September 11th

Oh my god, two posts in one week. Crazy. I have two things to report today.

1) Lunch in Chile is the most ridiculously big meal. It's like a feast. Every day. I don't know how they do it. For example, today I was served a bowl of tomato soup, a giant pile of salad (salad in Chile=chopped up vegetables with salt and lemon juice on top), two crepes stuffed with spinach and covered in cream sauce (not my favorite thing but I finished it through sheer force of will), a piece of bread, and a banana with honey for dessert. SO MUCH FOOD. It's insane! And today lunch was on the smaller side.

2) September 11th is a really important day in Chile. It's the day that Pinochet staged a military coup and overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Allende in 1973. So pretty much every year since then Chileans have staged marches and protests both for and against Pinochet. And they can get pretty violent. My classes are cancelled for today because all the campuses of my university are closed. When I left the house to go visit a friend my host mom and grandma told me about a million times to be careful and take care of myself. It's kind of strange because the rowdiest protesters are students who weren't even alive when Pinochet was deposed, much less when he came into power.