BIKES, Thanksgiving, Naps, Santiago, 14-year-olds-playing-rugby

I feel the need to sputter a list of things I have been doing that are noteworthy/fun/I wanna remember...I've been in sort of a gloomy mood lately...for no particular reason, until TODAY when Mati and I confirmed our trip to Santiago/Valpo for next week. (Thursday Dec 8th and Friday December 9th are holidays here). SO, that has obvs instantly lifted my mood, thus prompting me to share shum shings.

SO..two weekends ago Zoe, the PiLA that's in Bariloche, came to visit. She's a real cool cat and on the Saturday that she was here, we had some grand plans to go to the Saltos of Petrohue (some waterfalls that aren't too far from here). Due to Friday nights festivities and imbibing, the group really didn't mobilize until about 330-4pm on Saturday...and the last bus to Petrohue left at 4pm...AND all the rental cars were rented. We were bummed, and it was Zoe's last day so we had to come up with a new plan. ENTER BIKES. Mai Ann has a bike, and some friends that own a hostel had two available bikes..So Mai Ann, Zoe, and I set out on what was initially going to be a leisure bike ride around PV...25 km later, my derriere was hurting quite a bit. But honestly, it was pretty awesome...we went all around Lake Llanquihue and had breath-taking views the entire way.

The following day, I was invited to eat a crap-ton of seafood with a friend from the rugby team...The deal was that a boy in town has cancer, so a family/group of people/i don't know the actual relationship, cooked up a bunch o' "curantos", and sold them for 3000 pesos (6 bucks) to raise money for the boy with cancer. A Curanto is essentially a clam-boil bag..equip with mussels, clams, chorizo, potato, chicken, and some weird potato massy things that were delish..and BROTH...So we stuffed our faces with that and then I went into a serious food coma.

The following week entailed a lot of prep for thanksgiving. By a lot of prep, I mean on Wednesday night Janine and I trekked to Puerto Montt to a giant grocery store in search of a whole turkey...and some other gringo-ingredients. IT was a serious adventure..we also had to find a turkey baster..easier said-than-done. But we were successful. I came home at 10pm Wednesday night and made an apple pie. That's right i made an apple pie. From scratch. I also attempted to do some of the prep work for my stuffing...that I had to make a ton of! Thursday I worked all day (well, I snuck out of the office an hour early...i had to COOK..don't tell anyone). I came back home and started a cooking frenzy. The stuffing had about 3 million ingredients so it was a long process. Just before 8 i popped it in the oven to cook (the thanksgiving feast was supposed to start at 830).

Mawenko, the hostel that lent us bikes, let us rent out the place to have our Thanksgiving feast. It was 4 gringos, some Spanish peeps, and bunch o' Chileans totaling 20 people. I rolled into Mawenko at like 845 thinking I would be incredibly late...and i was the first one there. Typical South America.

We ended up feasting at 10:30pm when I was absolutely ravenous with hunger. Our meal consisted of:

TURKEY (duh), cooked by Elias-Chilean, on the mens rugby team, bigfan of pisco sour (basically the national drink of Chile)...the turkey was in fact infused with pisco sour. yum!

BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP: so freaking yummy. Made by Mai Ann!

MASHED POTATOS (another DUH), cooked by Janine. Smooth, buttery, and scrumptious!

MY stuffing: ingredients included: bread, walnuts, apples, chorizo, chicken broth, sage, onions, cellery, among others. It was a hit.

FALAFEL BALLS with YOGURT SAUCE: I bet your scratching your head right now...BUT because we had a multicultural Thanksgiving where 90% of the guests didn't know what Thanksgiving was, falafel balls were in order. Ibai, Spanish dude, was the chef!

Apple Pie: made by yours truly..little burnt on top, but plenty of butter and sugar to make up for it.

NOT-Pecan Pies: 2 faux-pecan pies made with Walnuts (pecans don't exist here) made by Ben.

BEER, PISCO SOUR, and SPRITE. And wine. duh.

We feasted, clutched our overstuffed bellies as we tried to eat more, and there were NO leftovers. That's a first for me at Thanksgiving. I normally eat leftovers for approximately 1 week after turkey day.

I peaced from the party around midnight, bc Friday morning I had a really early day...Our Annual Seminario started at 830am on Friday and I had to be there before 8..GASP. I normally roll out of bed around 830 and stroll in to work before 9! The seminario was a mixed success...a lot of people didn't show up, so instead of having 150 peeps, we had like 80...but the speakers were fantastic.

