Are we in California?

Some familiar views

Obviously my future house in Zapallar

The inside of the house we stayed in

Daniel, Courtney, Moi, Gabe, Michele (Hannah, not pictured)

     Last weekend was a time to celebrate Fiestas Patrias, Chilean independence day! It was a pretty great weekend, filled with lots adventures and plenty of laughs. Like most Chileans, me and some friends decided to head to the beach to celebrate. My friend Courtney's host mom rents out cabanas about 3 hours north of Santiago, so on Saturday we were off! We bought our bus tickets for Zapallar, thinking that's where we were going. Well, not exactly. Courtney told us we needed to get off at La Laguna and so that's what we told the bus attendant( not quite the same ring as flight attendant). Three hours later we pull into an adorable little beach town and basically the entire bus get's off but of course the 4 American's don't. As we start driving away, the attendant comes back up to us and asks us where we are headed, when we respond with "the lagoon" he looks a little confused and tells us, oh, ok, next stop. We start up a hill driving along the coast. It was absolutely GORGEOUS! It reminded me so much of making the drive from home to sb along the 101. I take a look back at where we just came from and say to Hannah, "That looks like a lagoon..." Sure enough we were supposed to get off back in the little beach town, but instead we take the bus all the way to Zapallar which was about 20 minutes further north. We weren't fully convinced that we were in the wrong place, until we asked for directions to the address. So what did we do? Stuck out our thumbs and hitched a ride back down to the lagoon. The first car that stopped was nice enough to take all four of us back down. We all hop in, really excited to make it back to the right place, and sit in complete silence. The driver didn't think we spoke Spanish, and only motioned to Gabe to roll up the window. It had already been a long day so we went straight to the mini mart to buy some beer and then headed to the beach! I'm not sure if drinking on the beach isn't illegal in Chile, but either way no one bothered us. It was sooooo nice relaxing in the sand, the atmosphere was really peaceful watching the waves crash while people flew kites up and down the beach with the smell of asado in the air. We ended up staying in Courtney's host mom's aunt's house, I know confusing, but it was really adorable and super cozy! The town reminded me a lot of IV, the gridwork of streets leading to the beach, the main drag with nothing but places to buy food, and the sun warming the cool ocean air. Even the night's activities reminded me of being back in IV: Playing games, taking ridiculous pictures, wandering down to the beach, midnight snacks (Unfortunately there was no good breakfast burrito place). Strangely enough, the weekend of Chilean independence was the weekend when I felt the most like I was back in California.

THE BEACH!!!! <3