The Call to Chile: Thanksgiving Lunch and Christmas Dinner

(11/23-11/25) Let me start off by saying it is currently 2:30am on Monday morning/Sunday night. I’m awake because I am waiting on my laundry to finish. It’s been a crazy weekend but I will start with my adventures from Friday. I woke up Friday and went to a grocery store called Jumbo. I was looking for candy canes and cheddar cheese that are not very popular items in Chile, which I found. The store was huge though and really awesome. I guess you could compare it to a Super Target. It was a little expensive but overall a good shopping experience. When I got back we did our Exchange Student Meeting because we missed it on Tuesday. It went well. After that I started making decorations for Saturday which was the day of our Thanksgiving feast, but I’m not there yet. So I made decorations for about four hours or so. I did name tag place settings on the computer and cut out about a thousand little hand turkeys and leaves for a garland and cut out Happy Thanksgiving. After all that was said and done I went to a restaurant for a friend’s birthday party, well actually three friend’s birthday party but I went for Ruth whose actual birthday was Friday. Their birthdays aren’t very far apart so they just combined one party, convenient. So we hung out there about two hours and after that we all went dancing. I was pretty exhausted because I got like 4 or 5 hours of good sleep the night before so Katie, Brent, Liz, and I left at about 1:45-2am and I got home at 2:30am and went to sleep. I woke up at about 10am Saturday morning so I could shower and start cooking for Thanksgiving. I made macaroni and cheese and some brownies. Thanksgiving started at about 2pm and there was a ton of food, including an incredible turkey. It was so awesome and such a great experience. It was a little weird talking in Spanish during dinner but it was still cool. We ate and talked about what we were thankful for and other typical Thanksgiving things. Even after the dinner they downloaded the UGA vs Tech game which was cool, but sad for Tech fans. Then we cleaned everything up. After everything was cleaned I went and took a three hour nap. When I woke up, Liz and I went to our second party of the day. An American girl (Celeste) is leaving to go home Tuesday so it was like her going away party/Christmas party. It was on the roof of her apartment building which was pretty cool. There was a pool and it just felt fancy. I wore my finest attire of pajama pants that were red and had snow and a green shirt. Everyone was in red and green and a lot of people rocked Santa hats. The party started at like 9pm and there was so much food. I made chocolate peppermint cookies and they were awesome. We sat around and talked and ate and just enjoyed each other’s company until about midnight. Then we played the White Elephant gift exchange game where everyone brings like a $5 dollar gift and you steal and unwrap and it’s a bunch of fun. So that lasted about 2 hours. Then some boys decided to jump in the rooftop pool which was pretty funny to watch. Then we danced for a little while. I left around 2:45am with Greg and Eli. I pretty much went straight to bed when I got back. Sunday I woke up at 10am because Katie and I were going to spend the day at Eli’s house (granted we didn’t leave the house until 11:30am.) We had to take the metro about 30minutes and then a bus for another 45minutes. It was awesome though. Her house was so cute and where she lives was so cute. We all made lunch together and just hung out for a while. After we ate we went and bought ice cream which I am always ok with. After we ate ice cream we all pretty much took a nap for about an hour. When we woke up Eli and Jorge (her brother) took us to this hill and we climbed up a little ways and it was beautiful. The sky was so clear and there was so much green. We hung out at the top for a while and then we had to leave. On the way down I managed to fall and scrape my leg, I thought it was hysterical and it didn’t even hurt…until later. When we got back to the house Eli and Katie cooked some stuff and Jorge and I listened to music. I brought up the fact that I needed laundry detergent so Jorge suggested we ride bikes to the store while they cooked. I said ok thinking there would be two bikes. There was one and I had the pleasure of sitting on the metal bar above the back tire. It was incredibly fun though. We talked the whole time and I didn’t have to work at all. We got to the store and I bought my detergent and then went back. I’m pretty sure on the way back he hit as many bumps as possible because it hurt me. I still thought it was funny. When we got back we ate a little dinner and talked for a little bit. We had to catch a bus back to Santiago which took about 30minutes of waiting. When we got on the bus it was about 10pm. The bus trip back took forever because the guy kept stopping to pick up more people. I shouldn’t complain about that but I just did because it was annoying. When we got back to Santiago we were 3 minutes too late to take the metro…3 minutes!!! So we had to take the bus which I hate. Well we missed our bus stop and ended up walking most of the way home. It was fun though! So that brings me to now, 3:00 am waiting on my laundry. It was such a great weekend but I am exhausted!