transmogrification

Chilean Independence

Last weekend was Chilean Independence. The Chileans understand that independence is a pretty sweet deal, for all its flaws, and celebrate the right way. The 18th is the actual date,  the Chilean 4th of July, minus the fireworks. But, unlike their wimpy, work-minded North American counterparts, the Chilean festivities unofficially start the Thursday night of the spectacularly long weekend.

On Thursday night, the truly party-oriented Chileans are found exiting their homes in search of fondas. A fonda is a public affair. It takes place in parks or on closed down streets. It is kind of like a festival or street faire. Sometimes there are creaky looking rides, mostly there are snacks and drinks to be bought and music to enjoy. On Friday, middle-class Chileans tend to decide that since they aren't working on Monday, they might as well not work on Friday either. The use the day to go to more fondas, or to asados at the houses of friends/family. An asado is a BBQ. It is mostly a meaty affair, but with tasty Chilean lemon-dressed versions of salads, and of course: Marcoleta, my favorite type of Chilean bread.

Marcoleta is the pan part of Choripan (typical Chilean asado food -- barbecued chroizo and bread, sometimes with a bit of pebre, the Chilean version of salsa, to spice it up). I like to order a Choripan without chori. Yes it is just bread and salsa, but ...Yum! On Saturday, more of the same. On Sunday, more of the same. In the end, Chileans are fat and sassy, having glutted themselves on their favorite things MEAT and CHICHA, a fermented liquor made of apples and grapes that tastes so harmless that it is incredibly peligrosa (dangerous)! On Monday, if one is ambitious, one keeps it up, or watches the military desfile (parade). If one is under-ambitious, or overly hung over, one utilizes that blessed Monday to sleep it all off. Of course, since it is the 18th of September, the parade wont always be on a Monday, and the whole way the long weekend works might change. I wish I could spend another year here and find out.

My 18 de Septiembre went as follows:

Thursday: went to a mellow fonda here at school. Ate HAMBURGUESA DE SOYA. Soy burgers exist in Chile! Where can I find more? I thought about going to another fonda with La Becca y El Fernman, but I decided to sleep and be responsible instead.

On Friday, I proved how freaking American I am. I went to class. Afterwards, Rachel and I went to yoga. Of course we followed that up with a trip to to La Huerta to enjoy some tasty lunch (too early for once, lo siento). Then we went SHOPPING.

In Chile, Shopping is shopping. If you want to go shopping, and take a cab to the mall of your choice, you can ask the cab driver to take you to the place of the "schopping" Incidentally, many pub-type-hole-in-the-wall eating establishments have the word Schoppe in their name. I think that the strange drink that is a blend of Fanta y Cerveza (beer, you know that one) is called schoppe too, so that is probably why the pubs are called Schoppe. I am going to try the stuff eventually. I know it is blasphemous, but it is such a delightful orangey color.

Back to my shopping. I bought two pairs of pants, a belt, and a shirt. But let me highlight the most important part: TWO PAIRS OF PANTS. THAT FIT ME. IN ONE OUTING: Then I headed home, and started studying. What is wrong with me? I needed to study to make up for the guilt of having fun all day.

Saturday: I went to asado numero uno con La Kristy a las dos. The homestay parents of two Costa Rican girls were kind enough to invite us to join them. I met a ton of lovely Chileans, three Costa Ricans, Two Mexicans, and two Peruvians. La Kristy y yo fuimos las gringas solas. We were forced to speak tons and tons of Spanish. It was lovely. I ate delicious choripan sin chori. Crazy frutilla (strawberry) and vino tinto (red wine) drink -- borgoña way more peligrosa than chicha! I was feeling a little bit pleased with myself by the time I got back to the house.

Then it was time to hem my cute new pants. Chileans are short, but they like their pant legs incredibly long. I do not understand it, quite frankly. Hemming job done in 20 minutes, neatly too. I am getting good at this! Then time for asado numero dos con La Becca y El Fernman a la casa del Tio del F.M (at Fernando's uncle's house). This asado was way out in the middle of NOWHERE... in this crazy suburban subdivision thing. Weird. We ate plentifully, and drank more plentifully until the wee wee hours of the morning. I conversed in Spanish with Chileans, and think some of them even liked me. Especially crazy drunky-pants pushy lady. Yowza! We played very retarded drinking games that involved taking a sip of the most vile concoction of whatever was sitting on the table. Ugh to bartender Fernman, what a sadist (and when he lost, masochist). Eventually I got home... I think sleep happened at 6 or so.

