Happy Thanksgiving! Today was full of nostalgia for me. Back home my parents with with my sister Caprice and her little family in Texas. My other sister Jess and her husband and three kinds were in PA (for the first thanksgiving away from my parents, I think). My other sis Missy was with her husband in the Colorado mountains. So we were all spread out. My circus was doing the Chicago McDonalds Thanksgiving Parade, which I missed terribly and tried in vain to do a live stream on my iPad, but wasn't able to. So instead I watched old YouTube videos of the past parade performances, including last tour, the one I started with. Not gonna lie, I really, really, missed it right then. Started getting a little home/circus sick. But then I chose to be thankful for where I am and what I am doing, and realized life isn't so bad. Haha. And I was able to call my mom and talk to her for awhile which was awesome and helped a ton. :) love you my familyyyyyy!
That day was spent hanging out around the hostel and talking with guests. I met Adam, a 21 year old from Ireland who is going south to work on a National Park Reserve project that is working to fix the park back into its original state (remove invasive plant species, remove fences and human things). He is a great guy, although a little unlucky. Two weeks before he came to Chile he was mugged in broad daylight. He also is on his 15th iPhone. Yes... I said FIFTEEN! Maybe he is unlucky but some of that also has to be his own negligence. Haha.
Another guest of ours tonight is a guy from Germany named Benno. He travelled to Chile to visit his girlfriend for two weeks. She is here on a three month trip. He spoke decent spanish even tho only being here a little bit (darn him!).
So the three of us decided to go out for dinner at a pizza restaurant in celebration of my Thanksgiving. :) Along the way we were stopped by a guy asking if we knew of a hostel close by --- and of course I pointed him in the direction of mine. He was an Indian guy named Shakar. He ended up finding us at the restaurant and so the group became four. He was hitchhiking through South America and stayed with us a few days.
At the restaurant we had to wait a bit for a table so we had Adam try his first Piscosour. He liked it. Haha. When we got our table our waiter was really nice and we ended up with a cool looking tomato salad and a pizza. The place also brews its own beer and it was pretty good. The waiter must have taken a liking to me because I ended up with free dessert (which was a sort of yogurt parfait, and I shared it with the guys). The waiter also didn't charge us for a ton of things so that was awesome! He didn't speak much English but a friend of his was kind enough to embarrass him when they caught me leaving the bathroom and told me that the wait thought I was cute. Hahaha. Chileans are funny.
After the restaurant I took the guys to Piel Rojo where I knew karaoke would be happening. The same bartender was working that was there last time, so I introduced myself and that seemed to help our service. Lol. Figured if I will be here for a while I might as well know the locals (especially if I am bringing them business!). We had some piscosours and one of the guys decided it was a grand idea to just do a shot of pisco. Eww. Not the best. Haha. Then we moved closer to the tv and I ended up getting a free Cosmo from the bartender. I guess tonight was my night! Thank you thanksgiving! Hahaha. Later on I showed them the disco upstairs where we met some people to go to an afterparty. The bartender was one of the guys and ended up giving us a lift to this place. It was on the top floor of a building and was more like an after-hours bar. We met some cool people there but ended up leaving not too long after arriving because we were getting tired. Adam, Shakar and I left first but Benno stayed behind (it was his last night in Chile and I guess he really wanted to take advantage!) We made it back safely enough with a trail of friendly dogs escorting us. I then learned it was not a good idea to try to Skype call someone at 5:30 in the morning (my apologies again. Lol).
A wonderful Thanksgiving overall!