un buen día

This good day began when I opened my fully-rested eyes at ten A.M. I had a leisurely breakfast in my pajamas followed by a HOT shower! [[You have no idea how exciting that is until you have to live with freezing cold ones daily. Freezing cold ones that make you appreciate luke warm ones. Freezing cold ones that make you have to turn the cold water on when the shower is actually at a normal temperature.]] Immediately following the best shower ever, I trimmed my hair so as to remove the split ends. I then passed a few hours chatting with friends, facebooking, practicing guitar, listening to music, etc. Somewhere in the middle of all that I had a nice lunch and visit with Myriam's biker sister. [[Yes, Chile has the same biker people we do. I'm talking leather vest, bandana, Harley Davidson type people. Myriam made it very clear to us that her sister's biker group doesn't do drugs or anything like that. Actually, they do a lot of social and human rights work. Way to go, biker people! ]] In the later afternoon I went out in search of a cheap, but warm and fashionable coat to buy. This was the third time I had gone on such a hunt. Success! I also found a super sweet scarf to go with it. Now I'm all set for Chilean winter! I also bought a whole container [[why just buy a cone when you can get a whole container for the same price??!]] of ice cream that I had been craving for the last few days. Triple Chocolate. Que rico. More chatting with friends along with a break for once (their form of dinner) followed. During dinner we learned that the government finally decided tonight was the night to change the time for Daylight savings. This should have happened back in March but due to an energy crisis, it had to wait til now. Now I am on the same time as all of you back home! I find it weird to be so far away and in opposite seasons but with the same time of day. But it's much less confusing that way. The day ended with a celebration of Javier's (a Chilean friend) birthday at the karaoke bar. Lucky for me, it turns out Saturday is not karaoke night. Don't anybody go and worry now that dear little Rachel is hanging out in bars going crazy. I've made it pretty clear to them that I don't drink (Messiah's rules). They've never pressured me to do so. But yes, I do taste their drinks once in a while...for education's sake :p I like the sweet drinks that have juice mixed in. A popular drink is the terremoto (spanish for earthquake) which has pineapple icecream, white wine, and whiskey. On the way home we stopped for completos (hot dogs with guacamole, tomatoes, and mayo on top...SO DELISH..when you get it without the mayo!). While there, some flaite (Chilean form of gangsters) came in and started causing some trouble with our group. I couldn't understand everything, but it ended up with the flaite flinging ketchup and mustard at one of the guys in our group. After they left, we cleaned up the mess. It was interesting to see non-Christians acting exactly as Christians should - not retaliating and then cleaning up a mess that wasn't theirs afterwards just because it was the kind thing to do for the store owners (who didn't say a word the whole time, just stood there and watched..weird..).

All in all, good day. Saw some real sides of Chile, got some things checked off my checklist, relaxed and enjoyed the day. I hope your Saturday/weekend was equally as nice :)