Mis Cumpleanos y Futbol (birthday and soccer)

Hola,

To pick up where I left off on Friday, most of us had dinner at the Chinese restaurant next to the hotel. The food was very good and was a little bit different than the typical Chinese restaurant in America. At night we went out to a bar called Stingray.

This weekend we have had an open schedule. Most of us have been resting and taking it easy, but we did a lot of fun things yesterday.

A group of us walked around exploring Vina and its shops. I had a delicious handmade donut from a bakery filled with manjar, which had a taste similar to caramel. We went to lunch with Mimo (one of our tourguides), where I ordered a beef pizza. It was pretty different than the pizza we're used to at home though, it basically bread with cheese and beef and tomatoes on top. Apparently the entire group is going out for pizza tonight, too. Mimo bought everyone a round of drinks too, and most of us tried a Chilean mixed drink called the terramoto, or earthquake. It has the name because if you drink too many you're supposed to have trouble walking, like during an earthquake. Personally, I didn't like this drink that much, which I think was made from pisco, ice cream, pineapple juice, and maybe some other ingredients.

Some of us then went to walk on the beach, and five people even ran into the water, which is of course very cold as it's late fall here in the southern hemisphere. We watched the sunset at the beach, which was very pretty. It's nice watching the sunset on the pacific ocean since the sun sets in the west, into the ocean. But of course we get to watch the sun rise over the ocean at home.

For dinner a group of us went to a Mexican restaurant place called Taco Bar (every time someone says this fast it sounds like Taco Bell). The menu was very similar to the other Mexican restaurant, Margarita, some of the pictures on the menu were even the same, I don't know if they have the same owner or are in competition, but they are pretty similar restaurants. I ordered quesadillas, which were prepared more like what I would consider to be a soft taco. They were very cheesy, and I couldn't finish my food, it was filling.

Then at night we went out to Camilo's rooftop terrace again. But this night we celebrated my birthday! Today I am 19 years old. At midnight, a few guys hoisted me up into the air 19 times, and one guy kicked my butt on the way down each time (that spot is a bit sore now, haha). It was funny. There was a live band for a while and I had fun dancing. I also had my first pisco sour, another popular way to drink pisco here. It's made with lemon (or maybe lime), so it tastes a bit like lemonade, I liked it a lot. I had a very fun birthday celebration!

Today I've been resting and taking it easy. We've been busy nonstop all week, and it's time for a break. After sleeping in, we went out to find a bar to watch the Chile vs. Mexico football (soccer) game over lunch. Unfortunately a lot of the bars are only open at night and we ended up at Taco Bar again. It wasn't a very good choice to watch a game against Mexico at a Mexican restaurant, but we had fun anyway, and I had beef empanadas for lunch. They were tasty but very greasy. Unfortunately Chile lost 0-1. After the game I've just been relaxing and took a power nap. The entire group is leaving for dinner at a pizza place in 10 minutes, and I don't have any plans after dinner. I plan to end the night early tonight though, as I need a good night sleep. We'll be getting up early tomorrow to visit the Santiago Stock Exchange (Bolsa Comercial de Santiago). I have to do a group project on this company during the summer, so I hope I learn a lot from this visit.

Adios!