Birthday Strippers and Broken Buses

As the title of this blog implies, I’ve had a very interesting two weeks.

First I’ll begin by explaining why we got birthday strippers. Well, we didn’t. A girl in our group was turning 21 two weekends ago and birthdays are a big deal in our group, especially a 21^st birthday. So the first night, Thursday, we decided to go to a club, nothing too special. We get there and it is entirely empty and there are stripper poles everywhere.

My friend, Mike, who is 6”3 is surprisingly very good at dancing on a stripper pole… 

apparently that is what you learn at frats...

We had a lot of fun at that club. Reined in the girl’s birthday with vodka shots… yum? But actually, they were…

A fun night with a fun group of people. But the birthday weekend was just beginning. The next night, she organized for us to get in free at a club. However, the club wasn’t in a very good neighborhood. My family and other people’s families all warned us to be extra careful. This was in the “flaite” neighborhood. A flaite, according to a dictionary of Chilean slang, is: a derogatory term used to refer to young people from a lower social class of street culture and vulgar tastes. Needless to say, I wasn’t actually that excited.

I didn’t have very much fun that night. Maybe it was from lack of sleep the previous night. But the next day I was told I missed something very interesting… real strippers, not just stripper poles. Apparently they were entirely naked at one point in the night. Not quite sure where I was.

I ended up leaving early with 2 other friends who weren’t having much fun either. As we were driving home in the cab, we were passing a McDonalds and I quickly yelled out that we should stop the cab and get McDonalds. And we did.  And it was wonderful.  A great end to a not-so-great night.

But before I went to this club, I had some wine and cheese with my friend’s family. Without my friend. His name is Mike, but a different Mike than the one who is good at showing his more feminine side on stripper poles. To makes things easier, we call this Mike, “Balz” because luckily for him, those are the first 4 letters in his last name. Anyway, Balz’s 22^nd birthday was coming up (it was actually on October 12^th) and his family wanted to throw him a surprise party on the 1st. His family is my favorite family. They always let us come over before we go out to drink and we always chat with them. They are really great to talk to and they asked me to help plan this surprise party one of the very first weeks we got here.

So I drank some wine and planned his party before going out to this second club. I almost didn’t leave, it was so much more fun just talking to this family.

But the next day after the second day of birthday celebrations, was Balz’s surprise party. We organized it so that people would come earlier and help make food and set up. Somehow, my job ended up being the Barista. I was told my “terremotos” (typical Chilean drink) are better than ones at a place that is famous for them. I will definitely be bringing these terremotos back to the states, they are absolutely delicious. What a terremoto consists of is pineapple ice cream, white wine, a tiny bit of cognac and a tiny bit of grenadine. Yum

I'm not actually holding a terremoto in this photo, this is white wine and peaches, delicious as well

Balz's dad and little brother, great people. And a delicious "asado" (barbeque)

So finally Balz arrived, and with his dad who was visiting from the States. He had absolutely no idea what was waiting for him at his house, and why should he, we were doing this 2 weeks early…

The food was incredible. The boys grilled and the girls made salads. The day was beautiful. Besides the fact that everyone was a little bit “caña” (Chilean slang for “hungover”), everything was perfect.

After that, we went out one more time. But this time I was done with birthday celebrations. I went with 4 other girls to a restaurant/bar. And again, somehow we found strippers. This time they were fake though, but still. An entire weekend of strippers, how classy.

The week went by very fast. I don’t actually remember doing much of anything and I definitely did not do any work. I really have no idea how I’m going to go back to Syracuse because I’ll actually have to do real work then and I forgot what that even means.

But anyway, my next weekend was absolutely amazing. I went to Mendoza, Argentina.

Here is a test for everyone reading this: What separates Chile from Argentina?

Answer: The Andes Mountains.

So here is another question: How does one get from Santiago to Mendoza if there are mountains in the middle?

Answer: You drive through them…

And that’s exactly what we did. During the night. And my seat was on the second level of the double decker bus, and the very first row. Great view… and absolutely terrifying.

