The week of never ending parties

Oye, its been a crazy couple of weeks! I have become some sort of nocturnal party gringa / latina party animal... and I love it! Where to begin? With the entire weekend of partying and not sleeping in three different locations, or the three nights straight that I saw the sun come up, or the fact I am moving, or the new kinds of dance and music I have discovered?! Life is one big whirlwind at the moment!

Started last weekend on Thursday (yes that is the weekend) with the despedida (leaving) of one of our friends. He is off to Panama for a year. Thursday we went out dancing Cueca as usual, tons of fun, late night. Friday I had to work (at 9am arrgghh), and then met up with the girls in the evening and travelled down to Curicó for Pancho's despedida. We were at his parent's house which is in the country, and really big. We had asado (with churipan and pebre mmmmm), and generally there was a lot of singing and dancing. Pancho is a musician so there is always lots of guitar and singing etc. So much fun! And we saw the sun come up which was very pretty... Got a tiny bit of sleep and talked to his parents for a while, explored the hills a bit, had a siesta, and then back to Santiago, 6 of us in Zeli's little car (about the same size as the laser), for 2hrs. Lots of fun as we had moraccas and a tambourine and had the cueca turned up loud, lots of singing, general madness.

After a quick trip to the supermarket it was asado time again, and more people started turning up for more party... Quite a few of Pancho's friends are also muso's so more singing, dancing, rum, etc etc. I had to crash early (7am), as I was done, but when I got up at 9am everyone was still going. I think everyone went to bed finally at 11am, and we had a few hours sleep. Then it was off to Cajon del Maipu, the valley up in the Andes to see the snow. And they have really good empanadas up there too. So we went up there and mucked around for a few hours, in the light and the dark... Got home finally about 11pm on Sunday, exhausted and with no plan for my classes on Monday. Oppps, luckily they were all fine.

AND THEN, on Thursday was a feriado (public holiday). On Wednesday it was Zeli's birthday so we had a bit of a party at the girls house and then went out dancing. Was soooo much fun, dancing cumbia and salsa mainly. Cumbia comes from Columbia (apparently), and is super fun. Don't need a partner or anything (which makes it easier as the chances of me actually stepping on anyones feet is therefore greatly reduced), and the music is really fun. When the club closed we all piled into the car (perhaps I won't tell you quite how many of us as my Mum reads this... but it was a record for me) and headed out to an after-party. Most of us weren't that keen when we got there though so headed back to the girls' house and slept instead. On Thursday I came home around lunchtime, but had only been home about an hour when the girls called me. Talking on the phone is super difficult for me, I hardly understand anything, and while I was almost getting what they were saying the call of "churipan churipan" was enough for me to say I would be back out there pronto! Seriously it is like calling a dog for food - churipan Karen, come and get it... So after yet more delicious asado (this time with actual salad), we went to Cueca and I got home late. Luckily all my classes had cancelled for Friday as everyone was taking a sandwich day (which I think is the best concept ever).

After a lot of sleeping on Friday I met up with Naty and we went to a random bar with no name or sign. To get in you have to say the secret password 'viva chile', and it is fair to say I was the only blonde for miles. Great place though. Apparently quite historical, a meeting place for the leftists during the Pinochet regime, and had some pretty cool graffiti on the walls. I liked the fact that they sold 1L bottles of red wine for 3 luca, about $Aus7.50. They had live music, cumbia again, and the place was totally packed. Other pepole turned up, and we danced until it closed around 5am and came home. Was fair to say that the red wine didn't agree with my head in the morning!

The most exciting thing of the weekend was that the girls are moving and have asked me to move in with them. It will be really good I think. They only speak Spanish so it should be really good for me. Now we just have to find a house, but Naty and I spent some time today looking on the net and in the paper so they are going to get onto it this week. I have told Bruno and he seems to have taken it well which is good. They are both teachers and have school holidays at the moment (hence the amount of partying), so they want to get it sorted out pronto before going back to work. It is likely that I won't be quite as close in to town, but I think the change will be worth it, and the improvements that it will make on my Spanish overcome any added inconvenience.

But there are no more feriado's until September (when they have national day), so life is going to need to return to normal a bit more I think, classes and partys only on the weekend (Thursday Friday Saturday that is!)

I didn't remember my camera for Curicó and only took one photo the rest of the time. Yes I am hopeless. Its not really that important though.

Lots of classes to plan for the week and quite a bit of paperwork to catch up on so I need to go.
Chao chao,
KiwiKaz