¡¡ Año Nuevo !!

I came into this night with very high expectations, and generally when that happens, I come out pretty disappointed. Luckily my preconceived high expectations of the epicness of the night were shattered. I seriously had one of the best/ most action packed nights of my life, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The adventure started at 12:30, when we left Santiago with my host brother, Joel, pronounced, Hoel.

12:30: We finished packing up our bags, jumped in my host brother’s car, and headed towards Valparaíso, Chile, a large and very bohemian beach city in the center of Chile.

2:35: We arrived in Valpo and desperately tried to find the host I had made reservations for.

3:00: We finally found the hostel Devon and I were supposedly meant to stay in. Background story…. Originally I had made reservations for a nice hostel on top of Cerro Allegre, one of the nicest/ safest cerros, hills, in Valaparaíso. After I made the reservation and paid the small deposit the owner set me an e-mail saying she forgot to up the prices. So instead of paying 8,000 pesos a night, roughly 13 dollars, we would have to pay 30,000 pesos a night, roughly, 46 dollars. So she offered me a cheaper price 20,000 pesos, 30 dollars, at one of her hostels on Cerro Larrain. After driving for 25 minutes we finally found the hostel, which was located in a very slummy neighborhood, and after taking the a small tour of the hostel, the owner told me it would now cost 25,000 pesos a night because we hadn’t made reservations, I told him we made reservations and I had sent his sister about 10 different e-mails, but we wouldn’t budge on the price. So after receiving some advice from my host brother Devon and I decided we would test our luck and hopefully sleep on the floor of someone’s house on inside Joel’s car.

Side Note—Devon and I always seem to find ourselves in weird living situations, hopefully that trend changes.

3:15: We arrived at the house of an uncle of one of Joel’s best friends. The uncle, Gerardo, was M.I.A. so we decided to go to a restaurant to grab a quick lunch.

3:45: We arrived at the restaurant, which was awesome. Devon and Joel decided to split, torre, a container of beer. It is a large tube filled with beer, 2.5 liters, then placed inside a contraption with a tap, so you can serve yourself throughout the meal. I ordered a Coca-Cola, Normal, it was New Year’s so I had to celebrate, no Coca Cola light or Zero for me. After getting our drinks Joel and Devon decided to order one of the most savage things I have ever seen. It was a huge plate of French fries, covered in cheese, hot dog, eggs, and some other kind of ground up beef. I ordered a queso caliente, grilled cheese. We sat and talked in the restaurant for about 1 ½ hours then decided to make our war back to Gerardo’s, Joel’s friends Uncle.

Torre: Big Beer Container

5:30: We arrived at Gerardo’s for the second time; Side Note- Gerardo opened up the first disco in Chile, and is obsessed with gastronomy and other classy things… like antique furniture, blue colored china, and nice shoes, he was quite a character. Anyways, Gerardo welcomed us into us home with open arms… he gave all of us huge hugs after introducing ourselves. We were quickly escorted to his living room where spent the next 4 hours, talking, listening to Gerardo’s many long winded stories, eating gourmet cheese with crackers, drinking wine, and in my case, fresh made strawberry juice.

Joel being Knighted by Gerardo

9:30: Gerardo left to go on a date he had been complaining about all afternoon, and we sat at the dining room table to indulge in a four course meal Gerardo had prepared for us. Our first course was shrimp filled tomatoes topped with a large piece of lettuce, and a very nice sauce. Second course was Corvina, a type of Chilean fish topped with a little bit our salad. Third course was turkey, and two different types of Salad. Desert was a selection of different pan de pascua, pie, strawberries, peaches, and coffee. The meal was absolutely incredible.

The Dinner Table

11:20: We finished up our last few bites of dessert and everyone started to scramble trying to get everything ready for our celebration at midnight.

11:40: We locked up the house and walked towards one of the Cerro’s near Gerardo’s house to watch the firework show.

12:00: The New Year began and we were treated with an amazing firework show from 17 different spots along the beaches of Valparaíso, Vina Del Mar, Rancagua, and a couple other beach cities in that area. The firework show was absolutely incredible, and I think it is the biggest show in all of Latin America. After the fuegos artificiales we talked, danced, and celebrated on the Cerro for a little while, then slowly made our way back down the hill to Gerardo’s house.

