Last week, the marvels of modern air travel allowed me to attend two celebrations of life on two continents. On Tuesday night I left Chile and a mere 12 hours and two flights later I landed in Chicago to spend the next four days with my family and attend Popeye’s memorial service.
I had a minor attack of culture shock while waiting for my train at the Ogilvie Transportation Center (everything was so big, so clean and expensive-looking, and just generally very American) but soon began to relax and look forward to a few days of English-speaking and, more importantly, time with family. Being suddenly surrounded by English for the first time in a month and a half was certainly odd but the strangest thing for me was actually something much more inconsequential: going to the bathroom. In Chile, you don’t flush toilet paper, you throw it in the trash. Every time I went to the bathroom I had to stop my impulse to throw the toilet paper in the trash and remind myself that in the U.S., toilet paper actually goes in the toilet.
My time in Chicago was wonderful, a very special time spent with family remembering and honoring Popeye. One of my favorite parts was the chance to look through all the mementos of Popeye’s past. Pictures of him as a young boy and pictures of my grandparents looking irrepressibly young and beautiful as they fell in love, got married, and had kids. Letters from my great-grandfather to his son, tickets to Yale-Harvard football games from the 1930s, passports with dozens of entry and exit stamps and visas in all different languages. It was a chance to see my grandparents as I never knew them and to see what an incredible, long, and full life they lived.
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| The G4s, Popeye's great-grandchildren, singing Edelweiss |
I flew back to Chile to celebrate an even longer life than Popeye’s…Chile’s 200th birthday. While I arrived the morning after the actual Independence Day, Chileans know how to throw a party and the celebrations continued for the next two days. On my flight from Atlanta to Santiago, the captain said “I understand it’s the 200th year of Chile as a nation…so Happy Birthday!” and all the Chileans on the plane began cheering and clapping. A rowdy group of teenagers in front of me started the rousing cheer of “CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE….VIVA CHILE!” and nearly everyone on the plane joined in. That same energy and pride was evident everywhere over the next two days.
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| Good morning, Andes |
I did my best to pack as much Chilean-ness into my two days of the bicentennial. I ate a lot, spent a lot of time with my family and friends, and even attempted to dance the cueca, the national dance, with no knowledge of the steps. I went to an asado (barbecue) with my family at an aunt’s house where we ate choripan (delicious sausage in a mini-baguette-like bread) and grilled chicken and steak. And because Chileans are crazy for mayonnaise there was plenty of that as well but this was actually homemade mayonnaise that I watched my uncle make so it was a vast improvement over your standard mayo. That night I went to the ramada near my house. A ramada is basically like a state fair in the U.S. but much more debaucherous and with fewer animals (actually no animals except for the street dogs that wander everywhere). Over the past two weeks, makeshift wooden stalls covered with fabric and eucalyptus branches had sprung up on the soccer fields at the University of Playa Ancha. Everyday when I would take the micro downtown to class I would see the progress until finally the entire area was ready and waiting for the crowds to arrive.
And boy, did the crowds arrive. On Sunday, which, mind you, was the fourth day of the bicentennial celebrations, the ramada was absolutely packed. We wandered around and took in all that it had to offer. There were fondas, informal restaurants and bars whose main offerings were empanadas, anticuchos (Chilean shish kabobs—heavy on the meat, light on the veggies…aka no vegetables in sight), and chicha, a sweet drink made from fermented grapes that somehow isn’t wine. There were lots of booths for carnival games, most of which are nearly impossible to win. There were also two ferris wheels and several other twirly-type carnival rides brought in by the company “Felizlandía.” A very happy land, indeed.
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| Piña Hawaiana, ice cream in half a pineapple--genius |
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| Taka taka! (foosball) |
The next morning (alright, actually around noon) when I woke up, I watched an air show and boat parade from my deck with my family. It was a beautiful day and honestly I much preferred just soaking in the sun and the stunning view of the sea and the beach and the mountains to actually watching the show. And later, in case I hadn’t gotten enough of the ramada the night before, I went to the one in Viña del Mar with my parents and my sister. That night I fell asleep, happy and full of empanadas, listening to the sounds of probably 30 different cumbia songs from all the different bars at the ramada that merged into one pulsing beat, as the Chileans squeezed every last ounce out of the bicentennial celebration before returning to work, school, and the beginning of the next 200 years of Independence the next day.
