santiago or kalamazoo?? alternately, when veggie tales meets pirates of the caribbean, to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody

So, I finally have homework, and it sort of hit all at once, which means....time to procrastinate! Just like home.

This weekend one of my chilean friends Claudia invited a bunch of us Americans to her pololo's=boyfriend's friend's party. Although it started out intenesely awkward, with all the chilean boys on one side of the tiny one-room apartment and all the american girls on the other, with the help of an embarrassing game of pool and a little social lubricant(pisco), we started to mix. I really liked her boyfriend and his friends, and their niceness was only emphasized by the sketchiness of these other guys that came later. Plus, later she said that their friends had really enjoyed talking with us too, and its just nice to meet non-creepers and be able to hold a normal, college-student party conversation, in spanish!

Saturday I made banana bread for my host family, since I'd been telling them how I loved to cook over and over again, without any proof. Considering that chilean ovens don't have numbers on them, only dots that get bigger and bigger, and taking into consideration the fact that I almost mixed up baking soda ("bicarbonato" in spanish) with baking powder ("polvo de hornear"), AND adding to all that the utter lack of measuring cups/spoons/anything, the bread turned out fabulous. It literally disappeared in minutes-they really really loved it, and of course I felt so relieved that all my boasting was backed up by tasty proof. Mi "tia", aka our housekeeper, was even mad b/c we didn't save any for her!

Saturday night my friend Grace, our German friend Anya and I went to our University's musical(this is La Universidad Catolica, or "The Catholic University", fyi). They had an ingenious advertising campaign that had caught my attention, and I love a good musical, so we decided to go and support the arts. The advertisements had consisted of posters with a big boat and the title "The last voyage of San Pablo" and then they had covered all three campuses with paper boats; trees, buildings, water fountains, benches, you name it, and the theater dept had coated it in little brown paper creations. This, and my scanning of the poster, had lead me to believe the musical was going to be about pirates--oh man was I wrong.
The best way to describe the musical is this: imagine veggie tales(a cartoon where vegetables sing songs about the bible), plus just a dash of pirates of the caribbean(basically there were some rowdy sailors in the show) mixed with bohemian rhapsody and you start to get an idea of the show. I never knew whether to laugh, cringe, or just throw my hands up in frustration. Every single word was sung, which in spanish is incredibly difficult to decipher, leaving all three of us totally in the dark as to the nuances of the plot. All I know is San Pablo was Saint Paul, the apostle, and he was being held prisoner on a ship, guarded by Roman soldiers, who periodically fought with the piratey sailors onboard, while slave girls cringed/sang and a few cartoonishly stereotypical Jews COUNTED THEIR MONEY.
OF course, it all ends happily ever after when San Pablo manages to convert everysingleperson onboard, miraculously make a few loaves of bread feed tons of people, and meet up with what I think was the Virgin Mary.
all in song.
backed with drums and electric guitar.
It was a sight to behold.