lack of self control

Bought 1090 pesos worth of fruti by my house, which equals about 2.50$ dollars, and who thinks those are gonna last through the week?

peaces, plums, nectarines, apples

 Chilean mom gave me two boxes on peanuts, who thinks these are gonna last the night?

mani with case, mani without case

Hint: they won't.

Weekend Extraordinaire

Ohh what a weekend my friends. Lots of celebrating and eating and staying up all night in this wonderful city of Santiago.

It started on Thursday, which was our grina-thanksgiving dinner in Manuel Montt and it was phenominal. Megan, Becca, Melli, Jess, and I went out for a pre-dinner drink around the corner, and then proceeded to share a bottle of wine at dinner (which we got for free!) I learned that tinto also means red, so vino tinto is red wine.  We of course sang happy birthday to Cait, who was turning 21 that Saturday. Lovely dinner.

Friday we went to Oscar's apartment, also known as Megan's new pololo, which was right next to my house! Met a bunch of people, Burger King run at 2, playground swing-set at night at 4, and in bed by 4:30 in the morning. Oh! And Cait and Joe dominated at beer pong. Represent America people, represent.

Saturday was the most crazy by far. I had another Thanksgiving day party with some gingas I met a few weeks ago, and I headed out to Bellas Artes and hung out at their apartment while everyone was cooking! My contribution: apple cider! Everyone was asking for my secret family recipe (not kidding) so here it is: I took some apple juice from the store, poured it into a pitcher. I took 4 apples, skinned them and cut them up, and dumped them into the pitcher. When I served everyone, I added rum. It was phenominal I must say. The food was so good though: mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, cranberry sause, green beans, pumpkin pie, and our own personal bar. The only thing was that since we are all used to Chilean concepts of time, the dinner that should have been at 7 was at 9:30. Still, successful third Thanksgiving I had! Afterwards I headed to Ali's to celebrate (again!) Cait's 21st birthday! The thing I love about Chilean parties is that they always turn into dance parties. Seriously. It is awesome. There were some of our Chilean friends there, and then some French students at UDP and of course the gringas. It was hard to tell, but both the French and the Chilean guys are amazing dancers. I wish American boys could do that! I was swung around and twirled until my feet hurt but it was so much fun! My contribution to this party: vino tinto, claro! It ended with me walking home, because I lived so close, with a friend, and then turning in just as the birds were chirping in the morning.

Santiago, I am thankful for one of my most interesting and fun weekends here so far. I love love love you and I know you love me back.

Happy Thanksgiving, all 3 times!

On being good at spanish

You know when you can tell when your Spanish is getting better? A few ways:

1. You can argue in Spanish!
2. You understand new people you've never talked to before: family members, strangers asking directions, ect...
3. You can get angry in Spanish, and start talking really fast and not mess up that badly!
4. According to Megan...the dates you go on now are so much easier than the ones you went on at the beginning of the semester. Seconded. 

Basically, I'm getting better. And it feels phenominal. I took two tests today, and all the grammer just flew out, and it was right! My brain loves being challenged.

turkey day, ohh turkey day

Thanksgiving, my friends, is an American holiday. But seriously, when has that ever stopped us from celebrating something? Currently I have 3 potential Thanksgiving day invites.

1. First one (and most awesome): "The Deputy Cheif of Mission of the Embassy of the United States of America" has invited me to a traditional American Thanksgiving Luncheon. Yes, that's right. I was invited to the US Embassy in Chile for a Thanksgiving lunch this Tuesday!!! It's all due to my internship, because the Fulbright Commission in Santiago works directly with the State Department to get visas and stuff, and because I work there, I get to go too! I'm was more excited than any of my co-workers.
2. Thursday, the group of gringas and our one grino are going to a restaurant for dinner in Manuel Montt for a reunion of turkey-day food and english language.
3. American party round dos: Saturday night at a friend's house; I declared that I would attempt to make apple cider by hand because we have a juicer at my house. According to my mom, I should skip the apple cider and go with a whiskey punch. 

Turkey, turkey, and more pavo! I LOVE FOOD!

HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER WOOO HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER YEAHHHH

That's right everyone, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 came out here Tuesday. I attempted to sneak into the premiere with some friends but failed miserably. However, I did get to see Matt Lewis, the actor who plays Neville Longbottom, who came to Santiago to promote the movie in Latin America! He only had one line in this movie, but this makes the second celebrity I've seen in person! The first, Cate Blanchett, kinda trumps Neville. But still. Awesome.

So I saw it last night at 9 pm and it was so phenominal. I love Harry Potter so much and I am clearly not ashamed for the entire world to know. If anything, the whole world should join me in celebrating this phenominal work of literary genius and stop reading Twilight. Vampires = boring, wizards = BAMF.

Anyway, the movie was phenominal and so good, probably the best one in years honestly. I don't really like David Yates (the director) but he did a pretty good job to be honest. I was holding onto Megan's hand the whole time I think; it was so dark and scary! But, thus is Harry.

Will I go again? I've decided at least thrice. Sunday matinee, once by myself later when I'm having a down day I think, and then once when I get back to the states. LOVE IT!!

