Tuesday, May 20

Today I had to go to school without tights on even though it was absolutely freezing cold because like half the senior class (the taller ones who could march to a beat) had been chosen to march in a parade. Apparently for some holidays, all the schools in the city are called to march in a parade in front of the government members. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Battle of Iquique where Arturo Pratt (an important Chilean war hero) died. We got out of second and third period to go walk downtown, wait about 45 minutes lined up, and then march for about 2 minutes in front of a few government people lined up in front of the train station in the center of Rancagua. It was kind of funny how much preparation and attention to detail in our uniforms (they made all the girls change socks so we would all match perfectly, and they made us wear white gloves) went into such a little parade.
I guess it was to keep up the reputation of the school. A lot of people told me that all the other schools hate Instituto Ingles because they see us as being spoiled rich kids, and they told me that sometimes in parades like these people will actually spit on the blonde people from our school as they walk by. Nothing happened this time, but I could definitely sense some classism between our school and the others that were marching. Anyway, after school I went home and relaxed for a while before my parents dropped me off at Cata’s house around 9. Louis was already there, and we ate once together and watched a movie while chatting. Then we went next-door to Augustin’s house, where Isa, Vicente, Stefano, and Augustin were hanging out. We sat around and talked and sang along to some good music for a while, and then Cata, Louis, and I left to go to this party called Cumbre. Cata’s brother dropped us off in front of this disco where we thought it was, but when we walked in, the dance floor was completely empty and there were a few older couples sitting around the sides of the room drinking and talking. It was obvious that we were in the wrong place. We had to go outside in the rain and walk around the club to the building behind it, which was also a club, and apparently the place where Cumbre was being held.

We walked in and this time we knew we had gotten it right because it was packed with people and playing good music. I thought going out with just Cata and Louis would be awkward because they are kind of flirting and I would have been totally a third wheel, but right when we entered, I saw Sally’s curly blonde head sitting at one of the tables on the side, and when I went up to her and hugged her, she turned around looking relieved to see me and said she was bored and wanted to leave. I stole her from her friends and made her dance with me so I wouldn’t have to dance with Cata and Louis. The night went from being totally awkward to being totally amazing. Neither Sally nor I have any clue how to dance, but we had the most fun ever trying together.
We just did the stupidest things, but we weren’t at all embarrassed to do them in front of each other, so it was really fun! Sally even commented that half the people in the club probably thought we were drunk because we were dancing so terribly, but we didn’t care because we were together and having fun. At 2:30, Cata, Louis, and I had to go outside to wait for his dad to come pick us up. It was raining outside, and we ended up having to wait until after 3 because Louis’s dad is a typical Chilean, which means that everything happens a little later than planned. When he dropped me off at my house, I had to run upstairs, but on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, turn on the space heater and the bed heater, and jump under the covers shivering  I was so fricken cold. Overall, it was a really great night with some really awesome people.

Monday, May 19

Today we went to school in normal clothes because tomorrow some of the seniors have to march in a city wide parade, so we had to have our uniforms clean and ready. School was nothing particularly special. After school, I walked into the center to meet up with Katie W and Sally, but they were both running late, so I went shopping looking for the last few souvenirs that I need to bring back to the US from Chile. I was sad to find that postcards from Rancagua don’t exist, but other than that I was successful in my souvenir shopping. Then I met up with Katie and Sally and we walked around trying to find a store that would screen-print the sweatshirt we were planning on ordering for all the exchange students in Rancagua. We found one in this sketchy little mall in the center called El Cobrecol, and ordered the sweatshirts. Then we walked around doing a couple errands that Katie needed to do. I said goodbye to them and walked across the center to get a collectivo to my house. At home, I went for a run. I was just finishing the run and getting ready to leave the track where I run and go home when a guy who had been practicing sprints on the track came up to me. He tried to start a conversation with me and even did that stupid “so do you ever come here with your boyfriend” line. He asked me for my number, and I had to tell the truth—that I have no idea what my Chilean phone number is. I told him that we would probably see each other at the track again because I am always there, and then we said goodbye. It’s kind of hilarious how often things like this happen to me in Chile, and I think it’s a mix of the guys being a lot more daring here and me looking very different from a typical Chilean girl. Anyway, I got home, showered, ate once with my family, and went to sleep.

Sunday, May 18

Today Cata and I woke up late, and I wanted to go home pretty quickly because I felt bad that I’d been out of my house for so long. I got home around 12, and Lilian was making lunch. I sat in the kitchen with her and Manuel while they cooked for like 2 hours and we talked. I love talking to them about every little thing under the sun and never having them get tired of what I have to say or listening to my opinions about things. I think that’s one of the best things about being an only child. After we ate lunch,  I went upstairs and worked for a while on my blog (when I say “work on my blog” I really mean waste a lot of time on Facebook and texting people and then write like one day of my blog). Later on, I went for a run, and then we ate once, and I went to bed early. It was a nice relaxing day of doing nothing important.

