Lots of Dancing

My dance group. Guess which one I am.... its not hard to tell when Im the only blond.

The past week has been a blast! I havent traveled anywhere, but had a lot of fun right here in Viña del Mar/Valparaiso.

Last Friday night, I started out at a classmates house, Carolina. We were practicing for our belly dancing performance on Monday with some other girls from the class. Afterwards three of us wne to a festival together in Valparaiso.

The Festival de Mil Tambores (festival of a thousand drums)was incomparable! A whole entire street was blocked off for this carnival and parade of literally thousands of drummers, dancers wearing nothing but body paint, children doing tricks, people on unicycles, dance groups with colorful costumes, and people of all ages following along and dancing themseles. At the end of the parade, the street was a crowd, aroma of beer and pot thick on the air, confetti floating on the breeze and a band played from a huge stage reggae and regaton music. There were all kinds of vendor and artisan booths set up.

On Saturday morning my exchange group had a tour of different beaches. I would have rather gone by myself or with friends, but since I had already paid, I went along. We went to various beach towns in the north, shopped around, and had lunch in a seaside restaurant. Some people did some horse back riding, but i preferred to have a Piña Colada on the beach and soak in the sun with some friends.

Monday was the first performance with my dance group. We all put on tight black camisoles, áiry pants of all colors, bangles, scarfs with little coins around our waists, and danced bare foot for the opening ceremony of the national volleyball tournament. It went great and we immediately got asked to dance for another event today(which just got over.)

Wednesday I went shopping with my friend Laurel, and later that night I went out to a salsa dance club and danced salsa and marengue untill I was exhausted.

Thursday night I went out to the biggest dance club Ive ever been in, Huevo, in Valparaiso with Carolina and Paola from my dance class. El Huevo takes up nearly a whole city block and has 4 floors (I think) and around nine different dance floors with different beats. We got there about nine, had a drink in the rock floor, then danced for awhile on the techno floor, then to regaton, spent awhile in salsa, and spent the rest of the night dancing to a reggae/regaton beat.

On the way home I had no trouble finding a bus to my house, but I was a little scared. My friends live in different sectors than i do, so i just needed to sit on the bus by myself for a little while. But in this short time, some guys got on the bus,and i heard them talking about me. "ah, mira la rubia. yo quiero la rubia" So I tied my hair back and put up the hood of my jacket, but one of them still came up and sat down next to me. He was really drunk and probably only was trying to be conversational, but it kind of scared me. He kept on asking me where I live and where I was going, but I told him that it didnt matter to him and that he didnt need to now. I ignored his persistnace the rest of the ride home and he didnt botherme anymore. Although Im sure i could have taken him out by a few precise kicks if I needed to. I didnt take kickboxing for nothing.

Well anyways, got home safe, woke up way to early for what time I made it home, and got to my dance presentation today just barely on time. Didnt go as well as the last one. I feel like I messed up a lot, but the teacher said she didnt notice.

Well now Im headed off on a camping trip for the weekend. Cant wait to get out with nature!

Chao