estamos vivos

"Estamos vivos. Estamos vivos. Hahaha" is how my host grandma answered every phone call we received this morning. So there's that to get the most important fact of the day out of the way: we are alive.

Now to recount the last couple of days because they have been quite crazy. And I'm warning you, this might be a long post.

Thursday afternoon. One more 3:30-5:30 class to go. 6:30 bus to Santiago. Concert at 9:30. The line up? Ziggy Marley. Vicentico. Train. Francisca Valenzuela. Shakira!

So excited...

Until we walk into class and our professors inform that they were listening to the radio and the concert doesn't start at 9:30 but 5:30. What?! The tickets say 9:30. We have a two hour bus ride at 6:30 to get there.  Their response: We aren't in the United States. It turns out that Shakira was scheduled to go on at 9:30 but the other four were playing between 5:30 and 9:30. 

In a class of 21 students, it would have been kind of noticeable if 15 of us ditched... so we sadly sat through class and crossed our fingers that our professors were wrong. They weren't. We missed all four of the opening shows which was a bummer. I was really excited to see Fransisca Valenzuela because I like listening to Spanish music to practice listening but sometimes I'm not in the mood for stereotypical latin music and I heard she has a bit of a different style.

I came home and youtubed her and she's pretty good. If you want to skip the talk show host's little intro, she starts singing about 35 seconds in.

On the bright side, I did get to see Shakira live in Latin America which was really fun. Although I didn't stand a chance of knowing the songs because the ones I do know in English, she sang in Spanish. (She Wolf = La Loba). 

tiny little shakira in the corner

After Shakira we decided to grab a 2:00 am breakfast where I was as usual, lost in translation. I got chicken with pasta de chipotle. I think I'm getting spicy chicken and pasta because my host family here calls pasta, pasta. Nope. Pasta= paste. Duh. Dinner comes out looking like buffalo wings. That's cool I like those too. It was actually chicken covered in about a year's worth of ketchup. We all got a good laugh out of it though.

The next morning we wake up to the news that we have to stay in Santiago another night because Valparaiso and Viña del Mar are on tsunami alert due to the Japanese earthquake. We make hotel reservations for another night and decide we may as well check out Santiago. And here's what we found:

Beautiful murals. This one right outside our hostel.

Displays of photos commemorating the one year anniversary of Chile's earthquake.

A protest to reform the education system which appeared to have more 

terrifying police officers in full protection than protestors.

And La Moneda (essentially the Chilean White House)

At La Moneda, we get a phone call that we can return to Valpo so we cancel the hotel, jump on a bus and head home. Exhausted, I head to my room to relax a little when my little sister walks in and says that my host mom is on the phone and she wants to talk to me. She tells me that she is staying in Santiago for the night for work but I need to get my things together in ten minutes and leave with my little sister. We had to stay at their grandma's house because it is further up the hills so it's safer. I thought the tsunami wasn't coming!

We watched news footage of Japan for about an hour which scared the bologna out of me knowing that tsunamis could possibly be coming to Chile. Thankfully before bed, my brother, sister and I watched "Horton y el Mundo de los Quien" (Horton Hears a Who) to lighten the mood. And to my surprise, they didn't just translate it but did a wonderful job rewriting it so it still rhymed in true Dr. Seuss fashion.

Anyway, my host mom just got home and needs help with the groceries. Sorry that was so long :)