Typical Once--bread with cheese and avocado and tea

Saturday, May 17

Today I woke up late, and then chilled in my room for a little while before going down the street to catch a collectivo to Master Chef, a restaurant near the movie theater. I live really far away now, so I expected it to take about 45 minutes to get there in collectivo, and it only ended up taking 20, so I got to wait alone listening to music for a very long time before the rest of the exchange students showed up to eat lunch. Katie W, Katie H, Louis, Nigel, and Hugo (this super awesome French kid from Santiago) were there. We ate some nice American food, and started the ordeal of getting back to Louis’s house. First, we waited like half an hour for a micro to pass, then we accidentally got off of it too early, then we really didn’t know how to get where we wanted to go, so the boys and girls split up, and Katie, Katie, and I went one way and they went the other. We ended up losing the competition to get to Louis’s house first because we were cheap and decided to walk the whole way instead of taking the 2 collectivos we would have had to use, but at least we got some exercise. We got to Louis’s house and the guys were outside chilling in his backyard eating candy that Louis's mom had sent him from New Zealand.

We hung out there for a while just talking and laughing, and then we went inside to drink coffee because it had gotten pretty cold outside. The two Katies left around 7, and then the guys and I walked over to the Jumbo. I sat with them while they ate hot dogs, and then Thomas came to pick me up and take me to his house (he was going to take me to the big school party that was going on tonight). We went back to his house and had dinner with his family. They’re super sweet and welcoming with me, and every time his mom sees me, she tells me she’s going to send Thomas to my house in California so he will learn English. They even offered me a bed to sleep in tonight if I didn’t have a place to stay after the party. They’re literally the greatest family ever, and nothing is ever awkward with them. Anyway, around 10 we got dropped off at the party. I just kind of walked between groups talking to my friends, and laughing at Thomas while he got shit faced drunk, and then randomly, Cata showed up at the party with Nigel, Louis, and Hugo. They had planned on going to Bierfest, but decided they would rather come here and surprise me. It was really fun having them there and introducing them to my friends, even though I didn’t really spend the whole night with them. We all had a great time, and when Cata’s brother came to pick us up at 2:30, I still didn’t want to leave. We dropped the exchange students off at Louis’s house, and then Cata and I went to her house. We drank tea, and had a long, deep conversation about life and boys and saying goodbye, and it was really nice to have someone to talk to and just tell everything to. Around 4, we finally got tired and went up to her room to go to sleep.

Friday, May 16

Today was a special day. In Chile, there is a national holiday called Students’ Day, and in my school, it is celebrated a lot. We were all allowed to come to school in normal clothes. A lot of people had planned to go over to someone’s house, sleepover, and get drunk at like 6 in the morning so they could come to school drunk. I arrived at school to find about half the people normal like I was, and the other half completely hilarious and crazy. A few of the girls were twerking on the wall of the classroom at 7:45 in the morning. Before school, Sebastian Gonzalez, the teacher I had chosen as my senior, came to find me and give me a present. It was a framed picture of him and his seniors (me and 2 of my classmates). It was the cutest gesture, and felt so special that he had thought of me. All the students got together in the gym for a big performance that the teachers had planned for us.

The theme of the act this year was World Cup, and all the teachers were dressed up in Chile shirts and crazy hats, they came in on floats like it was carnaval, and they danced a few songs (like Waka Waka by Shakira), and it was basically the most awesome and hilarious thing ever.

After the act was over, we stood around the classrooms talking for a while, and then a few of my friends and I went down to the football fields where each generation was having a bunch of mini soccer games. We watched for a long time and talked, and then school ended at 12:50. Fernanda, Vicente, Pablo, and I then walked into the center to get lunch. We went to this hole in the wall restaurant that served hot dogs and sushi, and we got sushi. I was a little wary of it, but it was really tasty. I really love hanging out with that group of people because they always make me laugh so hard, even if they are making fun of my accent half the time. I had to go home pretty quickly after lunch, because Sally was coming over so we could get ready for a gala together. Sally’s friend Eduardo is a first year student in the Chilean Air Force academy, and he invited her as his date to their annual gala. Eduardo’s friend Nicolas also needed a date, so Sally got to invite me. I had met Nicolas once when he came over to my house last Sunday, and he was a really cool guy, so I wasn’t nervous about going to this thing with him. I am pretty good at getting ready for formal events, and I don’t really need that much time to do what I want to do, so I finished with like an hour to spare. Sally however, was really stressed out and kind of needed everything to be perfect, and I had to work to calm her down. By the time Eduardo and Nicolas came to pick us up, we were totally ready.

