El Dieciocho de Septiembre

My friend Jaime invited me to celebrate Chilean Independence Day with him and his friends yesterday. He was born in Australia but his parents and sister, Veronica, were all born there. I spoke with him a few times about my experiences in Chile and looked forward to seeing how their independence celebration differed from ours.

I wore my Colo-Colo jersey that I bought at the game I attended last year to try to fit in as well as I could. I was surprised at the amount of Chilean nationals at the Coogee Beach barbies - many weren't with our party, they just also happened to be there.  Pictured at right are Jaime, our French friend Helene, Jaime's sister Veronica, their cousin Annabel and myself.

As more people joined us and we were introduced, most everyone was speaking chileno Spanish (which involves dropping off letters and entire syllables - muchas gracias becomes mucha gracia).  One woman actually thought I was chileno (although she hadn't heard me speak yet).  She went on to explain that in southern Chile there is a strong German influence, so she thought that I was from there.  I got a good kick out of that. She had two kids that I could actually have a conversation with in Spanish and I spent a lot of time kicking a soccer ball with them.

Veronica performed La Cueca, a traditional dance, with a guy from a neighboring set of picnic tables. As she explained it, there are no set steps, the whole point is that the female is trying to run away and the man keeps preventing her (see the video in the link). She said to think of a chicken trying to get away from a rooster.

Annabel explained to me all of their traditional dishes, including sausages, some variation of potato salad and of course Carménère, a wine made from grapes exclusive to Chile that I fell in love with last year. It was nice to get to practice some Spanish, eat food with friends by the beach and experience some chileno culture. It really brought me back to my time there.

Oh yeah, and I got to play with this guy that reminded me of Zabba (when I could get him away from his bone).