Sunday: I slept till 10, and then read for a bit. I then went back to sleep till 1:30. I got up, read a bit more and finally got dressed. I had a snack and headed out to meet Kristy and her Peruvian friend, Franc. We headed to the big fonda at Parque O'Higgins. It is where all kinds of Santiaguinos go, and of course all my middle-class Chilean pals and profes warned me that it was dangerous, and recommended that I not go. It was fine, fun even. I don't think it was dangerous in the least. Chileans have such a weird idea of danger. They haven't heard about Oakland or the Tenderloin, I guess. I ate two empanadas, drank a little bit of chicha, and the three of us shared this crazy pineapple ice cream treat that was brought to Chile by some entrepreneurial Costa Ricans. Chileans like to welcome these things into their país, so that they feel a bit more like real Latin Americans (joke -- kind of).

In the place of fireworks, Chileans fly kites. This might not sound too cool, but when there are hundreds of kites flying in one lugar (place) it is pretty neat. Traditionally, the kite strings are covered in glass and capable of cutting. The objective of kite flying is to cut the strings of other kites flying nearby. I just read about this in Kite Runner, I guess it must be a sport all over the world. Anyhow, it is said that every year, some unfortunate motorcyclist or someone of that sort loses a hand or a head to the festivities. The authorities have, therefore, really tried to crack down on the practice.

There were kids carrying around stacks of kites, the other part of the tradition is that people compete to see how many of the fallen kites they can capture, so, I figure the crackdown is pretty much a joke. That being said, I have no cuts, scratches, wounds or missing limbs from that weekend, so I can't testify that as an absolute fact.

Monday: Homework. Rest.

It was a good 18th.

Now, I have more studying to do than I can possibly accomplish, and I really hope that my big fat cheater English copy of the Astillero gets here before Tuesday. I did not make much headway in Spanish because the book sucks. In other news, aside from the fact that I am a big-fat cheater, I am doing pretty well in school. I got a 6.7 (out of 7) on my first paper for my Teatro class. How awesome is that? I only did those readings in Spanish, even. There is hope for me yet! Not much has gone on since the 18th, I have had a lot of catching up to do.

More on Once

So, you already know that one ought to "Tomar Once" between 4 and 7 in the tarde. Tarde in Chile is a weird concept. It starts at about 2pm, and ends at about 8:30 or 9. It is a combination of afternoon, evening, and night. There are fuzzy areas in there though. I am not really sure what time my forms of greeting are actually supposed to change. I feel strange saying Buenos Dias at 1pm. That is all I am saying. Back to Once, though.

Interested parties requested to know where the name of this fine meal comes from. As promised, I have located an answer. I do not guarantee that it is the correct answer, but it is the answer that I have found.

Three basic theories have emerged.

1. Modern Once comes from a meal that used to exist, but exists no longer, that was eaten at 11. (que fome! -- boring!)

2. It is a literal translation of the English meal Elevenses (super fome!)

3. It is said that back in the day, the folks who worked in the salt mines had a drink called Aguardiente with their afternoon snack thing. It was at that time called Las Once, to be sly because there were restrictions placed upon drinking while on the job. Others say that the origin is the same, but that it dates back even further, to colonial times, when the men were trying to sneak their drinking habits by their ladies. Either way, Las Once stood for the 11 letters that spell Aguardiente. Today, regardless of its origin, it is called La Once.

El Huerto, Valparaiso, and Salsa

First off, thanks to all of you for commenting. It is tough to write for an audience when you aren´t sure that you have one. I like seeing your responses to whatever junk I have to say. It makes me feel like you guys are all the way over there loving me the way I´m over here loving all of you.

Most of the time, I feel just fine about being so far away from everyone. I keep so busy in normal life, that I rarely get to see anyone who I don´t live with anyhow, but every now and again, the distance between me and everyone I care for feels very tangible, and it breaks my wee heart just a little.