1:20: We entered Gerardo’s house and celebrated a little more while waiting for Paulina, Joel’s girlfriend, polola.

2:30: After trying to leave for 30 minutes we finally locked up Gerardo’s house and headed towards the Plaza Stotomayor to party on the street, carrete en la calle, and then make our way to a house party somewhere in downtown Valpo.

The walk was epic… and hilarious. The windy streets were jam packed with people drinking, dancing, screaming, fighting etc. Devon and Cristobal, had an amazing spanglish conversation while sharing 2 liter of some mixed drank, because of all this the relatively short walk took us a little more than an hour.

3:45: We arrived at Plaza Stotomayor and people filled practically every square inch of the plaza but nothing exciting was going on, no music, no dancing… just a lot of people standing around, and drinking. While waiting around right in front of the entrance of the Plaza, we heard the house party we were meant to go to was boring, Fome, so we decide to muster up the troops and head towards a disco.

4:20: We arrived at the disco. Devon and I walked around a little bit and listened to some cover band play Shakira for about ten minutes then we made our way back to the main room to dance to some reggaetone. Right when we entered the main room we were grabbed by two girls… and dragged onto the dance floor. The girl who grabbed me took no time in getting to know me and kissed me… then about two minutes later some guy ran up to her, gave me a really dirty look, and grabbed the girl. So Devon and I decided to make our way back to the main dance floor. While zig- zagging our way back to the main dance floor I made eye contact with a really cute girl, and rather than being really shy and turning my head to another direction I decide to be real suave and say Hola to the girl, then make my way to the center of the dance floor.

4:50: Devon and I danced… by ourselves to a bunch of 80’s songs… then all of a sudden I see two masked girls pushing their way through the dance floor. Surprise… Surprise it’s the same two girls that grabbed us before… so we start to dance a little bit, and then the girls started to take countless pictures of themselves posing with us on the dance floor. Meanwhile, cute girl who I ran into around 4:40, is dancing right next to me with some dude, and I am trying to find a way to ditch these two crazy masked girls so I can eventually ask the cute girl to dance.

Us with one of the masked girls

5:10: The masked girls leave after taking about 25 pictures, and I realize cute girl has also left. During this time Devon decides it will be funny to take a picture of him fake kissing some 35 year old woman, who to put it nicely so not very attractive. I took the picture then the lady asked us to dance, so we both danced on her for a little while. Then all of a sudden I see cute girl back on the dance for… so I mustered up enough courage to actually ask her to dance.

Love in this Club?

5:15: I walked up to cute girl and tried to be real suave and spit game like Biggie Smalls or maybe Usher. So I walked up to cute girl in the white shirt and said the best line ever… ”¿Como te llamas?” She responded Cynthia, and then I told her my name was Mickey and we started to dance…. Good work me.

At first we danced to a bunch of Spanish songs that have dances attached to them… kinda like the solider boy or chicken noodle soup. I tired to dance along but mostly looked like a complete idiot. Next the club played salsa, so the girl and I attempted to salsa for about 40 minutes. Luckily she was a good lead and I kinda picked up a few of the basic steps. I really need to take some salsa lessons when I get home, that dance is so Hottttt. Next they played some reggaetone, so we danced to that. Meanwhile, Devon was dancing up a storm with some of the girls in our group; he was busting out moves I never knew was in his repertoire of dance moves. He was dropping it like it was on fire, breaking it down low, moving his hips like Shakira, and more.

I ended up talking and dancing with Cynthia for the next two hours, then she finally had to head back home, so I gave her a besito goodbye, and tried to find Devon. Too bad I will probably never see that girl again…

7:15: I found Devon, and because cute girl in the white shirt left I decided it would be a good idea to start getting my dance on. All of a sudden Devon and I start to dance crazier than he and I had ever danced before. We put on some really goofy hats, and started running between the two different rooms of the club dancing up a storm. We really took the dance like no one is watching to heart, except everyone was watching us and laughing at us… not with us, just at us. Almost everyone on one on the different dance floors couldn’t help but stare and laugh at us while we were dancing.

We danced for a little while longer… took a bunch of pictures with a bunch of randos, random people, and then headed out.

8:15: We arrived at Gerardo’s house, he told us a long winded story about how awful is 200,000 peso dinner was, and we all feel asleep on different antique chairs inside his living room.

¡¡Cheers To Emily!!