just for Aunt Sloan...!

ok, from here on out I'm going to try to update once a week...try!
Anyway, so oh! i forgot to mention on the last post that i also went to a national soccer game in Santiago last week with a group of friends! It was Chile vs. Peru, and for those of you who aren't (too) familiar with the relationship between chile and peru, well, it's a tense relationship. As of late, lots and lots of Peruvians have moved into Chile looking for work, and thus stealing the jobs from chileans, making chileans suuuper bitter towards them, which only adds to the discrimination that they receive from the majority of the chilean population. Chileans, generally-speaking, think they are far superior to Peruvians in nearly every aspect, and I think this superiority complex definitely adds to the bitterness chileans have when peruvians come and take their jobs...so anyway! At the stadium, Estadio Nacional, there were more carabineros (police) than i have ever seen in one place at the same time...they were all lined up inside the track, lots of them with shields, some lining inside the seating area, and then the small, small part of the stadium wehre the peru fans were seated was surrounded by tons of cops and security people. The stadium atmosphere was markedly different than a football game in the states, or at least I think so...well, at each 'end zone' or where the goals were, (in the curved part of the track in the stands...) the seating area is called 'la galeria' and it's known to be/ characterized by its rowdy-ness (?) and chaos and noise and fun and people setting off smoke bombs, and screaming and cursing and crazy stuff (it looks like sooo much fun to be there!) and then in the rest of the seating, called 'la tribuna' is where there are normal stadium seats, and well, it's sooo much more calm there, so much so that everyone sits down the whole time, except when we're about to score or something reallllly good or bad is about to go down. I'm not kidding at all wehn i say people sit down; everyone yells at everyone else to toma asiento! (take your seat!), and everyone follows this model! it's rude to stand up! weird. maybe? also, i thought it was incredibly quiet during the game (in la tribuna where we were, not in la galeria)...i once turned around to look behind me, and everyone's eyes were just glued to the field, watching every single movement and play, afraid to miss anyting...i felt really gringa to turn around, i was clearly probably missing something on the field...but at the same time, when people did yell, man, they cursed the refs, the peru team, everything...they let their cursing fly to the wind...there was this kid two rows behind us, couldn't have been older than 10 or 11, and man, he was there yelling right along with his dad the same foul phrases and everything! To say the least, it was a pretty comical situation just putting everything together...oh, and of course, chile won. 2-0. the cheer they would not stop yelling the whole game was: "CHI CHI CHI! LE LE LE! VIVA CHILE!" (in case you wanted to know...it's pretty catchy, no?)

ok...this weekend my friend Kam and I took a quick day trip up to a little city (town?) called La Ligua, about 2 hrs. north of vina. My host family had mentioned it severallll times to me, telling me that the city is famous for its fabrics/sweaters, and its dulces...which are really just pastries. So I figured i had to go and see this place before i leave...The city itself is really small, and when we arrived at the bus terminal, when we got off we, along with everyone else, was immediately bombarded by los vendedores de los dulces (people who sell the dulces...they just line the streets!)...we resisted on the sweets, and just took a stroll around the town to see if it had anything else to offer us before we indulge...well, turns out this town is just like nearly every other small town and has its many kiosks in the plaza selling the typical artesania, though this town was much less tourist-oriented than the other cities ive been to...which was a relief...though it didn't help with the many stares along the way...oh well. So anyway, we asked someone for a suggestion for where to eat lunch, and we ended up in a pretty neat, typical restaurant, nothing special...but then i got this drink. this is clearly an exaggeration but i dont care, it was so refreshing. it was called 'leche y frutilla'...milk and strawberries...um sounds simple, and it is, but this one was delish! it had this foamy top, and it was freezing cold and just delicious and its soo easy to make! I think ive just been missing smoothies that having a drink similar to one just stands out so much. Annyway! After lunch, we headed over to the neighboring town called Valle Hermoso to check out 'los chalecos' (sweaters), because apparently that's where they were moved to, and well, it was pretty disappointing. There was this one main street, and it was just lined up and down on both sides by stores selling sweaters...and the sweaters had nothing special to them either! I was expecting alpaca wool, or something along those lines, but noooo. In the end, we walked through most of the stores, i think just wishful thinking, but by the end we ended up chillin with this vendedor de dulces de la ligua, whose name is Mauricio, and it was so much fun! At first we just asked him where to catch a micro back to La Ligua, but he was pretty helpful, and his dulces looked tempting, so we each bought one and ended up sitting there with him at this bus stop and talking to him and a few other chileans that were just sitting there for a good while! A few micros went by and each time he'd look at us questioningly, and we were just like, nahhh, let's talk. I hate to be so presumptuous, but after we sat down with him and started talking to him, he got a lotttt more business from everyone! He kept calling us 'los prometedores de los estados unidos, directamente a los dulces de la ligua' (as if to say we came from the US just to la ligua for the dulces...hah)....he even used me as a pseudo bag-woman to help him bag the dulces...haha...So we had a pretty good conversation, he kept cracking jokes with us and everyone else on the street and it was a ton of fun...then we returned to la ligua to go to this cafe artesenal that makes dulces de la ligua, and of course they were twice as expensive, but oh.my.gosh. they were like 10000 times better, so it was sooo worht those extra 25 cents of difference! haha no seriously, we tried the BEST alfajor i've ever tried. ever. and just everything was suuuuper rico there! So anywya, after that, i went to a street seller and bought some for my family (my mom had given me was is equivalent to $5 and told me to buy what i can...i walked away with 25 dulces...not bad...though i looked suuuper touristy...what's new?) That was pretty much it...a calm day, but out of vina and with a new atmosphere, and we spoke spanish like the whooole day...which we definitely didnt have to, so that was reallly good and beneficial i think.

WEll, that's it for now. Off to tomar once con la familia...hasta pronto!