Also, I barely slept throughout the night. The seats were not comfortable at all; my legs are too awkwardly long to be able to sleep on a bus and I was being thrown from one side of my tiny seat to the other. Our bus driver was wild. He drove super fast and usually on the wrong side of the road. There are 24 huge blind turns on this mountain. It was like sitting through a 5-hour-long roller coaster.

Our bus left Santiago at 10:30 pm. We arrived at the border around 2 am and had to get out of the bus and stand in the freezing cold for about an hour waiting to get through immigration. Then we finally arrived in Mendoza around 6:30 am. The hostel I booked was supposed to be a 5 minute walk from the bus terminal.

It took us about an hour.

There were 3 girls including me and 3 guys. The guys each had a backpack. The girls had that plus a big duffel bag…oops.

The reason it took so long is because we are really smart gringos and got super lost. Walking around with a heavy backpack and duffel bag at 7 in the morning after having only slept about 2 hours the entire night is not something I would recommend.

So eventually we found it. We talked to the people in charge of the hostel and somehow came to the wild conclusion that it made sense for us to do a wine bike tour that day. And leave about an hour after getting there. No nap time :(

We went to the supermarket and bought baguettes, salami, and cheese and ate them on the bus to the bike tour place. People were staring but we were hungry and sleep-deprived so it didn’t really matter.

We got to the place around noon and they offered us a glass of wine. I was already delusional from lack of sleep, and the alcohol definitely did not help.

But I forgot how much I love riding bikes, it was so much fun. The first place we went to was a wine museum. 

 Then we went to my favorite place, a chocolate and liquor factory. The alcohol was delicious. And there was also lost of condiments and jams and delicious food to sample. That gave me an energy boost for about an hour.

And while we were at the museum, the boys in our group met a couple from South Africa. They had been backpacking for about 6 months and had another 2 months to go. In the end, they will have backpacked from Mexico all the way down to Patagonia in 8 and a half months.

Their lives seem amazing! I would absolutely love to backpack through South America for 8 months! But it takes a certain kind of person and I don’t know if I have what it takes. Well first of all, it takes a ton of money, but after that it also takes a specific kind of personality.

They said that they worked in Korea teaching English for a year and that’s how they saved up all their money, because Korea is apparently a really cheap place to live. And while in South America, they’ve been sleeping outdoors every single night. Not to be a snob, but I’m not sure I can live without a bed for 8 and a half months, even though the trip would definitely be worth it.

I decided that if I can find the right person, or group of people, to do this with, I would love to backpack through South America for a summer. I don’t think I have what it takes to do it for three-quarters of a year, but one-quarter would be perfect. I know I wouldn’t get to see everything I would like to, but even they said 8 and a half months is not enough. And they’re right; there is never enough time for someone to see the whole world.

So anyway, we spent the entire day with them. It was a perfect day for bike riding. The last vineyard that we went to was the best. It was a family-owned vineyard and absolutely beautiful. The wine wasn’t really that great, but I don’t actually know anything about wine so maybe it was.

The two on the right are the South Africans and the 3 girls in the front are just random people

The entire day we just ate our baguettes and cheese and at this point we were loopy from not sleeping, buzzing from the alcohol, hungry from lack of real food… and our butts were in a lot of pain from the bikes.

Finally we convinced the boys in our group to go home. They just had to stop at the beer garden again. And on our ride back, we got a police escort because we weren’t supposed to be out that late riding our bikes.

So this trip sounds like nothing bad happened to me, which we all know is impossible. So here is the story of our bike ride back:

Everything was fine. We were tired but happy. My backpack had my camera in it (professional camera for those of you who don't know), and the alcohol I bought for my family. 


At the chocolate and liquor place I bought my dad a bottle of whiskey that they claimed was excellent – I didn’t try it, I defintely cannot handle whiskey on 2 hours of sleep. I also bought my brother a bottle of vodka called “Russian death,” I figured he would appreciate the irony. And I also bought my cousin’s grandpa a bottle of Russian death because I don’t know what other kind of souvenir to get him from South America. Then I bought my mom some delicious mustard and my grandma some apricot jam which I know she loves.

Surprisingly, I didn’t fall at all during the entire bike ride.

Not so surprisingly, I fell about 15 seconds away from the bike rental place.

