Sunday a few of us went to the Univ. Chile vs. Univ. Católica fútbol game with Darren's host brother Nicolas. ¡Que brígido! There was a continuous presence of blue and red anywhere within a mile of the stadium - people 
decked out in their school's gear, waving flags bigger than they are from the backs of trucks, talking shit to anyone on the other team. After an intense search procedure, we made it into the área abajo, where all the fans gather before the game for rowdy songs and cheers. (Here's a pic of the fans... I made sure to get a guy with a mullet so you could see one, though this one is quite a bit on the tame side.) Guys were cooling themselves off with hoses while a huge drum beat out their fight songs. Imagine a frat basement, but fifteen times larger, completely packed with soaked and screaming guys, jumping up and down, punching, the air, letting their souls out to the concrete! Intense. The game was packed (at least the UnivCh side) and no one sat down or shut up the entire time. Imagine if we had that at UNC basketball games.... I wasn't too impressed with the playing. They were definitely good, but made a lot of simple mistakes. It looked a lot like something you would see in the States. Nicolas shook his head at the end of the game and called his team a bunch of conchetumadres.. that they haven't played well all season. So a bit disappointing, but still an experience 
that goes well beyond average!
decked out in their school's gear, waving flags bigger than they are from the backs of trucks, talking shit to anyone on the other team. After an intense search procedure, we made it into the área abajo, where all the fans gather before the game for rowdy songs and cheers. (Here's a pic of the fans... I made sure to get a guy with a mullet so you could see one, though this one is quite a bit on the tame side.) Guys were cooling themselves off with hoses while a huge drum beat out their fight songs. Imagine a frat basement, but fifteen times larger, completely packed with soaked and screaming guys, jumping up and down, punching, the air, letting their souls out to the concrete! Intense. The game was packed (at least the UnivCh side) and no one sat down or shut up the entire time. Imagine if we had that at UNC basketball games.... I wasn't too impressed with the playing. They were definitely good, but made a lot of simple mistakes. It looked a lot like something you would see in the States. Nicolas shook his head at the end of the game and called his team a bunch of conchetumadres.. that they haven't played well all season. So a bit disappointing, but still an experience 
that goes well beyond average!(Here are some random fans from behind us that wanted to take a picture with the 'gringas bonitas,' who also attempted to teach us the fight songs. Sweet!)
Probably the most shocking thing for me wasn't even the game, necessarily. I'm sure that you have all heard about the riots and even deaths that sometimes surround fútbol games in Latin America - I got to see that first hand. Very early in the game, some fans attempted to jump over the fence, and the policía had to come at them with sticks. You can kind of see in this picture the small groups of pacos (cops) in riot gear, patrolling the crowd. Some 
of them got taken down, the fans were so wild. After the game, we had to exit through a gauntlet of police on horses who not-so-peacefully were pushing people out of the stadium. On the street, huge crowd-control tanks were spraying fans with toxic water (it makes everything itchy and you sick to your stomach - think of the pictures you've seen of hoses from the civil rights movement, and then put those on big tanks). Apparently, it happens after every game, especially when it's a game between two of the three big teams (UnivCh, UnivCa, and Cola Cola) and apparently the police are always dicks. Nicolas and his buddies were making fun of how freaked out the Americans were getting.
of them got taken down, the fans were so wild. After the game, we had to exit through a gauntlet of police on horses who not-so-peacefully were pushing people out of the stadium. On the street, huge crowd-control tanks were spraying fans with toxic water (it makes everything itchy and you sick to your stomach - think of the pictures you've seen of hoses from the civil rights movement, and then put those on big tanks). Apparently, it happens after every game, especially when it's a game between two of the three big teams (UnivCh, UnivCa, and Cola Cola) and apparently the police are always dicks. Nicolas and his buddies were making fun of how freaked out the Americans were getting.Classes started on Monday, but that's boring so I'll just say that they're actually very fun and interesting... Spanish for three hours every morning is in reality exhilarating! Plus we get to learn a lot of fun slang. The toughest part is definitely having to wake up at 6:30 for that 9:00 class. Mason writes that his ride from one city to another for class is 10 minutes.. I'm barely squeezing onto the metro in that amount of time! Geez, lucky little man.
The week has been an interesting one. There have lots of ups and downs, both
with my Spanish abilities and with my attitude in general. Wednesday I hit a wall of sorts, after which I wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with Spanish. Lauren and I went to Santiago Centro to get away from our families, complained about Chile for the entire metro ride, she got a burger from McDonalds, and we basically acted as American as possible. It was somewhat refreshing, and afterwards I could forget how awkward it is to live with someone and not be able to talk to them, to always have to pay so much attention in a conversation to not even be able to reply, to always have people staring at you in the metro on the street in the stores in your apartment building. I am learning how to be comfortably uncomfortable.
with my Spanish abilities and with my attitude in general. Wednesday I hit a wall of sorts, after which I wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with Spanish. Lauren and I went to Santiago Centro to get away from our families, complained about Chile for the entire metro ride, she got a burger from McDonalds, and we basically acted as American as possible. It was somewhat refreshing, and afterwards I could forget how awkward it is to live with someone and not be able to talk to them, to always have to pay so much attention in a conversation to not even be able to reply, to always have people staring at you in the metro on the street in the stores in your apartment building. I am learning how to be comfortably uncomfortable. I've been hanging out with my brother more, and I think we are well on our way to having an awesome relationship. He's not only extremely good-looking, but
also very socially aware, caring, talented, and interesting. For a little while I thought that his girlfriend was going to prevent any kind of real relationship, but she turned out to be pretty fabulous as well. I've met a lot of his friends, and they are generally just as interesting as him (they're all a bit on the crazy side) and seem to want to be buddies too, which I like! They're almost always up to no good. Last night we went out for a bit of carrete (and by "bit" I mean we got
back to the house at 6:30 this morning) that started with a big family cocktail. There are now three girls in my program in the same family - me, my 'sobrina,' and now my 'prima.' brady's family includes another guy our age too, so he came to hang out. pisco sours, piscolas, mariscos, guacamole, delicious chilean wine, cheetos (but completely different)... it was a good party. Then on to Diego's house, where we didn't arrive until 2. Jesus. Not quite used to this yet. Anyways, Chileans are very nice and complete people, understanding and compelling. (The brosef is featured above.. here is my 'sister,' her husband, and 2 year old Vicente. There's also 9 year old Martin. Adorable!) Brady's house (now my prima) is really high-end for middle class Santiago, with a pool and a yard, so today we went over there for a bit of barbecue (asado) and hanging out. Met some more people, they want us to go dancing with them later. Life is so vibrant here. I think that part of it has to do with the fact that almost everyone has lived through some horrible event or years, and so therefore have learned to suck the best from life and to look at any situation with eyes that search for the silver lining. They don't take their blessings for granted. Our program organized an event to hook us up with some of the students studying English here, which is a very interesting perspective to see. Trying to help them a bit as we hang out is very refreshing and encouraging to me. It's also kind of strange because a lot of them can speak almost perfectly, but when they try and write something, it's pretty much incoherent. I'm the opposite, I think. Well cool. It's shower time, then more carrete! There are two birthdays this week in the program, so I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of celebration tonight. I've gotta store up some energy!
Much love to you all!
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