I met my friend Linnea at the airport after being stuck in customs for smuggling a banana into the country. I didn't even want the thing. I had shoved in my bag at the last minute upon leaving the hotel in Dallas. Customs was not very happy about finding it though, and I ended up having to pay a $200 fine.
On our first night, even though I was exhausted, with all the adrenaline of actually getting here I decided to go out with Linnea and her friends. We went to a club called Scratch, which is an 18 and older club, so at 21, Linnea and I felt kind of old. Everyone there was closer to 19. Chileans know how to dance though and ooh do they love their 90's rap and hair bands too. We danced until closing -- around 5 am -- and left to get completos, which are two hot dogs in a huge bun with avocado and mayo. Linnea and I shared one. It was good even though usually I'm afraid of mayo.
Erika, Linnea's friend who was visiting for a week before going on to her homestay in Uraguay, was my roommate for a night at the hostel where I'm currently staying. So we went back to the room and fell into bed around 5:30 am. The next morning while Erika and I were waiting to meet up with Linnea we walked down to Okay Market to get something to eat. We grabbed what we thought were little packs of donuts, some orange juice, paid, and went to eat outside. what we found were not donuts but little cookies shaped like donuts and covered in chocolate. False advertising if I've ever seen it.
After eating our little cookies and juice we walked to Linnea's house. We were a funny trio walking down the streets of Vina. Three blonde girls speaking English. We attracted a lot of attention, to say the least. So Linnea suggested we start speaking in Spanish. It worked like a charm. So now I'm not sure if it was the language we were speaking or the way that we looked that triggered so much attention. I guess it really doesn't matter to me either way now, because by speaking less English I'm picking up Spanish more quickly.
