Friday, October 19, 2007 NOTHING + Chilean Concerts

Friday, October 19, 2007 NOTHING + Chilean Concerts

I slept in since I literally had NOTHING that I had to do today. Of course I had a nice list of readings and such that I should do for the next week, but nothing too pressing. After breakfast I laid in bed updating my blog, downloading my pics, checking my email and facebook, just basically wasting time. Olga went to run errands etc. and when she got back to eat lunch she gave me hard time for not moving since she’d left. After lunch I went for a nice long run, showered, then climbed back into bed to do more “work”.

Around 5 Courtney called me and invited me to go with her to a concert tonight with the University of Chile. The concert was right outside Parque O’Higgins by my house and I’d actually seen them setting up the stage when I was running. So I met up with Courtney around 8 and we bought tickets for the concert. She came back to my apartment and had once with us and Olga was absolutely thrilled to have her. We were supposed to meet up with some of Courtney’s Chileans classmates, the ones who actually invited her to go, around 10:30, but in usual Chilean style, they didn’t get to the concert till almost midnight. While we waited we got some ice cream to share and chuckled at the fact that while most people were getting drunk before the concert, we were enjoying dessert!

By the time we got through all the security to get into the concert (or rather into the gates around the concert) it was past midnight. The place was completely packed with University of Chile students and a few random gringos like Courtney and I. We spent the next 4 + hours dancing, singing, and screaming anti-Pinochet chants at the top of our lungs. We heard three famous Chilean bands play: Chico Trujillo, a cumbia/ska group, then Sol y Lluvia, a well know leftist/antiPinochet group, then finally Tommy Rey, a dearly loved latin style brass band (think Ricky Ricardo). Courtney’s classmates were really really friendly and an absolute blast and before I knew it they were shutting down the concert around 4:30 am. ( I guess now its Saturday but it felt like Friday, so it’s staying here!)

We decided that Courtney would hang out at my house until the metro opened at 6 am then begin her hour + journey back to her house. So we walked home together, got a little snack in the kitchen, and then helped keep each other awake until 6. I walked her half way to the metro (like we used to do at night in the neighborhood), then half asleep crawled in to my bed back home.