Pa pa pa poker face

Chilean poker! Guess who just owned against 6 Chilean men in a high stakes (4 dollar buy in) poker game? That's right, the only gringa in the room. The game was at my house, served with hot pizza and red wine all around, with a few friends of my family. My brother, another one of my host brothers, my dad, around 5 other of his friends, another girl and myself played for hours on end.  There was a whole hour there where I won 4 out of 5 games, and was the only one who did not have to buy back in the whole time! It was awesome, and the red wine was from Santa Carolina 2006: phenominal. Except someone spilled all over himself and the table. I taught the Chileans the phrase "party foul" for that one.

I ended up going to bed at 1:30 am, because I had work in the morning, and didn't win! But, I stayed in there close to the end and taught everyone that even though I'm a gringa and my Spanish isn't the best, I can always keep my pa pa pa poker face on wherever I go...

The Papa Lemp in The Chile

About two weeks ago on octubre 25th, I woke up early, cleaned my room, and drove to the airport with my Chilean mom. Why? Because my dad had just arrived in SANTIAGO! And by just arrived, I mean we were 20 minutes late to pick him up at the airport (there was a huge taco, or traffic jam). He stayed for just about a week, and it was awesome! During the weekdays, we explored Santiago. Tuesday we met my friend Charlotte in Manuel Montt (we got our haircut, horribly I might add, and he wandered around and got a cerveza chilena). We went home for an almuerzo and then for dinner we went out a a Peruvian restaurant in Patio Bellavista downtown.  Now I don't know about my Dad, but Peruvian food grandly trumps Chilean food.  It was all fresh seafood and fish, and we ate like a family-stlye meal with everyone eating off everyone's plate. 

On Wednesday we went to my classes where my Dad heard me give a presentation in Spanish (he could not understand anything). Since I had a free day on Thursday, we spent it at Santa Lucia, this amazing open-market place with cheap stones and silver and copper from Chile (hello Christmas gifts...) and then got lunch at Patio Bellavista at the MosaiCafe. Friday was more classes for me and my Dad recovering from too much "Toma Bill, cerveza, vino, y un traigo..." or in other words, from my Chilean family encouraging him to try all the different types of alcohol in Chile.  That night we got dinner with Charlotte and Becca at this phenominal Thai restaurant in Manuel Montt we stumbled upon with help from our Chilean friend who we met at Los Leones from some cupcakes.

Spice lever 4 of 5...Hot!!

Now the weekend was where it really got busy. Saturday we work up and drove to the coast with my Chilean parents for a day trip. We started in Vina del Mar, and driving past all the vineyards was just beautiful, just rows and rows of grape plants and green pastures. We had lunch at a restaurant basically on the beach: hello second round of seafood! We were served things I didn't even know how to sya in English, let alone learn them for the first time in Spanish! I think along the list was mussels, oyesters, clams, prawns, shrimp, anf of course fish. All fresh and all served Chilean style (aka my mom putting on loads of lemon juice and salt). We walked to this pier over the Pacific Ocean and what did we see but wild sea lions, or lobos marinos! There were four of them, all celebrities because everyone was going crazy and taking a ton of pictures. It was one of the most gorgeous days too.

Absolutely huge in person

After lunch we walked around the beach with our shoes off and got a little too wet from the high tide. The water was freezing cold because it is the beginning of spring here and honestly, the Pacific Ocean is always a little cold. Next was Valparaiso! I've been here twice before; once with my Chilean parents and my sister Cote and then second time with the gringos our first month here. But this was so much different! Since it is springtime here, the weather was nicer, the view was clearer, and it wasn't raining! Vina del Mar is known as the beach town on the coast, and for vino obviously.

Along the coast

But Valparaiso is known as the port of Chile! We drove here and stopped at everything there was to see: the twisted roads going up, the steep slope it takes to get there, all the crazy-colored houses, the governmental building where Congress stands, and of course, the main port of the town. It smelled of fish and there were stray dogs everywhere. We had spent about 8 hours, it felt like, driving around and stopping and eating. It was exhausting. We left Valparaiso and headed home for a long siesta.

'The old and the new' by my father, the artist

Sunday was a whole new story. We attempted to go to La Festival de Cerveza, or Chile's Oktuberfest.  However, everyone in Santiago had the same idea! The line was crazy long and so we skipped the beer and decided to go to a little pueblito for lunch! This time it was my Chilean parents and my brother Sergio who lives in Italy year round. 

Someone was still recovering from last night...

The rest of the day was lazy as we spent it looking around the town: there were a ton of artesian shops with pots and pans and hots and jewelry. We spent another day of lounging around and came home. I was all ready to go to bed but my Dad insisted that we go out! So we went to Becca's house and partied with the Chileans and some gringas with the classic choice of pisco. Monday he left at 8 pm so we had the whole day with the family. We had a big breakfast and a big lunch and then we walked around the neighborhood for a little. The best part: we found a plaza de juegos or a playground to swing on! The weather was so nice and it was sunny and there were kids playing around us. It was so relaxing; I have to get back there soon! 

I love the man purse

Dropping Papa Lemp off at the airport was hard, I must say, BUT he made a good point: I've been through 10 weeks here and now I only have 6 more to go! Well now it's 5 weeks but I think the point was proven.