That was my weekend. I went to a wedding with my family in Temuco. It was the wedding of one of my host dad's nephew's, who happens to be in the military. Other than the special salute and the arc of swords that the bride and groom crossed under as they left the church, it was pretty much like any other wedding. The ceremony was very Catholic. Very solemn, and lacking in music, I found myself feeling more on the sad than joyful. Luckily, the reception was much more joyful. The bride and groom entered by singing a love song to each other while accompanied by a guitar player. It was pretty adorable especially since neither of them were that great of singers, which only added to the charm and cuteness of the moment. From the moment we entered the reception, the consuming began. It started with drinks (pisco sour, mango sour, juice) and a variety of and hors d'oeurves, then we headed to the tables where and began the actually meal, which had several courses. My favorite was definitely the dessert which was actually three different desserts which were all delicious. You'd think the food might stop there, but oh no. Then there were the homemade chocolates brought to each table (not to mention the entire table of chocolates and white chocolate fondue), later there was the cake, and then at about four in the morning, they brought little sandwiches. I certainly was not able to eat anymore at that point, so I really didn't mind that they weren't vegetarian sandwiches. Besides lots of eating, there was also LOTS of dancing, which was a bit difficult at first with all the food in my stomach. But I managed alright and had a great time dancing despite the fact that I had never heard most of the songs before in my life. There was a whole lot of cumbia and salsa and bachata and 80's music in spanish. Whenever a song in English would come on, I would get excited and sing along.
Everyone warned me that Chilean weddings tend to last pretty much all night, so I was prepared for a late one. Sure enough, we were there until nearly 5 in the morning. When we left, there were still several people going strong on the dance floor. I don't know how they did it, my batteries had pretty much run out at about 2:30. At one point in the night, I was pretty sure I felt an earthquake (just a small tremor), and found out later that I was right, and there had been one. In La Unión, there had been tremors all day as a result from the exploding volcano, but in Temuco, we only felt one. I will talk about the volcano in a moment, but first some pictures of us dressed up for the wedding.
Posing with Carolina, the daughter of José's brother Sergio, and her beautiful little girl Valentina. Every single thing I am wearing apart from my necklace was borrowed. It felt funny to wear things I probably normally wouldn't have chosen for myself, but great that I didn't have to buy a single thing.
All the ladies. There were a lot of us. My host dad was the only male to accompany us, he said he felt a bit like a pimp.
Me and Ely, the wife of Sergio. She and her husband made me take like ten pictures with them, to have as memories, they said, so that I won't forget them.
As you may have heard, the volcano Puyehue in the Los Rios region (the region I live in!) has been erupting since Saturday. If you haven't seen pictures of it yet, you should, here are some really cool ones. The town I live in is not really that far away from the volcano, but luckily we haven't been affected at all because the wind has been blowing all the ash the other direction, more towards Argentina. But I can see the HUGE cloud of ash in the sky. It's really so big, it looks as if it is just still in the air. Many people have had to evacuate, but luckily, so far everyone has been safe and the damage hasn't been too bad. It is a pretty incredible sight though, reminds one of just how incredible nature is.
On Wednesday my dearest friend, Sarah, from so many years in coming to visit me. I absolutely cannot wait to see her. Hopefully, her flight from Santiago to Osorno will not be affected by the volcano. So far it should be okay, but you never know what the wind might do. Either way, I will make sure either she gets to me or I go to her. I am so excited to share Chile with her. I am so lucky to have two great friends (and parents, of course) who have decided to travel so far to see me!
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