#gatitos de Valpo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

boludosaires · 8 years ago

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2/24-2/28/17: Chileeeed

Chile, that long strip of land sprawling all the way down the edge of South America, the sea on one side, the good ‘ol Andes on the other, protecting them from the bitterness of all the neighboring countries of Argentina and Bolivia who are thiiiiis close to having access to the Pacific.

Taking advantage of our 4 day Carnaval weekend, we all hopped on a flight to the west last Friday to see what Chile had to offer. And oh, did it deliver.

Because there’s just way too damn much to recount, I’m gonna split it into days and try to lay out a High (best moment), a Low (worst moment) and a Hah (hilarious moment) for each, hopefully enough to jog my brain when I look back at this shit in like 40 years.

2/24

High

I jumped off a 180-foot-tall crane over the raging brown Maipo River. So literally high.

I was attached to something, thank the lord. A bungee cord, to be exact. And I also had our lovely bungee guide, a man with a thick black beard, sandals and a brown bucket hat with a chin strap, to gently encourage me with his Zen-like voice as I stood on the edge. He had already brought me out there, an electric pulley on the crane pulling me across the gorge on a swinging, square metal platform, an arching bridge spanning the rift on my left and the desert-colored Cajon de Maipo, foothills of the Andes, to my right. All I had to do now was bend my knees, wait for him to count to 3, and then jump forward as far as I could.

3….2….1….

When you jump from 180 feet, gravity has its way with you. Immediately. And if it’s your first time being taken by gravity like that, you’re probably going to scream. There’s no thoughts, you can’t consider your next move, and you definitely don’t have time for anything to flash before your eyes. You just fall and scream.

And then the bungee catches, and about 50% of the pure terror disintegrates. Your momentum is gently slowed to a halt, and then the equal and opposite force kicks in and you are picked up slowly and gracefully, floating at the top of the arc long enough to strike a “Superman” or “I’m Lounging on my Side in Thin Air” pose before you fall again, maybe without screaming but definitely not without flailing. After one more spring up and down, you settle at the bottom of your cord, sitting in the harness while the river sloshes below and the gorge looms all around you, as if you’ve wedged yourself to a stop halfway down the gullet of a earthen Titan that thought it was about to get an afternoon snack.

Whether or not I was under the influence of irresponsible amounts of adrenaline at the bottom of that stretchy rope, I know for a fact that down there, I felt totally surreally alive.

Low

Having to pick up Amanda, Sabrina and Jamie at the airport at 2:30am after only getting like 3 hours of sleep the night before. Also, apparently jumping off cranes really takes it out of you.

Hah

Watching Nico freak out as this tiny black kitten at the bungee place ran back and forth on the edge of the gorge. He really got in touch with his mothering instincts, over and over blurting out “NO GATITO!” and blocking a dog from chasing the kitten on the gorge.

2/25

High

We started this day in Santiago and ended it Valparaiso, a port city of about 350,000 which is built on the sides of dozens of steep-as-hell hills that turn every excursion into leg day.

We had a bottle of wine we’d bought at a winery we toured earlier in the day, and we decided to walk to the beach at sunset to drink it. We ended up on a bank of grey boulders where people were hanging out, swimming, and best of all, watching a giant colony of sea lions duke it out for territory on a big slab of concrete in the port.

We sat for over an hour, commentating on the sea lions as they leaped out of the water, struggled to flop their flabby bods up the slanted edge, aggressively nudged each other off the sides with their snouts, and roared and bellowed all sorts of ways. We all picked our favorites, anthropomorphized who was bad and who was an underdog, and designated the seagulls above the platform as the elite who looked down on the plebian sea lions as they battled amongst themselves, never looking up to notice the powerful few enjoying the luxuries of space and leisure that they were denied.

Low

We had literally like 15 minutes between getting back from the winery in the morning and needing to get on the bus to Valparaiso. And of course, we were all wine drunk and starving. We stupidly went to a sit-down restaurant, but quickly realized we had to order our food to go, hop in an Uber, and stare at the clock as it ticked closer and closer to 4pm when our bus was scheduled to leave. Our driver casually reassured us that the buses don’t usually mean exactly 4pm when it says 4pm, but we still designated Amanda as the sprinter. When we got there, she busted her ass over to hold the bus as we sprinted behind her with all our suitcases. We were the last ones on, but on we were.

