1. CATEDRAL DE SAL
I have to say that one of the coolest places I visited my entire time I was in South America was the Salt Cathedral, located outside of Bogotá, Colombia. It was simply incredible to me that old parts of a salt mine were able to be transformed into a masterpiece to represent the Colombian catholic tradition.
2. EASTER ISLAND DRUNKARD
Sitting at a small outdoor restaurant when at Easter Island with Niels, Freddy, and Patricio, a local quickly befriended us. I was marveled by not only his ability to drink, but also his ability to piss of his family members that owned the place. I am not one to kiss and tell, but I will say that by the end of our time at the restaurant, we only paid for our food but received free coke and rum, a professional massage, and laughs that made my stomach soar.
3. THANKSGIVING GRAMMAR ARGUMENT
Having 20 guests over to celebrate Thanksgiving, I was delighted to have a family fight as you would find at any good family gathering! Four of us got into it over the correct verb conjugation for the verb gustar, and the battle still has not been won by either side.
4. DANCING ON THE LEDGE
I loved every moment of AfterOffice, the event put on every week by a friend we made. As I sit here and mourn, facing the fact I am no longer VIP (AKA crying myself to sleep every night), I fondly recall the moments in which the most beautiful Angélica Lillo and I danced on the ledge that looked down on the additional 1,500 people dancing the night away. Many probably passed judgement, but, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
5. WALKING WITH NIELS
My German friend Niels had a special knack to walk at a super fast clip. Literally every time I was with him, I simply was unable to keep up and ended up being at least 20 feet behind him. When I was lucky there was someone else lagging behind with me, but I also spent many walks alone. The most difficult of all was hiking with Niels, as his pace did not change, the terrain just got more difficult. The only saving grace I had in those instances was having a smoker who did worse than I!
6. SALSA KING
About a month after arriving, I went to a salsa dance festival with a few friends. Of course I was put to shame by everyone there, but the one that stung the most was being in the presence of the Salsa King. This man makes salsa look effortless and makes his partners look like professional dancers, even if it is the first time they have danced salsa, which was indeed the case for my friends Rachel and Laura who fell victim to his charm!
7. THE FRENCH SAGA
In my culture class, there was a little bit of an underlying disdain between a few of the US students and French students... or maybe it was just some of the US students who were judging the French students, ha. I by no means and endorsing stereotypes of French people as I have met many that I adore, including some in the class, HOWEVER... several of the students in class would speak in class all of the time and visibly had little interest being there. Well, on the last day of class, I got a kick out of the professor of the class coming up to a group of is and asking what the deal was with the French kids and why they were such a... let's say... pain.
8. STARTING A FIRE
Rachel, Laura, Layla, Gonzalo, and I went camping a few hours outside of Santiago in a place called Cajón de Maipo... you can already tell a struggle is to come, as I of all people was in charge of the planning. Previous to this, the last time I went camping was when I was probably like 12. Yes, disaster was to come! Well, one evening we decided to start a fire... and it took an hour. As if finding wood were not bad enough, cutting the wood was a whole different story. Gonzalo attempted to break the wood by jumping on it, and then yelping; Layla attempted breaking by whacking a tree. Finally the Jesus-camp lent us an axe... which makes them fools for thinking we knew how to use it. Unsuccessful in using the axe, a group of guys on a picnic could not handle watching our display of stupidity and came over to instruct the art of wood-cutting. Still, the others could not get it right so I had to finally step in and show them how it was done. With wood in hand, the girls tried to start the fire, which did not light for an hour. We were able to smoke out the entire camp ground though!
9. PROPOSITIONS BY PROSTITUTES
All I am going to say is that I did not think that people actually walked up to pedestrians on the street asking them if they want to pay for a visit. And maybe I was dumb enough to respond with, "you really think I want to pay you for sex?"
10. LUIS BIRTHDAY DINNER
Probably the most expensive dinner I have ever paid for, but totally worth it. I took my friend Luis out to dinner to celebrate his birthday at a great place called Opera. I have never had such delicious duck in my life. The meal reminded me of the great restaurants I enjoyed while visiting France in 2005.
