Saturday, December 7

Today I woke up around 10 and took a shower, and then spent a super long time unpacking all my suitcases and organizing my new souvenirs and things. As I was finishing up, Eric came home and informed me that we were leaving in half an hour to go stay in Talca for a week with my grandparents and that  I should pack my bag. I had literally been home for less than 12 hours, and I was not too happy with the last minute notice or the possibility of not being able to see my friends for another week. I was pretty angry, but I packed up and we got in the car (our family plus my 3 cousins Vicente (13), Joaquin (9), and Laura (8)) and drove the two hours to our grandparent’s house in Talca. When we arrived, there were already about 20 people in the house getting ready to go to the baptism of one of our cousins, Augustin (1). We ate a quick lunch and then changed into formal clothes and got ready to leave. We all piled on this big bus that they had rented to go to the church. We ended up arriving like 20 minutes late, so when we walked in the baptism was almost over. This was the first Catholic baptism I had ever seen, but I don’t think it really counts because I only saw the last 5 minutes of it. After it finished, we went outside and I greeted a bunch of people that I hadn’t seen since we went to the country for the week of September 18.

It was nice finally meeting family members for the second time instead of always having to be introduced and meeting only new people all the time. Now at least they were somewhat familiar. We went in the bus over to a big house nearby that they had rented out as a party room. We sat at big tables and ate a long dinner.

I sat with Maxi, Pedro, and Javi (cousins). Then after dinner, we went and talked to the other young people whom I had met in the country—Nacho, Miguel Esteban, George, Matias, Octavio, Marinka. Later, I was super tired and Javi and I were feeling antisocial, so we went upstairs and talked for a while. I really like her and I feel like she and I think the same way and have had a lot of the same experiences in our lives (she told me about how she used to be bullied). I would feel comfortable telling her anything and I would trust her advice no matter what. After a while, Nacho and Octavio came upstairs to tell us to stop being lame and come dance.

We went downstairs and danced with them for a while, and then we went over to the bar with all the other young people and talked for a while. They are always so nice to me and seem genuinely interested in getting to know me (and it’s sad but true that the drunker they get the more they talk to me). After a while Nacho and I went back and danced some more, and then around 4:30, Eric came to find me and tell me that we were leaving. I went around and said goodbye to everyone, and I genuinely hope that I’ll get to hang out with all the cousins again this summer in the country. We rode back to our grandparents house in the trunk of the car because there wasn’t enough space for everyone, and then as soon as we got home I got into bed (the bed I was sharing with Monse and Laura) and went right to sleep.