Independence Weekend and more

Well..I´ll start with Thursday night, the beginning of Independence festivities for me. I had a Rotary meeting (not at the same building as before, this one was more casual, with the wives present) We ate empanadas, anticucho, and a whole bunch of Chilean desserts. My fave desserts were also the most traditional. I got home at 10 after 1 and hit the sack...super tired. Next morning, I went to school, and we finished decorating the classroom and then ate empanadas. They are so amazing!!! We didn´t have napkins tho...so used notebook paper. Afterwards was an assembly with a lot of dances and such.....took a lot of pics of the national costume. It ended a bit early, so I walked home cuz it was a gorgeous day!! A guy from my class walked with me, he speaks a bit of English, so understood when I didn´t know what to say in Spanish. After lunch (more traditional Chilean food), I met some girls in my class and we hung out...walked around downtown looking around at stuff. They laughed because I thought most of the stuff was so cheap with the conversion rate. We went to her house, where I showed them Wiarton and Owen Sound on google earth. We looked for my house here, but its covered by a cloud... Saturday morning, I slept in then went for a walk in the afternoon with my host mom. We walked ot my grandparents house...an hour and 5minutes. Then spent most of the afternoon there. I got back to my house, and got ready for a fiesta at my classmates house. Got picked up at 11 (the thing about ppl being a bit socially late is true) and then met a ton of ppl at this guys house. We danced for til 2, when I headed home. Sunday morning, I got up and went for a walk in the snow..my pants, socks, and shoes were soaked when I got home an hour later. We (host mom and I) walked along the Strait of Magellan and saw a car that had been in an accident at 5 am that morning (2 deaths...) I talked to Julia, and we arranged to meet at 3. We went to la Chocolata, where we had amazing hot chocolate and Patagonian chocolate (seriously Lou...i think it rivals belgian....) then went to some market type places with Chilean art type stuff. We took some pics of the plaza with the snow (there was about 2 inches...) and of each other with the gorgeous mountains in the background. Then we went to the house of a girl who just came back from exchange, Camila. Ate an empanada and mote con huesillo.....Later, Johanna picked me up from there and I went to my grandparents house for anticucho (a whole bunch of different meats on a kebab basically) and then to my house at 12. This morning, i got up at 8:30 cuz I was in a parade today with my school. It was on TV!!! (ohyeah...saturday my host dad left for another city to visit his mom)...I talked to him later today and he had seen me on TV...bakan (cool)We waited outside for an hour and 45 minutes...in just our unifroms. No warm jackets...and we had to wear our skirts, and since i didn´t have time to get nylons, I just had the socks on...mucho frio!!! We danced around a bit trying to stay warm, and huddled. I forgot my white gloves in the van in the morning.....so another girl lent me one and we both just wore one..hehe. I hid my hands from the inspectors all morning. The actual parade was only like 3 blocks..but there were tons of ppl, and it was cool. We were at the end tho, so I didn´t get to see the rest of it.....which was a bummer. Johanna had my camera tho, and she took pics for me. Afterwards, I went to my friends house for lunch (empanadas and anticucho without the stick, plus potatoes...) then we went downtown with her cousin. While there...met up with a bunch of other classmates and hung out with them for awhile. There were tons of ppl in the downtown..well, in schools where there were lots of games to be played. Back to her house later, and ate some delicious cake stuff and i had coffee (weak...with no sugar....I don´t use sugar in tea or coffee and everyone thinks I´m crazy). I´m home now....and done this update! ciao!!