Friday afternoon I went on a shockingly long run...for me (60 minutes...insert otro GASP) and then boarded a 10:15pm bus to Santiago. I had been told earlier in the week that I had to be in Santiago on Monday Nov 28th for a stupid errand at the Chilean equivalent of the IRS. DUMB. Anywho, I thought I'd take advantage of the weekend and spend it in a warm climate. Janine was nice enough to message all her friends in Santiago asking if I could stay in their house. Shockingly, 2 responded....Daniela and Juan (they are boyfriend-girlfriend)..and Daniela picked me up from a metro stop on Saturday morning. She proceeded to take me to Juan's parents house were they were preparing a birthday extravaganza for a 2 year old. With a bombass princess cake, and lots of delicious treats! After a short stop over there, we went to Daniela's mom's house (a few blocks away)..had lunch..and I was literally falling asleep in my pork and rice, thus they offered to let me take a nap (mind you I had met these people around 1 hour before). I went and passed out in one of their beds..don't even know whose it was, and slept like a baby till 5pm..when it was time to start the 2 year old's bday bash. IT was really cute and there were a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds running around. I met Juan, and his entire extended family, and chatted it up with a bunch of people. Around 9pm the kiddies started to go home. I, being the dumb north american that I am, thought the party was over. WRONG.

The real party had only just begun. Large platters of raw meat were brought out to the BBQ..which had a spectacular view of the Andes mountain range. 1130pm, meat was served up (including porkribs, chorizo, steak, and chicken) along with tomato salad, potato salad and rice. Oh and WIne and beer. And pisco.

After we finished eating, Juan's Dad takes out the light bulbs he has set up, and exchanges them for black-light light bulbs, and hangs up a strobe light (you know, everyone just has a strobe light lying around their house). Decorating people with toilet paper and dancing ensued. I on the other hand started to lose some steam around 230am and the party had no signs of slowing down. So again, friendly new friends said I could take a nap. So I went up to Juan's mom's bed (again, I had just met this women) and napped there until 545 am when Daniela woke me up and said we were gonna head home. She and Juan live on the other side of the WORLD in santiago...so we took a bus, and were gonna take the subway, but we were there at 630 am, and the subway didn't open 'till 8am on Sundays. FAIL. So we called Juan's uncle, who has a taxi and he was out working that night. He gave us a ride home and because he was so generous, we obvs had to sit and eat breakfast with him. so we did. At 830am I went to sleep.

At noon I awoke, showered up, had lunch and then headed to the centro to meet up with Laura Marrin (one of the PiLAs in Santiago). We did some sweet touristy stuff, saw some nice views of the city, ate gellato, and then headed to Julia and Chris's apartment (Julia is another PiLA in Stgo...Chris is her husband. he came to Chile too for her PiLA year. Cute). Janine happened to arrive in Santiago that day, and another friend of Janine and Julia's from college was visiting..Elizabeth. She cooked us a delish dinner and then I had to head back to Juan and Daniela's.

Monday morning, I got up, breakfasted with Juan (Daniela had peaced out at like 5am bc she had to travel to Antofagasta) and then I had like an hour commute to work. I forgot to mention earlier, it's flipping hot in Santiago. Like 85 degrees..which was refreshing at first, coming from PV and all...but once i SWAT through all my clothing on the metro, I was not diggin' it so much.

Anywho, I worked from the Santiago office on Monday, did my stupid errand, and then took a 830pm bus back to PV.

12 hour busrides...have become a way of life for me. They sound terrible, but being able to travel the length of a large part of the country is pretty freakin sweet...and only at about 20 bucks a pop.

Erm, yesterday I went and helped out the rugby boys youth team of a friend of mine from the men's team (Cesar). His team has mostly 14 year old boys..but he's a forward and the backs don't have much guidance. So I came to lend a hand. It was actually really fun and I enjoyed getting back out on the pitch..even if I was just teaching. ALSO, 2 girls came because they want to play and get a girls team started. THey both are named Camila and are wicked badass. We are already facebook friends and have big plans for a girls team. WOOT.

Tomorrow I am likely going to see the youth team play in Llanquihue ('bout 5 km from PV)..And NEXT week on Wednesday night I head up to Santiago to meet up with MATI!!!!! SO EXCITEDDDDDD!!!

The group

My finished products!

The many steps to stuffing