Weekend in La Serena

For the weekend of September 18th (Chilean Indpendence Day) a group of COPA students, including me, went to La Serena, Chile. La Serena is the third oldest city in Chile after Santiago and Arica. I had class on Wednesday, September 17th, unlike most of my fellow students, so I went to my geography class at 8:30am and then I went straight to the bus terminal after class to meet Sarah Reingold, a COPA student who was riding on the same bus as me.

The bus ride was long, but definitely not the longest bus ride I have ever been on. It was 7 hours to La Serena and supposedly by personal car it was suppose to be about 4, so that was irritating, but the ride was beautiful. Especially when the panamerican highway went along the coast and you could see the beautiful Pacific Ocean and the amazing waves crashing along side the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous.

We arrived in La Serena and grabbed a taxi to our hostel. The hostel was very nice and in a part of town that seemed very safe, which was good. After we got to the hostel we called our other friends who were going to meet us in La Serena. We met Carla, Dorien, Amy, and Ruth at the Plaza de Armas after we grabbed some dinner at a little restaurant in town.

La Serena reminded me a lot of the center part of Lublin, Poland or Vilinus, Lithuania. Especially since in these cities like in La Serena the center was extremely developed and European looking, however the outskirts of the town were a little more sketchy/non-developed. Overall, it has been interesting to see the extreme influence of Europe in many of the places I have traveled to in Chile.

We met up with the group and went out to a bar to hang out for a little while because it was pretty early (by Chilean standards). Carla and Dorien knew a Chilean, who was taking a Law classes on Human Rights with them, and lived in La Serena. He got into contact with some of his friends in La Serena and we arranged to go out with them that night. Which was interesting, especially since I didn´t know them (and neither did the girls), but we got together with them and they took us to one of their friends house. It was a good time as we got to know Chileans and such.

We left their house later and went to meet Carla and Dorien´s Law school friend at the bus station since his bus got in around midnight (yeah midnight--- I don´t know how I survive all these Chilean shinanigans.) After that we went to a town nearby called Coquimbo which had a lot of bars, etc. We went to one that was very special because it had dancing.

The Chileans have a national dance named the Cueca. The bar that we went to had people dancing cueca which was fun to watch, however very, very difficult to learn (especially since you all probably know that I am the worst dancer in the world). You can see the cueca in this youtube video. It is quite the sultury dance if I say so myself. The man and woman are not suppose to stop looking into each other´s eyes unless they are turning, creating some very 'hot' moments.

At the bar we also tried Chica a very sweet drink that is taken during the Chilean Independence Day weekend. I definitely tried it, but at the same time was scared to beacuse many people had told me that it was dangerous!! Supposedly, the reason it is so dangerous is because you think that it is just a sweet drink and it is actually a very potent drink. Thus, you end up getting tan barracho muy rapido (very durnk very fast). I had one drink glass and thought I would die (due to the warnings), so I didn't have anymore. Other people just kept drinking it and never did get sick... so I guess its just another thing Chileans get really scared about, but really don't know what they are talking about.

We closed the bar (something I didn't think I would ever do in my life and something I will probably never do again) but it was fun. We then went to the beach and hung out there and watched the sunrise over the mountains on the 18th of September (the Chilean Independence Day). I can now say that I have gone 24 hours without sleeping, which again, I thought I never could do. After we saw the sun rise, we returned to the hostel and promptly went to bed althogh I wasn´t really that tired at the moment. It was good to get some sleep though for the next day.