Thursday Night in Rancagua

Alright, I'm going to try and wrap up this whole Rancagua trip series of posts, considering it's been two or three weeks since we were even there.

So there I was. Rancagua. Thursday Night. I had been told that this would be the big night of "combat". And it was. We started off by heading to Jañà's cousins house to pick him up. I assumed that we were going back to Jaña's place on account of it being about 4 in the afternoon, but I was completely wrong (this happens often). All of a sudden, we're parking in front of the disco. This confuses me because it's now about 5 o'clock and we haven't eaten dinner yet. This doesn't matter to the people of Rancagua though, because when we get into the disco, it's packed. We meet up with the girls that we had met previously and we get some Cristal or Escudo (the beer so bad that everyone mixes it with Fanta).

We seemingly danced for hours, or maybe we actually danced for hours, I'm not really sure. I didn't really look at my watch a whole lot and ended up keeping my eyes closed for alot of the time that we were dancing. Fill in the blanks, dear reader. Point being, an awesome time was being had by all. Then, the girls left and we entered the down phase of the night. I was starting to get hungry and Antonio and I were lobbying for a trip to McDonald's. We ordered some fries. It took roughly 30 minutes to make and it was no Cuarto de Libra (Quarter Pounder). So we continued to hang around, talking to some mean girls. We finally left, taking the mean girls with us (not with us, as in Antonio and I). So, after traveling with 6 people in a 5 seater car for a little bit, we picked up another car and set off to God-knows-where. You can see that there's this recurring theme of me being in cars with unknown destinations. So after passing up all the McDonald's in Chile, we bought some Pisco and Coke (just what I needed right then) and set off for a park.

So there we were, being sketchy, freezing, drinking in a park, and making friends with canine passers-by. As I consumed Piscola, I thought less about my hunger and more about nothing. After finishing off the bottle of Pisco, we hopped back in our cars and drove off to the next adventure. We arrived at the Punta del Este (East Point) and walked in. We purchased another bottle of Pisco and began drinking, as we watched people singing karaoke. Now, generally, when karaoke is present, you should slow your drinking down. However, I did not. At some point, I was thrust forward by my friends, and Jaña's cousin and I asked the karaoke operators to find us an English song for me to sing. A small man in the back of my mind was screaming about how bad of an idea this was, but he was violently ignored. We returned to our friends, continued drinking and moving about until finally, the karaoke operator signaled us forward. We grabbed the microphones, looked at the screen, and began singing. Much to my dismay, the lyrics were not in English and did not belong to an English song. As the DJ realized what was happening, I saw him approach us with a look on his face that said, "You are not a good singer. Furthermore, you do not speak Spanish." He asked me where I was from, and I said, with great pride and directly into the microphone "Los Estados Unidos". He the took the microphones away from us and walked back on to the stage.

You'd think that I would have been hurt by this. Far in the back of my head, that small man, drowned in Pisco, said something about being embarassed. He was ignored however, as I had entered what is known to some as "The Golden Zone" What it means is that I was awesome. In the words of cartoonist Brad Neely, "I was important, and funny, and helpful and seemingly rich, and I had the body of a heavy lifter." The curtain behind the stage rose and revealed a dance floor and a second bar. We burst forward and danced with an exuberance that can only be fueled by Pisco or insanity. I was dancing with everyone, sometimes two at a time. So all this was happening, and I was feeling great. Then, all of a sudden, I felt sobriety hit me in the face like a wet fish, and I knew that the night was about to turn ugly.

All of a sudden I realized how hungry I was. I tried to keep up the dancing, but I was no longer the awesome guy I had been seconds ago. I danced with a seemingly mute 30 year old woman, who would only guesture wildly at my friends for them to join us. They pulled me away from the situation like a man being pulled from a burning vehicle. I wandered about, trying to bring strong sack and overcome my hunger and fatigue, but I couldn't. We stayed there until the place closed, then we all piled back into somebody's car. We once again passed up all the McDonald's in Chile. We made it back to Jaña's house. There wasn't any way to get food from downstairs, so I ate two handfuls of Coco Puffs, drank three handfulls of tap water, and willed myself asleep. By the way, if you measure food and drink in handfulls, you're doing something wrong.