Año Nuevo

We started the party around 8pm at Lisi´s house, having some drinks with friends



Lisi´s housemate, Alberto, brought out his airgun and we all shot some blanks--including this 12 year old neighbor kid.



Then we went to a mirador (lookout) to watch the fireworks and drink some more



You can´t really tell, but I actually am in this photo



After the fireworks and a few more drinks at Lisi´s, we went down to the Plan. Everyone was there drinking with their friends in the streets.



Even old ladies were out on the town



There were at least two stages built in the plazas and everyone danced to the live music all night. (you can kind of see the stage over my head)



Wigs, confetti, and party poppers were sold in the streets everywhere



Another view of the stage and the crowd. Everyone was there--preppies, punks (some sleeping in a big pile in the middle of the street, other dancing cumbia!), teenagers, parents...the whole city celebrated and drank together and no one fought or caused trouble (much to the amazement of René, who said that in England such a peaceful large-scale party would be impossible).



In the middle of this fiesta, the naval guards still had to maintain their vigil in front of this monument.



I went to bed at 6:30 and the band was still playing. All along my street, people were drinking and talking. Stopped for a view of the sunrise a block away from the apartment and realized what a great start this was to 2008.

The next day, absolutely everything in the city was closed. We walked around for a little while--surprisingly little mess remained from the night before--and didn´t see a single business with open doors. Good thing I made a lasagne the day before!

The stage was still in place, however

Carnival Cultural

The weekend between Christmas and New Years is a special time here in Valpo. The city puts on a huge festival with live music, visual arts, theatre, book readings, etc hosted all over the city.

Thursday, a huge stage was erected in Plaza Sotomajor. Normally, it looks like this:



During the kickoff of the Carnival, it was more like this:



Everyone was there, teenagers, families with kids, older people...even the president showed up! It was a huge citywide dance party complete with people walking through the crowd selling beer and food. First a bunch of artists played tributes to famous Chilean musicians, then a rock band closed out the night. I left around 11:30 but the music was still going strong.

Friday, there was a huge parade down the center of town. It was really great, lotsa marching bands and people-powered floats. The closest we come in Seattle to a parade like this is the Solstice Parade, which is appropriate because this is Valpo´s summer festival. However, this one started at 8pm and was full of lights and people setting off huge party poppers. Unfortunately, my camara battery died at the beginning of the parade so I could only take a couple photos. I also tried taking a lot with René´s camera, but it doesn´t take good ones at night.

Poor lighting, cool tall people



Dancing with flare



Saturday night, they set up another huge stage in Parque Italia. The show started at 6pm and was still going strong when we left at midnight. For this venue, they closed several blocks to traffic and there was more space to walk around. We bought a "sandwich gigante" and some pineapple juice floats and had a picnic during the first few bands.

Half a sandwich gigante



View from our picnic spot



Then walked around and looked at all the stuff and food for sale. Lotsa of people had special goods at this time of the year, such as various sizes of confetti poppers



Every kind of band played that night, folk with bottles of wine on stage,



Latin rock with nine singer/dancers



and Uruguayans parodying McDonalds, to name a few



View from the street while we were leaving, it was a huge great party!

¡¡¡Feliz Navidad!!!

Christmas here in Chile is a strange time. They have all the same decorations (lights, fake pine trees, Santas wearing fur) and the same music (Jingle Bells, Little Drummer Boy) but it´s SUMMER! And it just seemed really odd to see all these things I´ve always associated with winter down here in the sunshine.



Coca-Cola sponsered the decorations in this plaza in Santiago. Who said Chirstmas isn´t a commercial holiday...



About a week before Christmas, the girls at the hogar (home) where I volunteer had a pagent for all their families

I went early to help them get ready



First they did a couple dance routines



And, of course, the nativity was included



I celebrated Christmas twice (instead of three times as usual =) Lisi celebrates on the 24th, so we went out to breakfast and then started drinking wine at about 4. Later I made my Aunt Shezhe´s famous salmon recipe and everyone loved it. Another friend came over after dinner and we had a chat and more wine until Lisi demanded that I give her her present. I made stockings for her and René and filled them with snacks, booze, and the staples--batteries and underware =) She gave me Spanish Scrabble and René gave me an international cookbook series I´d really wanted in Buenos Aires. He even said that he´d mail it home for me if I didn´t want to travel with it.

Christmas Day René and I went to the beach, even though it wasn´t sunny for most of the day. Had a nice walk around the town--a surprising amount of stuff was open--then back home for a delicious creamy pasta sauce with chicken and mushrooms. My family was finally able to call around 2am and I was so happy to talk with everyone that we didn´t get off the phone until around 3:30!

All my lovely presents...



And René with his



Even though it was cloudy, we still had to go to the beach



It finally got sunny around 7:30pm