The Kinfolk Come to Chile

My triumphant return to blogging, after a ten-day(ish) hiatus:
I was lucky enough to have my mom, Joy, and my sister, Michelle, visit me for a week in Chile.

First, we spent the weekend in La Serena, about seven hours north of Santiago.

Michelle saw a Port-O-Potty on stilts through her window on the bus ride to our first destination.

This would bode well for our trip.

Highlights of La Serena:

Tio and Abuela - loving hostel owners, fond of taking conversational hostages, who fudged our reservation, then let two of us sleep in Abuela's back-bedroom.

Dog fight - in the middle of the sidewalk, after I had just finished explaining how safe and friendly all the dogs of Chile were.

Beach - mountains and sea, white sand beach and giant sand fleas.

Skinny-dipper - a drunk, eye-patched Chilean streaking across the beach, bathing; when he was done, he put on some shorts and came to apologize for his vulgarity, explaining in muddled Spanish, "I always bathe like this... I live a few blocks away... I have sickness in my eye... I am miner... I have sickness in my eye... So sorry!"

Fish - dee-licious; found at little hole-in-the-wall pub; we sat in the middle of thirty hollering chilenos, watching a major futgol game, and we shared a table with an old lady taking her tea; we found the place at the tip of a local, who delighted in the idea of showing some gringas around his town.

We also took a day-trip to Vicuna and Valle de Elqui.

Highlights:

Climbing the neighborhood look-out hill - seeing the brilliant contrast between the arid, brown mountains and the verdant rows of first-spring-green grapevines.

Lunch at the swankiest place in town - typical Chilean food, which includes finding a raisin, an olive, a whole chicken-leg, a wad of beef, and a hard-boiled egg in a mound of mashed potatoes; surprise!

Pisco-sours - Mom and Michelle had their first tastes of the famous Chilean drink, right in the valley where the majority of Chilean pisco is made.

After a relaxing weekend in La Serena, we boarded the bus back to Santiago.

It would have been smooth sailing, had the worst-bus-seat-partner in the history of bus-seat-partnering not sat down by Michelle. Let's just say that between Michelle and this bohemoth, there was some invasion of seat-privacy, in which a baby diaper was changed and breast-feeding became a full-contact sport.

Finally, we arrived in the big city, tired, stiff, and uncomfortable in more ways than one.

We found our hostel, La Casa Roja, which turned out to be the best hostel in which I have ever stayed. High ceilings, plenty of squishy sofas, courtyards, concrete pond (swimmin' pool, for all you Yankees out there), scrambled eggs for breakfast, and hot water. We were walking in high cotton.

In the big city, I took them to most of the obligatory gringo-tourist hang-outs. We went shopping in various markets, strolled through some parks, ate delicious ice cream, visited the musuem of visual art (which included a few exhibits that looked like someone had accidentally left out their power tools after they got off work), explored the endlessness of the General Cemetery of Santiago, and rode a funicular to the top of Cerro San Cristobal in order to see the entirety of the sprawling city.

In a day-trip adventure away from the city, we bussed over to Isla Negra to visit the house of Pablo Neruda. Of course our visit was fabulous; how can one not love a homeowner who builds rooms for his knick-knacks, throws a party for a horse made of paper-mache and wood, and owns a narwhal horn?! After our tour, we had a lovely dinner, seaside, with great seafood. I had the eel soup, to which Neruda himself once wrote an ode. I was feeling quite inspired after that dinner. But maybe that was just gas...

Aside from our sight-seeing, we visited my host family. We had planned for a quick meeting, but once my host mom brought out the tray of ice cream, we knew we were in it for the long haul. Mostly, our conversation was a blur to me. I can only imagine what Michelle and Mom were going through! But as the only bilingual speaker in the room, I had a lot of translating to do. I could barely translate one sentence to Mom and Michelle before my host mom launched into another one. Confusion ensued, but it was amazing to see the melding of two families.

Another exciting occurrence? I attended my first concert in Santiago with Michelle: Hot Chip!
We were surrounded by hipster chilenos (yes, hipsterism has migrated below the equator), most of whom probably had no idea what the lead was singing about. No matter. We were all grooving, no le importa our nationality. The funky stuff needs no translation.

During this week of family-lovin, we also celebrated my 21st birthday, "in a land that does not care," as I have been reminded over and over again. It was so great to have family and friends, gringos and chilenos, to kick-off the commencement of my next year of life.

Oh yeah, and we celebrated Thanksgiving, too!

Although, Thanksgiving can everyday, really.
I am still giving thanks for Mom and Michelle's grand adventure to Chile.
It may have been harder than I had expected; translating/ordering food for everyone/arranging transportation/planning events/still going to classes can be a little much. I kind of felt like a mother, especially when Michelle and Mom were passed out, drooling like toddlers on the bus, acting almost completely nonverbal with Spanish-speaking strangers.
But it was well worth it. Vale la pena. After all, I needed the real-life practice.

Por fin, I am glad to have shared a slice of my Chilean life with the two most important ladies in mi vida.

Thanks, Mom and Michelle, for venturing waaay down south.
Chile misses you already!
(Read: I miss you already!)