El Regreso a Chile!

During the first two weeks of March, I made my triumphant return to Chilito Lindo!!! I ditched a week of class & took the entire Spring Break vacation to escape the sub-freezing Pittsburgh temperatures & live it up in sunny-skied, 90°F Chile, visiting with friends, livin' it up, and NOT working (well...not too much).


Upon arrival in Santiago, I spent a great four days with Paula (right) & got a chance to catch up with Coté.

In total, I spent about a week in Santiago and about a week in La Serena. My time in Santiago was nice and restful: a rest much-needed! I had a wonderful time hanging out with Paula & eating well, drinking well, and catching up on the last 8 months!

La Serena, on the other hand, was, despite it's name, not what you would call peaceful! Late nights, mucho copete, and great times with old friends!! In addition to spending quality time (i.e. drinking a lot with) Guille, Felipe, Jaime, Chape, Lorena, Haylen, Guille Damke, Jorge, Luzma, Armin, Chris, Rikki, Sean & all others I may have forgotten, I got a chance to see Claudia for a couple of hours...who, I was glad to see, is doing much better & got a job at her kids' school.


Salud!! Arrival to Guille's house (I brought with me some home brews to pass around).


Dando jugo en la casa de Guille.

One of the crazier nights we had started off with Guille, Felipe, Jaime and me drinking rum and tonic in the Coquimbo wharf. After a couple of hours, we went into town and stumbled onto a Jazz band playing to an essentially-empty restaurant patio. We decided to stay for a drink (which was expensive) and watch a couple of songs. They commenced to play Santana's Oye Como Va, and, since they were without a singer, Guille decided to go up and sing a few verses! After a few laughs and then meeting up with Guille Damke, we headed to a disco, which turned out to be quite lame and empty. Thus, we headed off early (~4:30 am) and started home to La Serena. However, somewhere during the journey the Guilles decided it would be sweet to go into El Valle Elqui & keep the night going (and they were right!). So with a passed-out Felipe in the back seat, we headed 40 minutes into the valley to a sweet little mountain that Guille Damke knew. There, we settled in & lived it up until sunrise! Just another typical Chilean night.... Too bad I don't have any pics fhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrom that night...but I do have pics from the BBQ we had at 1 pm the next day! See Album Chile 2007 for all the pics from my trip.


Amigos reunited...and stumbling home at 5 am.

Perhaps the highlight of my entire trip was the chance to see a Roger Waters (lead singer, Pink Floyd) concert in Santiago with Guille, Paula, and Jaime. Guille and I had spent the entire previous week thinking about the concert, watching Pulse various times, and singing/listening to Pink Floyd continously! The concert was an absolutely incredible experience & probably the best, most emotional concert I have ever seen. The band was right on every number, Waters' voice is still amazing, and we were amongst 45,000 Chileans in Estadio Nacional (the same site where Pinochet killed hundreds of people during his dictatorship). Here are a few videos of the concert and links to others. Again, If you want to see all the pics from my trip, go to Album Chile 2007.


A look around the crowd of 45,000 at El Estadio Nacional during intermission.


Their version of Time was spot-on!! Check out the drum solo!

They played all the classics, including:
Wish You Were Here
Breathe
Another Brick in the Wall
the chorus for Another Brick in the Wall was a group of Chilean kids from a Santiago grade school!