New Year's Eve and Stuff from All Over

At the gas station, 7 am. Light in the distance, it was awful.

Though I admit the mountains and dawn are beautiful.

Small view of the pool area at the house party.

Hans and I. 5:30 am.

Gettin' down at the Estadio.

My friend Isa and I at the Estadio. Notice my bling.

First I want to wish everyone a happy new year! I hope you all had fun and I wish you all the best of health and happiness in the year to come.

New year's eve in Chile is definitely a different animal than New Year's in the US. Everyone here spends the evening until about 1am with their families. I went over to my cousin's again and we had a big "asado" or barbecue at their home. As the clock approached closer to zero hour, I noticed quite a few interesting rituals that go on. First of all, they have you put twelve grapes in your mouth all at once, one grape for each month of the coming year. They also light candles and have a spice associated with each candle. Each spice and candle combination is for good fortune in a given area, from love to business, and health to long life. Finally, after the clock struck midnight, everyone gives everyone a big hug; however, the first hug you receive has to be from a woman. Though all this sounds quite superstitious and antiquated, I do admit that I rather enjoyed it. It was nice to be with people I love and enjoy rather than in some random bar with tons of random people who's only objective is to be drunker than the guy standing next to him.

That being said, after we went outside to see a huge fireworks show from the mountain behind us, you begin to see cars full of young people screeching down the road. We immediately began to make calls to our friends to get our plans together, however we found it difficult as cellular lines began to jam up with calls. After a few warm-up drinks, Hans and I went to the Estadio Español to meet up with some friends. The Estadio is basically a very large and nice community center; there we found two parties going on- one for younger people filled with blasting reggaeton, and one for older people playing gringo oldies. We opted for the latter, though we did visit the former a few times. We drank and danced for a while there. Aroud 4:30 am, we became bored and decided to leave the Estadio to go to a house party.

We arrived at the house party around 5 am. It was definitely one of the biggest and best house parties I've ever seen. We got in after paying about $2, and we found a back yard filled with 300 people while inside another 100 were dancing to a pretty good DJ. People were dotted in groups all over the yard, by the pool, and behind in this mini forest. Three of us arrived there and we met up with a couple others. After dancing, talking, and celebrating there for a while, we noticed that the party was starting to break up. We looked at our watches and realized that it was past 6 am. 

We left the party and went in search of a bar to top off our night. We found one but then it promptly closed around 7 am, so we decided to go get food. We stopped at a gas station where I finally realized that it was light out and the birds were singing. Damned birds, always ruining my good time... Anyway, we at the convenience store and then came back to my apartment where I made mini pizzas and we basically passed out. At around 9 am I finally kicked everyone out and went to bed. 

Later that day I woke up and decided to have a party at my apartment. It originally was supposed to be small, but soon we found we needed to go up to the roof. We talked about our nights, snacked, and danced until about 5:30 am. I went to bed utterly exhausted. Mind you this was last Thursday night, but the weekend was just beginning. Friday night was my cousin Alejandra's birthday, so there I spent another night out until almost 6 am. Needless to say come Sunday night I could barely move.

In other news, I finished the large project that I had been working on for the Universidad del Desarrollo. I handed it in on Monday and sat there as the Dean read it on the spot, not saying anything until he was done, by which point I was on the verge of a minor heart attack. Apparently he liked it very much and told me that they'll now be giving me much more work. Just my luck.

Finally, this will probably be my last post for a while, unless I go to Argentina. I'll be traveling back to the US next Thursday and arrive next Friday. I'll be home for a little over two weeks. I look forward to seeing you all and hope that I do get a chance to see a little bit of everyone. The one thing I do know is that the very first thing I will be eating up on my arrival will be a massive, bacon-filled Kopp's hamburger. With caramel milkshake. And onion rings. 

So enjoy not having to read my blog for a couple of weeks, because when I come back to Chile I'll be doing a lot of traveling, so be prepared. As always, thanks for reading and talk to you soon.