Hah

Almost a suuuper low, when we went out of our hostel that night, we happened upon a giant, brightly-painted staircase, which we immediately decided to run up. Unfortunately, Jamie handed me her purse and dashed, but I decided I wanted to go too, and placed her purse on the ground next to the rest of our friends, assuming they’d seen me and would watch it.

A fat-burning cardio extravaganza later, I’m at the top of the stairs, and I turn around to see the rest of the group walking the last few flights. After a minute, Jamie asked where her purse was. I looked around expectantly to the others, but I had fallen into the classic “What happens when we assume” trap.

Knowing the potential shitstorm we were on the verge of, I began a reverse-dash down the stairs without even saying anything. Thank the lord, a couple guys on their way up had picked up the purse and were bringing it up towards me. I got it from them, thanked them with all my heart, and checked inside to find Jamie’s wallet and phone intact.

Hah. But almost not.

2/26

High

Gotta do 2 here:

1. We went on a free walking tour of Valpo, with a sophomore college student from the city as our guide. I was in a super social mood this whole trip, constantly chatting with Uber drivers and asking randos for directions, and I struck up a convo with her too. She ended up telling me all about the Chilean student movement, which I’d heard a ton about. Students all throughout the country have been striking every year for years, refusing to go to class due to unmanageable tuition rates and lack of adequate university preparation in high schools. She amazed me with stories of how student governments here vote every year whether to strike, with each major getting a vote. This is mostly happening in public universities because students in the private ones are rich enough that they can afford to go there in the first place. Unfortunately, because they’re public universities, as long as the government keeps funding them, they seem not to care very much that there are no students in their classrooms for months as a time. And the students are forced to end their strikes after about 2 months because otherwise they’ll lose their financial aid for the year, and they only get a set number of years of aid. Like many political battles, the money is what needs to change in order to change the system.

More on that: http://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/18348-chilean-student-movement-back-in-the-streets-for-free-education

2. We went to a beach in the next town over called Viña del Mar, where the waves were 10-15 feet high and ready to fuck some people up. Which of course meant a ton of cocky men ran right in. Including me and Nico. It brought me back to being a kid at the Jersey Shore, standing defiantly in front of crashing walls of water, daring them to take me out. Which they did.

Soon, without really trying, I found myself in the shadow of a cresting wave, perfectly positioned to ride it all the way in. Unfortunately, “all the way in” was a distance of about 20 feet, after which the sand banked up steeply toward the beach. I started swimming, knowing I was risking disaster, but I could already feel the wave sweep me up in its break as I paddled furiously. For a few seconds, I felt weightless, propelled by the massive momentum of the water. And then came the crash landing, a merciless body slam straight into the sand.

Because I was expecting it and full of adrenaline, the profusely bleeding scrape on the left side of my stomach really didn’t concern me much when I stood up. But apparently it was enough for a nice local guy named Caesar on the beach to hand my two band-aids and take me over to the lifeguard first aid stand, where they cleaned me up. So future reference: the beach community will watch your back in Viño. So bodysurf away, my friend.

Low

We tempted fate again with our bus timing, but this time had to leave the restaurant without even getting food. It was tense. Fool me twice…

Hah

Trying to run and jump into waves with Nico but then both being way too scared and slow to make it work

2/27

High

Our whole night was a hilarious shitshow. From pre-dinner wine to 4am shitty sangria, we were tomando the night away, and at this point we all were feeling bonded enough that nothing was off limits. We were giggling at accidental sexual innuendos and making fun of each other’s quirks left and right. But I knew we’d crossed the true barrier into deep friendship when we played Never Have I Ever at the bar at 3am. We ventured into sex, drugs and other PG-13 and up territory in a way that we’d never breached before, and we were all dying of laughter at the things we never would have guessed about each other. As Sabrina summed it up nicely the next day, “We all can hang.”

Low

We continued that night a pattern we’ve had the whole trip of pointless and unwinnable debates. The 4am drunk topic of choice: Who’s Hotter, Rihanna or Beyoncé? This was a topic put forward by the women of the group, just to clarify that it wasn’t just a gross sexual debate. But it sure did get heated, and a whole lot of gender and sexual politics were coming out fast and ugly. AKA I felt like I had to back up Nico cause he was getting totally torn down by Amanda and Sabrina. While I always look to see if the man is in the wrong first, and I’d never just back him up “as a bro”, here I knew I wasn’t totally insane in thinking he was being a bit targeted because Rita also backed him up. Ultimately, it got real enough that by the time we were walking back to the hostel, nobody was talking. But we gave some reconciliatory hugs good night, and by the next morning, we were all good, if not a little flabbergasted. And honestly, it wasn’t really a low because now it’s pretty hilarious.

