Wednesday, November 20

Today at school was pretty boring but still a good day. After school I met up with Jose and we talked for a little while. Then he dropped me off at home and I packed really fast for the dance in Santiago that night and my dad dropped me off at the bus terminal. I met up with Katie and Sally there and we got on a bus. On the way there Katie finally told us a definite plan of what we were doing that night. We were going to the end of the year gala for the engineering department of the Universidad Catolica, which is like the best university in Chile. Katie’s host brother had invited her and told her she could invite friends. After the gala we would be sleeping over at his apartment and then he would drive us home to Rancagua on Thursday. When we got to Santiago we had to take the metro for a long way. On the metro I saw a guy from my school that I had met at a party one time, so we went over and talked with him. When we got off the metro Katie’s brother Vicente was waiting for us.

Vicente went on an exchange to the US the year before, so he speaks literally perfect English, and so we spoke in English. We went to a nearby mall and had a sushi dinner, and then we went to his apartment to change clothes and put on makeup. We had about 20 minutes to get ready, so it was kind of a whirlwind, but we managed, and when Vicente’s friends came to pick us up we were ready. We went to this pre party at another guy’s house, and when we got there there were like 15 other people there. We greeted everyone, but it was super awkward and Katie, Sally, and I just kind of stood there talking to each other in English because we didn’t know anyone, we were 3 of 5 girls there, and we were the only ones not in college. After a while though I decided to just go for it and I went up to the 2 other girls there and struck up a conversation. Pretty soon other guys starting drifting over to talk to us. I think once we made ourselves more approachable by talking to them, they really wanted to get to know us too. We bonded in the bus to the party while they all tried to talk to us in English while teaching us bad words in Spanish. It was a great time and they were all absolutely hilarious.

When we got to the party, Vicente introduced us to some of his friends, and we talked to them for a while. Everyone was absolutely fantastically nice, even if I couldn’t really hear them over the music. It was cool to know that these are some of the smartest people in Chile who go to the best university there is but they still know how to have a great time at a party. After a while we went over to the dance floor to dance. I danced with one of Vicente’s friends for a while, and then I got tired so I danced with Katie and Sally.

Then Katie and I kind of lost Sally and started dancing with these two really cute guys. Mine was named Milo and he was super sweet and funny. We spent the rest of the night with them dancing and having a great time. We all had to meet back up at the bus at 4:30 in the morning, so at like 4 we said goodbye t the guys and went looking for Sally. We eventually found her and went to get our coats from the coat check and go.

We got on the bus and all of Vicente’s friends were super drunk and Katie and Sally were super tired. I really wasn’t that tired (although my feet hurt like hell from dancing for so long in these tiny heels I had on) because I was still so amped up from the party, so I had a great time exchanging more curse word laden phrases with drunk Chileans. The bus ride took really long because the bus had to drop each person off at their house, so we didn’t get back to Vicente’s apartment until 6! The alarm on my phone that wakes me up for school went off before I fell asleep. It was exhausting, but it was one of the best nights I’ve had here and I loved spending it with such great people. Every time I meet new people here it renews my belief that almost all Chileans are just plain really nice (oh and that almost all Chilean boys are super flirts).