It’s growing late as I catch my second dinner over at Sonia’s (Host mother’s sister) house and I am starting to show signs of anticipation as 1030 chimes on the clock. I am supposed to meet my USAC buddies downtown at Baquebello (metro stop) at 1100 and if I miss this deadline, I’ll be wandering the streets of a sketchy part of Santiago alone without the ability to return home via Metro, as they stop running at 1100. Four cups of wine in, I summon up the courage to articulate the need for my departure and I am quickly rushed to the nearest stop to begin the voyage to my friends. As we arrive, my host family driving, I quickly realize that the Metro is closed and I am miles away from where I need to be. My host fam is all over this however, as the quickly shove me into a bus and give the driver directions to usher me off the vehicle when I reach Baquebello. After a long, unsteady drive up Providencia, the main drag, I am informed that we are close to Montebello. No sooner has the driver spoken these words then I see my friends walking right in front of the bus! Carate (not fiesta in chile)!!!
We head into the heart of Chile’s famous part sector and realize that it’s really not all that it’s cracked up to be. Homeless people roam the streets begging for change, freelance vendors constantly harass those with blonde hair and blue eyes and I find myself constantly being grasped by such people as I make my way through the crowds. We end up going to a salsa dance bar where an interesting show is put on by a host of professional actors. After a while I grow tired of all this salsa business and decide to rally a few others into finding a place with more affordable drinks. After settling into another bar on the street, we finally start to relax as a group of gringos in a sea of gropers and soon it is time for me to leave as I had promised my host family that I would be home at 3- which is quite early as the party usually begins to die down at 5ish here…
I am joined by my bud Jeremy (we share the same Metro stop) as we flag down a random taxi. Buzzing really hard, I tell the driver my Metro stop as we hold up an ambulance (seriously) and soon we are off at high speeds through the night. Our driver, realizing our somewhat incapacitated condition decides that we are a good time and blasts some techno-like music through his upgraded sound system. Not only is the music loud as hell, there are a host of LED lights pulsing with the music in the vehicle. As we fly through the streets of Santiago, I am lost in the psychedelics of our taxi and paying attention to the meter turns into floating pink elephants and rainbow-coloured suds blurring my vision. Suddenly I am jerked back into reality as the driver boots us out at our stop, 5 mil Chilean pesos poorer. I bid an equally drunk Jeremy farewell as I take off running/stumbling-at-high-speeds in what I thought was the right direction. I run for what seems like forever before coming to the realization that I am in totally unfamiliar territory at 3:30 in the morning. I quickly orient myself by consulting my watch and run back to the Metro stop another mile+ away. By the time I arrive at the stop again, I realize that the exercise has me completely intoxicated and I sit down before I lose one of my two dinners. After pulling myself together, I run down my street in the right direction this time and arrive in front of my house on the verge of collapse. After getting a ‘oh boy’ look from my host mom, I pass out in my frigid room upstairs in my clothes.
Day 9- iQué fomé!
Awakened by my host mom about three hours later, I scurry to get out of bed and into some decent clothes that don’t smell like cigarettes. Today is my orientation for USAC and we need to be across town in about half an hour for the ceremony.
We meet up at a nice hotel in Los Condes (a fastidious sector of Santiago) and begin learning about the culture in Chile and what we need to be mindful of as we begin insert ourselves into their society. After this pretty monotonous talk, we take a placement test in order to see how well we know our Spanish. We are all astounded by the difficulty of the long test and I do terrible for sure.
We then proceed to take a tour of the city via a tour bus, as if we weren’t obvious tourists already, and while we circle the metropolis, I proceed to explore the back of my eyelids and sleep well in my cozy recliner seat.
Finally we stop and are ushered outside the bus onto the Plaza de Armas. The plaza is immense and packed with people looking to shop, seek entertainment or look at the procession of gringos rolling by in a tight group. The architecture is fantastic and we learn much about Chile’s political history here.
Next we stop in front of the Presidential building, akin to our White House, and learn about a famous president of Chile who committed suicide in the face of an anti-communist uprising set into effect by the U.S.
Finally we arrive back at the hotel where my host mom awaits and after I tell her everything that we as a group did, she replies iQué fomé!, which means boring in Chile and I agree politely. I am driven over to one of her friend’s house to receive an injection as she too is becoming sick like much of the population here. I meet an interesting guy here who works as an adult film maker in Chile and Columbia. Suddenly I realize why their house is so nice in Santiago.
Mom misses and loves you.
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