Día de las Fuerzas Armadas

I know that at this point you are probably starting to think that "Blog" is an abbreviation for "Backlog" but cut me some slack; it's not easy forcing myself to sit down and write vignettes about the day to day when the weather is changing, classes are winding down, and the uncertainty about my future is beginning to bore into me like a Venezuelan oil rig.

The good news is, while I am still really far behind chronologically, my current scarcity of scrill (sorry... that was ugly) has left me with far fewer options to travel. Which means, fewer mandatory stories to tell. Even though I am pretty confident that I can make the mundane at least palatable and on occasion even enjoyable, at least now I won't feel obligated to write about every weekend getaway that I undertake.

But I digress. Today, we are focusing on the Día de las Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces Day), which should be short and sweet. The basic gist is as follows:

After our party which was más lejos que la chucha, Eli, Ashleigh, Meghan, and I all decided to meet up at Parque O'Higgins about 2 hours before the big parade was to start, hoping to get there ahead of the crowds.

Of course, the only time all year that Chileans actually were on time for an event was this parade, and sadly we were shut out from any place where we might actually be able to watch the parade. As you all well know, my viewing pleasure comes secondary to getting the pictures that look like I had a great view, so I improvised. By standing on a cord of barbed wire, while supporting myself on a wooden stake in the ground, I was able to snap a few good shots of the passing parade, including this one of Michelle Bachelet (the current President of Chile).

Shortly after the parade started, the heat and the crowds began to overwhelm our desire to stick around and watch the slowly proceeding masses over throngs of greasy mullets and punked out hairdo's (not to mention the barbed wire holding me up snapped, eliminating my picture-taking perch), so we made out way for the iron-clad exits.

Carlitos (little Carlos, as we call him), Ashleigh's pololo (boyfriend), attends the Escuela Militar and was therefore actually in the parade... Also, his pet-name is a bit of a misnomer since he is not all that little. In fact, by Chilean standards he is huge, which puts him at about 6'1", 180. Not that you care... ANYWAY, he told Ashleigh that the parade would continue later into the night further east in the wealthy part of the city known as Las Condes.

This time, we managed to beat the crowd and actually find some seats in the rafters. We stopped off to get some libation to help pass the time while waiting for the parade, and enjoyed the setting sun with a number of Chilean families doing the same. It was dark by the time the parade finally arrived, so the pictures don't really do the scene justice. Still, we were right across from the Municipality of Las Condes building, where for the first time ever, they rigged the thing up with enough
explosives to make an Al Qaeda operative proud, and set the thing aflame in pyrotechnic delight.

Not wanting to let our night slide into the dreaded anti-climax, we frantically sought one last diversion to avoid going home. We eventually settled on bowling, which although mildly entertaining, was nevertheless unsuccessful in circumventing an anti-climactic finish to the night.

So after getting summarily pummeled in about a game and a half of bowling (I was experimenting with a recently acquired, and as of yet unperfected spinning technique), I got dropped off at my house, and slept off the sun, churros, and foul taste of defeat.