Hah

We ordered these typical Chilean drinks called terremotos (earthquakes), and were all super pumped for them. Traditionally made with an unfiltered white wine called pipeño and a scoop of pineapple sherbert, ours also had pisco, and it sounded like it’d be pretty damn good. Turns out not so much. Like bad enough that about halfway through, we all stopped trying to convince ourselves it was good and just straight up straw-chugged them to get to the next drink. Sorry Chile, your signature drink doesn’t do it for me. (The other signature drank, however, the Pisco Sour, is dope)

2/28

High

Walking back with Rita after getting dessert and having a very real conversation about her hometown, how the culture and classism at Northwestern affected her experience, and just generally feeling like I got a way better idea of Rita and who she is.

Low

Nah, it was my birthday, everything was dope

Hah

Back in Buenos Aires the night of my bday, I went to a dope restaurant I found and got a face-sized slice of carrot cake that would’ve made my girlfriend Mandy’s mom proud, because it was just as large as her servings, and 80% as good.

But the funny part was that the map took us to the wrong place at first, and even though we had to pay a taxi to get 20 minutes across town to the actual place, we did it without question because we both hold dessert near and dear to our hearts.

<3 Escoot

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lwlyb-k0s · 7 years ago

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Dear tumblr

Los últimos d��as fueron raros, yo estaba estresada con el fin de semestre y buscando práctica y fui super penca y tu igual has estado mal con tus atados personales y todo mal... ayer fui super penca, si bien era verdad que estaba cansada al llegar de la pega mis formas de expresarme fueron una mierda y hoy mientras iba camino a la pega me cuestionaba el por qué era así, por qué cuando debería ser un problema menos para ti, te hacía más atados, me sentí re mal , pero es que tus actitudes culiás de a veces me hacen reaccionar así :l, te dije “que tengas buen día”, respondiste y no te contesté nada resignandome a que quizás hablaríamos una mierda otra vez hoy pero cuando llegué a la oficina me llegó un mensaje ... “[10:13, 19/12/2017] Gustavo 💜: A que hora teni colacion de almuerzo ? Voy a bajar mas rato a comprar cosas para navidad , si queri me programo para almorzar en valpo contigo si no no importa”

Quedé impactada, no imaginé que me dijeras algo así, me cambiaste el color del día, de la vida, estaba tomando tecito toda sad y después de esto me puse a hacer la pega rápido para poder estar libre cuando tu llegaras a buscarme. Salí de la oficina y ahí estabas esperándome, fuimos a la estación a comer algo y como siempre pedimos lo mismo como si nos pusieramos de acuerdo XD a veces, como hoy, me doy cuenta que tenemos pequeñas manías que compartimos y se siente agradable. Conversamos un montón, nos reímos y lo pasamos bacán, me fuiste a dejar y te pregunté si te molestaba mucho y como siempre me dijiste “si” xd “pero me quieres?” “mm un poco poquito” XD que malo eres u.u pero me encantó lo que hiciste después, me llegué a poner roja y nerviosa :( “tan linda que es mi gatita, mi gatito juanito con sus lentes de gato” mientras me tomabas la cara , pesado que me molestas así, tan lindo :( me diste un conito de manjar (cosita más rica, manjar de los dioses) te di las gracias con un beso en la mejilla, me despedí y me dijiste “que te vaya bien, éxito, aprende mucho” ... cosas como las de hoy me sorprenden y me llenan de alegría, me encanta cuando eres así, tan bacán a tu manera.

Me siento muy feliz, muy muy feliz <3

Todos los ramos aprobados pulentamente

Práctica en curso en una agencia bacán que me apoya mucho y me ha enseñado ene cosas y me encanta cada vez más lo que estoy estudiando<3

Conseguí entrada para el Jueves para ver cómo nos quedamos en primera y celebrar en casa (eso espero csm #nobajamosnicagando)

Pasaré navidad con mi mamá y su pareja por primera vez

Pasaré año nuevo con mi papá y su pareja por primera vez

Cumpliré un año con Gustavo el 31/12 y 12/01

Conoceré algarrobo porque será nuestro primer ruteo 2018 en motito con my lov

Será el cumple del Gus

Se vienen cosas buenas, espero que todo marche bien porque hoy me siento terrible optimista XD se vienen tiempos mejoreskajhyghdjd ctm piñera culiao.

Bai <3

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