts of odd and end pieces, dancing, live music, food..you get the picture. This fonda happened to be a completely vegan one where after eating all meat-free foods, everyone played Bingo. It was magical. Afterwards, I met up with Maria to go to the movies. I don't know what I had expected, but the majority of the movies here are from the United States, so they are still in English but have Spanish subtitles. We watched "New in the City" or "New City" (I don't know the title in the US because they try to translate it down here, but it always ends up being different. For example, the movie "Hangover" is called "Que paso anoche" which means what happened last night.) Anyways, the movie has a relatively large part concerning the dessert of tapioca, but because people don't eat tapioca down here about half way through the movie my host mom questioned what it was and I gladly explained it to her.

For dinner tonight, I know this sounds terrible, but I ate a hot dog with cut up tomatoes, avocado, and mayonnaise. Lunchin, I know, but they are called "Italianos" down here and everyone reps them so hard so I thought I should at least try it. In reality, it wasn't terrible...to get an idea, here is a picture of what a Completo Italiano looks like, but imagine mine with double of all the toppings.