There was a huge crack in the sidewalk that actually raised the sidewalk to the height of about one stair. It was dark at this point and what happened next is a testament to why we shouldn’t have been out on our bikes that late.

Obviously I hit the “stair” in the sidewalk. It wasn’t too bad, I didn’t actually fall off my bike, just kind of rammed into a tree…

But my backpack with all my valuables went flying about 6 feet into the air and then came crashing down on the sidewalk. I was shocked. And very very upset. I didn’t know what to think about first, the things I bought or my camera.

I quickly took out the bags with the products and realized that it was all wet. I needed to get it off my camera.

I was so exhausted at that point that I almost cried.


I didn't even check on my camera until a little while later because if it was broken I didn't even want to know. Thankfully, it wasn't.

I quickly walked the 15 seconds back to the bike rental place and went straight to the bathroom to figure out what broke. Somehow, and I don’t know how, but the whiskey bottle and one of the vodkas didn’t break. What happened with the other vodka bottle was very strange – only the cap broke off so just a bit spilled. I poured the rest into a water bottle… I guess I’m going to have to drink “Russian death” one night while I’m here…

But the saddest part was that my grandma’s apricot jam broke. I know how much she likes apricot jam and she would have loved this one. Oh well, obviously it was lucky that not everything broke. I just think it’s ridiculous how I was 15 seconds away from being done and then I crash. I was obviously expecting myself to crash much earlier than that.

So afterwards we got home and went to eat at a buffet famous for its meats. We were in Argentina so we were trying to relive our nights in Buenos Aires with that amazing steak dish. Obviously the buffet could not even compare…

We were all half-dead when we were eating. One boy kept missing his mouth when he tried to eat. Personally, I could have gone to sleep without eating dinner. We were done in no time and went home and passed out in half a second.

The next day was pretty pointless but still a good day nonetheless. We tried to do wine tours in the city but that just meant sitting in a room getting served wine. I am not a big enough wine fan to do that, I go on the wine tours to experience the beautiful vineyards, not actually for the wine. So my friend Annie and I walked around the city. Half the shops were closed and it started to rain so we just ended up going back to the hostel. 


And obviously some more of my bad luck hit me on the way back. And by hit, I literally mean hit. Well, more like splatter...
First of all, we got lost on the way back. 
But secondly, as we were casually walking on the sidewalk, all of a sudden something cold and wet just splattered on my leg. Somehow I stepped on a brick that was broken and there was apparently mud underneath it that just had to get all over my leg. Wonderful. 

Then that night we went to a nice restaurant and went out for a tiny bit but Mendoza is like a dead city at night. Later on, we were told that all the discotecas are outside of the city and that there are vans everywhere that could take us there… not sketchy at all.

The next day was my favorite I think. We went flying. Really.

Well actually, we went paragliding. The men picked us up and drove us up to the paragliding place. Only 3 people could go at a time so the girls went first. And no, we did not sign any kind of liability waiver nor did they even know our names… something we only realized much later.

Just the drive up the mountain was scary. But it didn’t really hit me what I was actually doing until we got up the mountain and saw people flying around in the air. I got hooked up to the “pilot” who controlled the strings on the parachute. He told me to run until my feet aren’t touching the ground. Basically, he wanted me to jump off a cliff. I was terrified at this point.

I was supposed to go second but something messed up with Annie’s take-off and my pilot just told me to run. I was barely running for 2 seconds until we just got lifted off the ground into the air.

Terrifying.

But absolutely incredibly amazing.  

He tried to talk to me about how beautiful it was but I told him I need about 2 minutes of not talking and then I can agree with him about the beauty. And it really was beautiful

The Andes Mountains

At one point I saw one of my friends spiraling dangerously towards the ground. Apparently they were just “playing” and my pilot decided to “play” too. Playing meant spiraling dangerously towards the ground for fun. But it really was a lot of fun.

amazing

Finally we landed and it was the boy’s turn to go. While they were waiting for us they meant some girls from the States who were studying abroad in Argentina. I love how life works sometimes – they knew 3 people from my high school. We figured this out while we were in Mendoza, Argentina, what are the odds.

