Invitation says 9:00 p.m.

Saturday night, my host father, Francisco, was handing over his presidency for the Rotary Club here in Santa Cruz. It was a formal event and I was invited to go. By formal, I mean everyone was wearing black, looking classy. I was wearing gray slacks, a pink and white collared top (yes, you read that right, PINK), a black sweater-coat, my clogs, along with my sky blue ski socks...classy only in my world. I don´t have a proper winter coat (I wish I had packed my down coat), so I wore this pancho sort of gray blanket (loaned to me by my host mother) over the top of my already classy outfit. (is anyone laughing at me yet?).

The invitation said things started at 9 pm. In Chliean, 9pm means you may be ready to leave your house, but you are still thinking about it at 9pm. I think we arrived at the party at 9:45pm and we weren´t the last ones.

Right away, I was offered pisco sour (national drink, kind of tastes like a very tart margarita). I took one. I think I kissed everyone in the room, as a typical greeting in Chile is a kiss on the cheek. I was very uncomforatble, so I opted to take the second pisco sour when it came around (they aren´t big at all...really, they are appetizer drinks). People spoke very quickly. One woman, after I told her I liked her ring, su anillo, told me she bought it in Buenas Aires. Only when she said Buenas Aires it sounded like, uena air. Chilean Spanish is very difficult to understand.

I met the Mayor of Santa Cruz. She was very nice. She let me know she knows nothing of English. No problem.

We all sat at tables, starting eating around 11:30- midnight, finished around 1 am. Then, more people spoke. I grabbed the program to try to figure out who was talking and why...when I saw the word baile, which means dance. I turned to someone and asked, baile? en serio? Meaning, a dance? for real? She said, yes. Seriously, after a night of dancing, or maybe I should say morning of dancing, I didn´t turn out my light until 4am! Whoa!

That was a formal occassion...a late night fiesta...I slept until 1 pm the next day...UFF DA!

jami