Tuesday, September 18, 2007 FIESTAS PATRIAS Part I: Día de Independencia

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 FIESTAS PATRIAS Part I: Día de Independencia
(Independence Day)

First of all: Sorry I’ve taken so long to update my blog. I know I’m more than a week behind, but after all this traveling I made the executive decision to catch up on school work before catching up on my journaling. So now I’ve got the weekend (still with a lot of school work) to fill everyone in on the last week.

So as you can guess, I woke up Tuesday morning still on the bus. By this point I was super ready to be on solid ground and stay there for a few days. Since we’d had all the problems the night before, we ended up getting to the bus station in Santiago around noon, instead of 10:00 like we should have. I was really antsy and couldn’t wait to get out in the town to celebrate Dieciocho. (It means eighteen and it’s basically like saying The Fourth.)

When I got back to the house, I greeted a patiently waiting Olga, took a shower, and cleaned up. Afterward assuring Olga that I didn’t need lunch, I met Calli at La Moneda (the capital building). They were having concerts and performances in the cultural center all day so we decided to check it out before heading to the Fondas (the huge festivals, I’ll explain later.) We watched a comical, interactive clown performance then a huge group of singers and musicians from the Canary Islands (off the coast of Spain) performed. I thought it was ironic that on Chile’s day of independence from Spain, we listened to traditional Spanish music.

After the concert Calli and I walked about 25 minutes to Parque (Park) O’Higgins, the park by my house where I always go running. As we got closer, I realized that the place had transformed from a quite, peaceful park to a bustling, chaotic festival. The Fonda at Parque O’Higgins is the biggest in Santiago and is free, and I felt like everyone in Santiago was there. Calli and I had a great time walking around admiring the families picnicking, children flying kites, millions of food and drink vendors, teenage couples making out, random music and dance performances, everything. The park is huge and every inch was full. We made sure to try all the traditional Chilean Fiestas Patrias food: empanadas, anticacho (meat kabobs), pineapple juice with pineapple ice cream, candied apples, and churros. It sounds like a lot but we shared almost everything and it only cost each of us $4. Imagine if we’d bought all that at a festival in the states!

After about 2 hours of walking around and stuffing ourselves we found a quiet place it sit and people watch. But we quickly realized that the sun was going down and the park was only getting more and more crowded, so we walked home. I didn’t want to leave because we’d only been there two hours, but I’ve come to learn that I’m not the party animal I thought I was and that I only like huge crowds for short periods of time.

We both went home to regroup and decide what to do next. At 7 we met back up at La Moneda for another concert we wanted to go to. It was a fun hybrid group of Chilean folk music, blues, jazz, and funk. They were great and unfortunately played for only about 35 minutes. But they finished the concert with a great cueca (the national dance) and a young couple from the crowd danced for everyone. It was the best cueca I’d seen: exciting, a little sexy, and much more entertaining than the traditional cuecas.

Calli and I walked back to my house, picking up Hanna at the metro on the way. We all ate once at my apartment with Olga, who was thrilled to entertain and meet my friends. We had Olga’s homemade empanadas, which were honestly the best empanadas I’d eaten. And I’m not just saying that. Then the three of us took the metro to Calli’s empty apartment because her family had all gone to the beach for the Fiestas Patrias. We were going to meet up with friends and go to another Fonda in the city (there is one in every comuna (neighborhood) and the others are supposed to be safer at night than the one at Parque O’Higgins). But our friends took forever to get to the house and by the time they arrived we were all exhausted from the traveling and lack of sleep. So we decided to just hang out and play cards. Luckily it was a good mix of Chileans and gringos, so we spoke in Spanish. We ended up having some great conversations and staying up till 3:30. The boys headed home and the girls spent the night at Calli’s. Yet another night not in my own bed, but well worth it.