Moving right along to the non-mushy stuff.

Friday night Rachel and I went out to celebrate. Who knows what the heck we were celebrating? The exchange rate going down (it went back up to 541 pesos to the dollar today)? Laundry being done? Once being eaten? I don´t know, but we once again spent too much money at El Huerto.

Wine, appetizer, soup, salad, entre, tea, dessert later we were both gluttonously full, and just intoxicated enough to be way too stoked about everything. We found ourselves a yoga class, that we may be empezaring on Wednesday (if I manage to find some sweatpants today). It is the cheapest we’ve found, which isn’t really saying much as, if you go buy the when in Rome do as the Roman´s logic, Romans do not do yoga. It has a fairly flexible schedule though, and is something you sign up for monthly so, it seems pretty good for me. After our delicious dinner, Rachel and I walked towards her house, and eventually parted ways where our ways do part. It was still fairly early, and the streets pretty active, so I decided that I would do my best to walk halfway home, and hopefully get tired enough to fall right into bed upon my arrival there. Somewhere in here, Becca called and told me that my gift from home had arrived. My drunkey-butt got so excited, that I walked maybe 6 blocks, got tired of how long it was taking to get to the point where I could unpack the little box of love from home, and ended up in a cab.

Becca and I cheerfully chatted as I unpacked my little box. We encountered ourselves supplied with three fresh disks of Carnivale, and we decided that perhaps we ought to watch just one episode. Two episodes later, at 2:30-am, it was totally time for bed. I did the bed thing, and woke up at 6:30 the next morning to head to Valparaiso with my Photo class.

On the bus trip to Valparaiso I saw houses that you could only call shacks on a good day, and a man plowing his field with a single horse, and a little boy dragging a stubborn, and loaded down pack mule along a busy street.

Upon arrival in the city, the ayudante, who was taking the place of our professor for the day, handed out photo topics, and started leading us all over the place. It broke my heart to be working in blanco y negro considering that Valparaiso is one of the most vibrantly colorful places I´ve ever seen. Poverty stricken, a veces, but the hills there are peppered with brightly colored houses, and I don´t know, there aren´t even words. I do have pictures of the place for you all, but they are blanco y negro, and following the theme I was given for the day, lo cuadrado y lo redondo - the square and the round. I will share those later though, I haven´t finished organizing them and trying to work on upping contrast and whatnot.

We had a really fantastic time on the trip, despite frequently getting lost. Actually, I began to enjoy the getting lost, once it was discovered that we could eventually be found again.

The bus ride home featured the ticket collector guy teasing Rachel and I the whole way. I am beginning to think that this ... laughing at the weird American girls thing is some bizarre form of flirtation. He kept telling us to be quiet, when we were speaking in no more than a whisper, and in Spanish at that! He also closed a curtain on us. Cry.

Anyhow, I bought an ice cream cone on the walk from the metro to my house, just because everyone said I was missing out on chocolate ice cream here. I think I will stick with strawberry though. The chocolate ice cream here is better, but I still don´t think it is the best possible option. Becca and I fixed some food later that evening, and I opted not to go out since my brain hurt from tired. I went to bed at 11-pm, and woke up on Sunday at 1:30-pm. Heavenly.

Sunday was mellow, I talked to my little brother on the phone for quite a while, and my mom saved my life, as far as homework concerns go. I also studied! And then Becca and I watched Brujas and ordered a pizza. Then talked to The Good Doctor, and wished that I had talked to him for a little longer, even if it was best that I get myself in a bed going to place sooner rather than later. I studied for another hour or so, finishing yet another reading on Lenguaje Cinamatografico and then I passed out with the lights on.

This morning I woke up late, and got dressed and fed then headed here to school for my Salsa class. Salsa is pretty tough. Once I got put with a partner who wasn’t 8 feet tall though, the situation was a bit better. Second partner was pretty short, and patient with me even if he was perplexed at my difficulty in shrugging off all ideas of leading. So many American boys can´t dance, and you gotta lead them a little. It is a different story in Chile.

I guess I better get going though, it is pouring rain, and I am quickly losing initiative to go look for sweat pants.