The Terremoto

My sincerest apologies to all of my avid readers (as I'm sure there are many of you) for abandoning my blog these past few days. I promised myself that I would not abandon my blog, as it is my newest obsession.

The reason for my sudden negligence was Facundo's arrival in Chile on March 11. After many months of cajoling on my part and trying to obtain a long-awaited document on Facundo's part, he finally made it safely across the Chile-Argentina border. We had actually broken up in December due to distance and travel complications, but we have decided to get back together now that the situation lends itself to an actual relationship, as opposed to a long-distance relationship, which we endured for about a year and a half. Long story short, these past few days I have been showing Facundo around and introducing him to all my friends, so I haven't had much time to blog.

Anyhow, this past Friday after our last class of the quarter, a few of us girls had an "epic day" involving seafood empanadas at Mercado Central, terremotos (I'll explain more later) at La Piojera, and horse races. Unfortunately I missed out on the horse races as I had other business to attend to, but the seafood empanadas and terremotos were quite enough to make my day epic.

The terremoto is a phenomenon worthy of extensive elaboration. La Piojera is a Peruvian restaurant located near Plaza de Armas--which, let me remind you, is teeming with Peruvians, my host mom warns me--with the ambience of a saloon, replete with drunken cowboys (South American style), stray cats, and slapped together wooden tables. La Piojera is famous for the terremoto, which is an alcoholic beverage containing pineapple ice cream, white wine, and some unidentified liqueur, served in a classy plastic cup. It sounds pretty delicious, I know, but don't be fooled. It's actually pretty nasty until you've started on your second one, by which point you are already too tipsy to really care. And let me tell you, the terremoto (translation: earthquake) certainly fits its title. Simply enter La Piojera, take a look at the clusters of loud, obnoxious, completely wasted men, and you'll know that the terremoto is at work. Every table is littered with half-consumed plastic cups of terremoto, accompanied by a cloister of sleazy, disgusting, sweaty men in their mid-40s wearing business suits (they must have come directly from work to get wasted). La Piojera is not a place for the socially refined. Nor is it a place for a group of girls, as the instant I entered the restaurant I realized that we were the only girls in a room swimming with the aforementioned sketchy men. As the four of us sat down, I felt that I was being eaten alive by the stares of predatorial drunkards. The table next to us was occupied by a group of particularly obnoxious men, who proceeded to take out their cell phones and take pictures of us. This pissed me off, so I gave the group of men the finger and told them to stop taking pictures of us, to which they responded with some incoherent babbling. After awhile I started feeling a little friendlier (oh alcohol) and ended up enjoying myself, so much so that I brought Facundo with me the next day. I felt a little more secure in male company, but that didn't stop the drunks from whistling and carrying on. That, along with the pregnant cat moseying around searching for food scraps, and the South American cowboy accordion player, gave La Piojera a true twilight zone-like atmosphere. At the same time, I think it's pretty representative of the campo (country side) of South America. Nothing touristy about it. Just real people in a real crappy restaurant drinking real bad alcohol having a real good time. An experience to be had.