Dancing, Snowboarding, Dancing, Snowboarding

Have you ever had a moment where you stop and realize exactly where you are and what you’re doing, and you wonder what makes you so fortunate to be there? This weekend was full of those moments for me.

Friday, Septiembre 11

At 9:30pm Casi, Ashley, and myself met up with Jimmy and Elisa (our Chilean amiga) to go to El Bronco, a local discotheque (club). All the kids down here love El Bronco. We first went to Fran’s apartamente and spent some time there before finally going to the discotheque at midnight. Everything in Chile starts about 4 hours later than things would start in the U.S., so we had to wait about half an hour before they even opened the doors.

Once inside, El Bronco did not disappoint. First on the bill was a guy playing his acoustic guitar. He played popular songs that everyone knew the words to (excepting the Americans), and we all had a good time drinking and watching him perform.

Once he was done the real party began as the DJ spun it up and everyone hit the dance floor. The music they play in clubs here is so much better than anything I’ve heard in the states. The majority of it is called “reggaeton”, a cross between hip-hop, rap, house, and some type of latin. It’s frequently in ¾ time. They also mix in songs from all over the world. For example, that night they played Billie Jean by Michael Jackson and Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses. The other thing that makes the club so much fun is that they don’t play a single song for more than a minute or two at the most, so the feel of the dance is constantly in motion. It makes for a fantastic atmosphere.

Saturday, Septiembre 12

We stayed out dancing until 5am, and I didn’t get home and to bed until 6am. I woke up at 7:30am because our group was taking a bus to the mountains to go snowboarding at 8am. The ride up was quick, only an hour and a half, and before we knew it we were on a mountain in the Andes. Everyone got their snowboarding/skiing equipment and hit the slopes.

I promptly dislocated my right shoulder. And I mean right away, on my first ride down, on the bunny slope. I braced myself for the consequences of what had just happened, but to my surprise it didn’t hurt that much.

I realized at that moment, sitting in the snow with my shoulder out of its socket, why dislocating my other shoulder during the play had been such an ordeal: I had gone in to shock. This time, I assume because my body knew what to expect, I didn’t experience that at all. My shoulder was out of its socket, and I felt my body say “So what, I’ve been here before.” 

Once I had that epiphany I was able to calm down and find a solution. I remembered what the doctor in the emergency room had done to fix my shoulder during the summer, so I tried to repeat that. And with a snap my shoulder was back in. I had to spend a few minutes recovering before I felt comfortable snowboarding again, but after that I never looked back. The line between a complete disaster and an interesting story is a fine one. It never ceases to amaze me.

After the lifts closed we all got our swimming suites on and jumped in to the hot springs. There was some trouble with getting our rooms in the hotel ready, so we received complementary drinks (pisco sours). A small group was playing some music and there was an MC who walked around the pool with a microphone, encouraging guests to sing along to the songs.

Dinner was at 8pm, and it was delicious. My friend Dave and I officially went toe-to-toe for the first time that night. For those who don’t know, that means we drink exactly the same amount of alcohol throughout the course of the night. It’s a thing my friend Liz likes to do, and it’s quite a bit of fun, or as she would say, “rad.”

Everyone else drank quite a bit as well, so when the dining room became a dance floor (complete with two emcees and a DJ) we were all ready to goof off. We were the only people dancing for most of the night. They were giving out free pisco sours for the best dancers, so every time someone in our group won a drink (and we won them all), it was usually shared with everyone else. David won four or five drinks, which sounds like a lot, but if you knew Dave you’d know that’s just par for the course.

They stopped the dancing at the hotel around midnight. Of course, we were nowhere near finished, so we walked to a discotheque in another building at the resort. Again, our group was for the most part the only people dancing, though a few Chilean men already at the club were visibly stoked on the chance to dance with some American girls.

I went to bed at about 3am that night. I wanted to go to sleep early because I wanted to snowboard the next day.

Sunday, Septiembre 13

By noon thirty Dave, Kayla and I were on our way back up the mountain. It was very windy on Sunday, and cloudy too. We were fortunate that the weather on Saturday had been perfect; clear and warm. It was not to be on Sunday, but we still had a great time. Late in the afternoon some clouds rolled in, covering the middle of the mountain. Dave and I took a lift above the cloud layer and got to snowboard down through the clouds. Visibility was very low, around 20 feet at times, so we had to take it slow, but we made it down safe.

At 5pm it was time to head back home, but there was a little surprise waiting for me when I got back home: mi hermana Valentina was home from school for the week, along with her boyfriend (he’s from Argentina!). It was nice to meet another member of mi familia de Chile. Valentina, her boyfriend, and Francisco (mi hermano) played games and drank a little more that night. We played one in particular that was a lot of fun: we wrote down the names of a few dozen movies and took turns acting them out. Francisco and I were on a team against Valentina and her boyfriend. I was a little surprised that they were familiar with every popular movie in the states, including some of the more niche movies like Fight Club. It’s the same with music; Chileans are very in-tune with American pop-culture.

Music has been on my mind a lot for the past three days. I’m repeatedly impressed at how easy it is to get along with people through music. Even in our own group, where we can talk and understand each other perfectly, music and dancing has brought us together faster than years of conversing. There is something beautiful in everyone’s soul that simply understands music. I can’t clarify that thought any further, and I don’t think I’m supposed to. I can add an additional thought: there is no other medium that accomplishes what I’ve seen music do.

Of course, there is another side to this coin. While music has brought people together, I’ve also found it to be the only place where I can go back home if I need to. The music on my iPod sounds the same in Chile as it did in the U.S.  Remarkable that the single thing I use to escape is also one of the best things for creating friendships.

Honestly, this duality doesn’t surprise me. This principle exists everywhere in the universe. It’s not one way or the other; it’s both. How else can we hope to understand anything? Time at work helps us appreciate the time at play. Time awake is good because we spent time asleep. It’s not God as a single entity or God as three separate beings; it’s both at the same time. In fact, every rule, law, theological argument, and piece of advice can trace its roots back to this: find the point where the two balance.

Hasta luego for now, I will seriously try and post pictures later today.