Fiestas Patrias (el dieciocho)!

As usual I am always behind on writing in my blog... but this post is very eventful! Last weekend (september 18th and the rest of the weekend), well this is a big holiday in Chile. It's pretty much their independence weekend. Before this weekend I began to see flags popping up everywhere ad everyone showing their Chilean pride. Oh and if none of you know the chile flag looks like this:

It was a little bit like being at home... since the colors are the same, and I saw these colors everywhere! Anyways, so thursday night Constanza, Sergio, Marcelo, Erin and I went to one of the ramada or fonda... these are kind of like carnivals or fairs. They have games, like knock down the bottles and win a prize type, they sell food... which is pretty much all carne (meat). Also they have places where you can sit down, listen to music and eat and drink, and even dance the traditional dances.

This is the type of food you find at the fondas:

These are anticuchos or shishkabobs in english. But they lack veggies, so just meat on a stick basically. At the fondas, the air was filled with the smoke from the grills everywhere with these things grilling. I was in heaven!

Or if the people weren't selling anticuchos then it was empanadas de pino. Pino is a type of empanadas filled with a mixture of meat, eggs, and onions, And then also one whole olive (just for the flavor). So pretty much all the food sold had meat. They didn't even have empanadas de queso (cheese)... so yeah needless to say I just didn't eat that night. But I watched my whole family devour the anticuchos and empanadas and heard them raving about how good they were.

But just to add... empanadas are made with lots of fillings. Pino is the most common or cheese. But there is also: espinaca y queso (spinach and cheese) or champignones y queso (mushrooms and cheese)... yeah I love all the vegetarian kinds, especially the espinaca y queso, es mi favorito!

So one of the traditional drinks of Chile is called "chicha".... and below is what it looks like. It is a drink made from fermented fruit... its very sweet. And it only takes a bit. It has a very distinct taste, nothing like I have tasted before. Its good though, I barely even tasted the alcohol, probably the reason why it can be a dangerous drink.

This is another traditional drink, its called a "terremoto." And terremoto in spanish means earthquake. And all the terremotos that you drink after the first are called "replicas" or in english I guess it would be called the aftershocks. This is probably the most dangerous drink, because it is sweet and delicious, but very strong. You can drink a lot and not realize till after how tipsy you are. In this drink there is: pineapple icecream, pipeño ( a type of sweet fermented wine). I think there is another type of alcohol in it as well, but I can't remember what. It definitely lives up to its name though, trust me I know.

Alright so thursday night, we played some of the games at the fonda, walked around a bunch. One cool thing we saw were these men, they are called chinchineros, and they have a drum on ther back and they dance around and play. It was absolutely amazing. For their final, they spin around doing their dance and playing the drum. Way cool to see!

Below is a picture of what the organilleros look like. You can find them occasionally around the city, playing. But I guess they are usually accompanied by the chincheros. The organilleros are neat though, they always have a parrot with them. There is one that I hear in my neighborhood sometimes... and he always lets out his parrot when he knows people are watching. These two are very traditional to Chile.

Chinchero video (this is a video I found on youtube, just because I want you all to see how neat they are to watch, like how fast they spin!) You can also hear in the background the organillero music too.

This is another interesting thing we saw and that is very traditional to Chile, the dance la cueca. People would sit around and drink and listen to traditional music and then when they felt the urge just get up and dance the cueca with a partner. It's a very pretty dance to watch... of course I have no coordination and can't dance it.

The traditional clothes or men are called, huasos. It was neat to see people around town wearing these types of clothes. I am sure they had a reason, like to do performances or something, but it really made the city feel different. I loved it.

La Cueca (a youtube video of what the cueca looks like)

Alright so after we watched the chincheneros, we walked around until we found a place to sit down. The finda was packed with people and almost no place had places to sit down. We found one place with a live band, so the family ate meat while we all drank chincha. Then after that the night got interesting with terremotos. We just walked around while drinking the terremotos and having a blast. But the night had a drastic turn when Constanza got her purse (cartera) stolen. We all freaked out and looked around for it, but we ended up having to go to the carabineros (polieman) to report it stolen. She had soo much in ther too: money, wallet, license or id card, car key (expensive to replace), cd player for car, along with other little items she loved. There was a temporary carabinero house set up at the fonda, so we went there to report it. While there we watched the carabineros bring in a drunken young guy that was in handcuffs, like behind his back. He was yelling and moaning the whole time, like laying on the floor throwing a fit pretty much. All the carabineros were busy, so this guy took the opportunity to escape. I watched him as we walked out the door and started to run away. But then Javiera (my cousin, more like a sister though) came in and told the police that the guy ahd escaped. All the carabineros were men but one woman... if you can call her a woman. She was the most masculine woman I have seen, and all of the carabineros went after the man, but it was the woman who took the guy down. She terrified me. I made a mental note to never piss off a female carabinero, they are way worse than the men. So after this episode, Constanza was all upset and crying, so we made our way home. It was definitely an interesting night.

The next day (friday) we helped out Pili who had tons of food to make and deliveries to do. Later in the day Marcelo, Erin and I packed up and decided to spend the rest of the weekend in Algarrobo. We had a very nice relaxing night there. And then the following day (Saturday), there was a big family bbg in Casablanca (or asada in spanish). Its like an all day event. The whole family sits down and eats a little bit (almost all meat of course) and then repeats this at least three more times. It was a blast thought to talk with the whole family and get to know them all more... its a big extended family. In the afternoon and inbetween meals, all the boys went out into the field to play fútbol (soccer) and the rest of the younger ones, we all went and flew kites (volantines). It was super fun, but a very long day since the nights before we didn't get much sleep. That night though, Constanza and Sergio joined us in Algarrobo and we went to a fonda there, but not for long though. We each had one terremoto, played some games and walked around. We ended the night relaxing back at the house with the most fascinating conversation. The next day (sunday) was gorgeous and super warm so we all sat outside in the morning until lunch taking in the sun and enjoying eachothers company. Later that day we went to the artesanías to look around and went to walk by the beach. And then after our lazy afternoon we made our to Casablanca to see the grandparents and then made our way back to Viña.

It was quite the busy weekend, but I loved it. I am so glad I was able to experience this major holiday in Chile!

Oh and sorry for the lack of photos. But I went to a lot of places this weekend where it was too dangerous for me to take my camera or purse or anything valuable... I didn't want to get anything stolen like what happened to Constanza. So hopefully the other pictures will suffice and you all can at least get the main idea! :)