When we got back to the hostel we all passed out for a few hours. One of the best naps I’ve ever had. Flying around in the air for 25 minutes is surprisingly very tiring…

When we woke up we decided to watch jersey Shore and make a drinking game out of it. How gringo of us. I’ve never seen Jersey Shore before and never plan to again, it was awful. Then we went to a delicious Italian restaurant.

Annie and I were SO excited to eat a caprese salad – fresh tomato and fresh mozzarella. But what we got was good tomatoes and some nasty cheese that definitely was not fresh mozzarella. Probably the most disappointing part of the trip. Caprese salad is my favorite food. Fresh mozzarella doesn’t exist in Santiago and we were really hoping it did in Mendoza since it did in Buenos Aires. Oh well.

We got home and passed out quickly again. The next day it was time to go home. Our bus was at 1 pm. However, one of my friends (who have been calling Pepe since the first day of Ecuador, but his real name is actually Joseph) realized at 12:10 that he bought the wrong ticket and his bus left at 12:30. Good thing we were actually a 5 minute walk to the terminal.

When we got there, his “bus” was actually a small little white van. We made fun of him, thinking about how great our bus ride will be in compared to his little van ride.

Oh how wrong we were.

His van was full of the Argentinean youth kayaking team. Our bus broke down in front of the border…

Everything was going fine (minus a few problems with switching our seats with not-so-nice Chileans).

We were about a 10-minute-drive from the Argentinean-Chilean border when we stopped on the side of the road. Apparently our breaks were broken. Great.

Broken breaks trying to cross the Andes Mountains, probably not a good idea.

We thought they would send us another bus, but they just sent a mechanic. It took him about 3 hours to get to us. Meanwhile, luckily there was a little shop across the road that sold food. Half the bus went in there to buy food. It was delicious and we were a little less angry. Also, Annie and the other girl on our trip, Jaisa, sat and chatted with a Chilean woman and her daughter for about an hour. I love meeting random people in this continent, they are usually extremely friendly. She gave us lots of suggestions about where to go in Chile and how to live in Santiago. And of course we discussed the current problem of education in the city.

beautiful view...

Stupid bus

When we got back on the bus, Avatar was playing, which also made the wait a little better. However, the mechanic, when he finally got there, was having trouble fixing the problem.

Eventually, about 5 hours after we stopped, he fixed the problem. I was a little skeptical but there was nothing I could do. Everything ended up being fine…I’m alive. But the ride down the mountains was terrifying again. But it was night time and I was downstairs this time so I couldn’t see much of what was going on outside. And that was a good thing.

We finally got to Santiago at 2 am and got home around 2:30.

I called out of my internship the next morning.

The week was unproductive as usual. I got an extension for the essay that was due the day after we left Mendoza, Tuesday. So I skipped my Chilean class on Wednesday to finish it.

Wednesday was the 22^nd birthday of my friend Balz. Obviously we had to celebrate, even if it was the middle of the week.

We had the “previa” (pregame) at his house and I thought I would just go home after that because I had my internship early the next morning. However, that is not what happened. I ended up going out with everyone. I ended up getting home around 4am when I ate and bagel and took a lovely drunk shower, 2 of my favorite things. I got to bed around 5am. Obviously had to email my internship boss that I got “sick” the night before. Oops. And then my class for the afternoon was canceled due to more protests. And I never have class on Fridays. So it was a very unproductive week. I have barely been doing any work here and all of a sudden (not unexpectedly) it is all piling up. I have tons of research papers to write and tests coming up. I also might be failing my only Chilean class. But it’s all worth it for this amazing experience, who cares about GPA’s anyway!

Anyway, on Friday we went to a Mapuche community. The Mapuches are the main indigenous people who live in Chile and a little bit in Argentina as well. I thought it was going to be a large community but there were only 4 people there to talk to us. It was interesting nonetheless.

On Friday night my host mom’s friends from Colombia came for dinner. Very interesting conversation. They reminded me of my Colombian mom from Ecuador who I still miss very much. 

And now I have a Halloween party to go to tonight because none of us will be here for the real Halloween. But I’ll update more next week because I know how obnoxiously long this post already is.