Saturday, September 29, 2007 Day 3 of my 4 day weekend: Party, Party, Party

Saturday, September 29, 2007 Day 3 of my 4 day weekend: Party, Party, Party

I slept till about 10:30, did a little exercising, showered and worked until noon when I left to meet up with my girlfriends to go to Matt’s birthday party. Matt (a gringo in our program) lives over an hour away in the super super rich part of town. We took the metro, then a bus to the end of the line, and then walked ten minutes till we finally reached his house. He sometimes complain about the commute, but now that I’ve seen his house, I know its totally worth it. So from about 1:15 on we hung out, swam in his pool, sun bathed, and tried not to think about the horrible class-ism and oppression of the poor in Chile. His family is super nice and not the mean, money hungry rich people I think of when we talk about the class division and I definitely didn’t mind hanging out at their house and eating their food. It was super relaxing and way fun and I realized I never let myself do that during the semester at Tulane.

I left the party early around 4:45 and began the long trek back into the city to meet Olga at her church to go to the baptisms. The ceremony was beautiful and I arrived just in time. It was about an hour long ceremony, basically just like in the states, except that most of the babies were much older; anywhere from 10 months to 3 years old. After the ceremony many of the parents came and thanked Olga and I’ve never seen her so proud! I stayed for mass at her church and I loved seeing her interact with all her friends at the church. After mass Olga walked me to the metro station and then I met up with Courtney and Christian to go to Christian’s (and his twin brother Emmanuel’s) birthday party.

The party was chill and I met a lot of his friends. Courtney and I were the only gringas, but everyone was really nice and welcoming. I found out that their older brother Emilio and his girlfriend Maria Paz are probably going to be working in New Orleans from December till February with a Chilean program called Work and Travel. If it all works out as planned, they will have internships at the Royal Sonesta, a beautiful hotel in the heart of the French Quarter. The are both really excited and I will be thrilled if it works out! Christian challenged me to a rematch in ping pong and unfortunately I beat him again, in front of all his friends. But I just couldn’t let him win! Christian’s cousins 3 came and we ended up hanging out and playing doubles ping pong till four in the morning. I was exhausted and after about 2:30 I didn’t have much left, so my partner (their girl cousin who is really good and is studying medicine) and I lost. They drove me home and I crashed into bed.