When we walked downstairs, it was kind of weird weeing them all dressed up in uniform, but I guess I should have expected that. They were still the same cool guys I had met before, and after we said a quick goodbye to my parents, we had a great time talking and laughing in the car on the way to Santiago. When we arrived at the base, I was a little nervous, because this event seemed really formal and I wasn’t sure I knew how to behave appropriately in English, let alone Spanish. Nicolas was really cool about it though, and kept making jokes about how he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing either. We walked around arm in arm, and he presented me to his friends and a few of his superior officers. I just had to smile and say hi and that I was an exchange student from California a bunch of times. There were probably about 200 people there, all of them air force people in uniform and their dates. There was a toast with champagne, and then we stood around talking and drinking champagne while listening to saxophone music. It would have been the most boring thing ever if it hadn’t been for the great company we had. However, Sally and I are very inexperienced drinkers who hadn’t eaten a single thing since lunch (because we thought the event included dinner), and we began to feel the champagne taking a little effect, so we excused ourselves to go eat a few of the hors devours that were on the tables. We laughed at how stupid the two gringas looked over in the corner without their dates shoving mini empanadas into their mouths.

When we returned to Eduardo and Nicolas, the saxophone music had stopped and they had turned the lights in the room off, converting it into a sort of discotec, with reggaeton playing. We wanted to go dance, but it was kind of awkward because reggaeton is not the kind of music you dance to when your date is in military uniform and his superior officers are also in the room. I asked Nicolas how we were supposed to dance, and he had no idea either, so we decided to go into the middle of the group of people dancing and just do what we would normally do. Now, I must reiterate the fact that I am not a very good dancer (and worse in the high heels I was wearing that night), but Nicolas may just have been worse than me. The think that made dancing with him so incredibly fun though was that he literally did not care what he looked like, and he just went all out and made a fool of himself, but he was so confident about it that it made me want to join in his dorky dance moves. We had a great time out there dancing together. We took a couple breaks when Sally’s and my feel just couldn’t take it anymore, but we basically danced the rest of the night. Around2, the party finished (they gave all the girls little animal stuffed animals with air force hat sewed onto them as souvenirs), Eduardo dropped Nicolas off at his house in Santiago (I was almost sad saying goodbye to him because I’d had such a great night with him), and then Eduardo took Sally and I back to Rancagua. I was so tired when I finally got home, that I just said hi to my parents and went immediately to sleep. I think my feet probably hurt for like 3 days after because I had danced for so long in heels (and it was against military protocol to take them off at any point during the night).

Thursday, May 15

Today was a pretty boring day. School was nothing special, except that we stayed after school to rehearse the dance for the alianza, and they also taught a second dance. I’m not the best dancer in the world, but they all already know that, so it’s not embarrassing to just go all out in front of them and ask for help if I need it. I have a really great time with the girls in my class now. I think this experience will bring us closer together. After I got home, I was feeling so lazy and tired that I really didn’t do anything at all productive until once. I ate once with the family, and then went up to my room, tried to write in my blog for a while, but then got lazy and watched TV for a while before going to sleep.

Wednesday, May 14

Today I woke up at the same time as always, although I wasn’t planning on going to school. Nicolo, Nigel, Katie W, and I met at Terminal O’Higgins at 8:30 to take the bus up to Santiago.

We then took the metro down to Feria Santa Lucia, where Katie and I needed to buy all the souvenirs we wanted to take back to the US with us.

We spent a little while looking around the giant feria with the guys, but we pretty quickly realized that with them there we weren’t going to get anything done, so we told them to go meet up with the exchange students from Santiago and that we would join them after we were done. Then the real work began. We both had long lists of souvenirs we wanted to buy for our families and friends, and so we combed through the feria for about 2 hours looking for everything we wanted at the best prices we could find it all for. We really did end up spending a lot of money, but I knew we would, and I think it was pretty necessary to buy the souvenirs I did for everyone. After our backpacks were stuffed and we were each carrying bags in our hands, we took the metro over to Costanera Center to eat lunch at Johnny Rockets and enjoy some good American food.

After lunch, we went to this really awesome mall called Parque Arauco just to look around since I'd never been before and I'd heard so much about it.

Parque Arauco

Then we took the metro over to Baquedano, where we had planned to meet up with the other exchange students. After a long and confusing phone call with Aidan, where he led us all over the park before finally being able to accurately describe where they were sitting, we joined up with the group. We sat in a circle on the grass and talked for a while. A random dude came up to us and sat down and started playing guitar for us, which was kind of weird but also kind of cool and hippie. When it got to be about 5:30, we all decided to go home before it got dark. We parted ways with Cassidy, Gabrienne, Kristen, Aidan, Felix, Nigel, Nicolo (who were going home later), and Katie and I went back to the bus terminal in the center and got a bus back to Rancagua.

Santiago Center

It had been a long day and we were too tired to talk on the way home, so we just listened to music together. We got to the terminal, and Katie bought us hot chocolate to drink while we waited for our parents to pick us up. Mine came first, so I said bye to Katie and went home. I unpacked all the awesome souvenirs I had bought in my room while Lilian made once, and then we all ate together while I told them about what a great day I’d had. Then they saw how tired I was, and let me go to sleep early.