Saturday, October 20, 2007 NOTHING AGAIN + Chilean Birthday Parties

Saturday, October 20, 2007 NOTHING AGAIN + Chilean Birthday Parties

Despite the fact that I didn’t go to sleep till 6:30 this morning, I woke up around noon. I intended to get some work done today, but like yesterday, I somehow managed to really not do anything. I got so lazy today that I didn’t even go running. But I did a few push ups and sit ups before I took a shower to not feel so pathetic. In reality I spent a long time catching up on this very blog, which I guess is something.

As you can imagine, it takes me a long time and since I’m so far behind it feels like I don’t get anywhere. For those of you highly dedicated Blog readers, I’ve now written over 106 pages single spaced with one inch margins on Word. That does include a few pics, but not too much. So basically I’ve written a short novel. Unfortunately for you it doesn’t have the typically story line but rather random rantings of my random adventures. But while I’m on the subject, I want to thank each of you for reading my blog. And especially thanks to those of you who make comments. Each one makes me feel loved and remembered, which is important for me. It’s good to know that you take time out of your busy day to read about my silly life. So thank you. If I ever got this published, I’d dedicate it to all those who faithfully read my blog.

I digress. Background for the evening: Calli’s host sister Nayadeth turned 18 and apparently in Chilean fashion, decided to throw a huge formal birthday bash. Calli got to invite some friends so she wouldn’t be the only gringa and those of us who know her family and her sister got invited. We’ve known for over a month and Kristen came over at 7:30 to get ready and Natalie came by around 8. Olga knew that they would have dinner at the party but not till really late (it didn’t start officially till 9:30 pm) so she bought us cookies and made us coffee to have before hand. We all got ready and Olga helped us pick out jewelry and then gossiped while we drank our coffee and ate our cookies.

Time flew and before we knew it was passed 9:30! We called a taxi and by the time we got there it was almost 10:30. But we obviously hadn’t missed anything because people were just hanging out drinking a tasty alcoholic punch. Nayadeth looked adorable in her pink princess dress with everyone else in black dresses and suits. We hung out mostly in our gringo blob which consisted of me, Natalie, Kristen, Sam(antha), CJ (Calli’s brother) and Calli, but managed to talk to random relatives and a few of Nayadeth’s friends.

Around 11:30 we ate dinner and after dinner the dancing began. Like last night, the time passed filled with dancing, singing, and goofing off. Everyone hour or so they stopped the dancing for a “show”. The first was a belly dancing performance by an aunt. Next was a Michael Jackson impersonation by an uncle (the one married to the belly dancer!). A while later the brought out tables, salt, lemons and shot glasses and almost everyone took a shot of tequila! The gringas went first with Nayadeth, which I guess was quite an honor! We sang Happy Birthday and had cake around 4 am and the party ended around 5 am. By that point most of the relatives were good and drunk. Luckily all the gringas except one had stopped drinking early.

We then began the epic journey of trying to get home (like every time we go out). We called a radio taxi like the one we’d taken here and again Natalie, Kristen and I shared the cab home. I didn’t get back till well after 6 and once again crawled into bed half asleep.