Christina Travels: Chile: Fin de Semana

Note: this was written midweek and for some reason didn't publish. So this is not this weekend, but last weekend. ¿Cachai?
This weekend was great. I'm not sure why or how, but it made me realize that I feel at home here, both in my house and in the town. Clearly, I'm still the foreigner who can't speak the language fluently, who doesn't always understand why things happen the way they happen, who is surprised by things that everyone else considers normal. But I don't feel like I'm sitting in the corner, watching everything happen around me while I try to wrap my brain around one little thing at a time. Todavía digo algunas cosas en ingles porque me olvido que estoy hablando en castellano. Sometimes, after someone says something, I think back to it and can't remember what language they were speaking. Especially because Chileans say certain things in English and if I hear it when I'm not really paying attention, I can't remember whether they said it in English or in Spanish. So someone will be talking rapid fire Spanish to me and I'll (hopefully) understand what they're saying and in the midst of it they'll throw in a word in English, like sorry which they copy from the What Does the Fox Say video where the fox says sorry instead of demonstrating his noise, and I'm like, wait, what, what's going, was that in English or am I just really confused? But I'm no longer phased by Chilean spanish as much as in the beginning. Clearly, there's still lots I don't know. But I'm not as lost.
On Saturday, several different things happened. First, my mom, grandmas, sister, and I made this really yummy food. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's a lot like gnocchi, Italian potato dumplings. For the last couple days, my host father's parents have been staying at the house, and my host mother's mom lives nearby so she also joined as. Another relative, who I believe is my host mom's aunt, also joined us for lunch.
My sister and I had a picture taking session (she wants to be a photographer) where she took way, way too many photos. Most of them of me being ridiculous.
Then I went out to onces with a friend. She's from Chile and when she was in high school, she did a study abroad trip to the US, to a city near where I live. A year or so ago, she was back in the US, visiting, and I met her and talked to her about Chile. When I found out where I was living, I emailed her and it turned out that she had recently moved to Puerto Natales and started working in Torres del Paine (it's a small world after all, it's a small world after, it's a small, small world). So I met her and we talked, mostly in English, about my stay here and she gave me advice. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who knows firsthand the differences between here and New England.
Saturday night, mi abuelo, papa, hermano, hermana y yo fuimos al festival de cerveza de Natales. As minors, the three of us were not allowed to have any beer, but there was Chilean music and everyone was dancing. Because it's Puerto Natales, we also saw a ton of people we know, including about half of our professors and classmates.

Sunday was very relaxed. Acá en Chile, domingo es un día flojo. Everyone slept really late. As in, to the point where Cony and I were the first ones awake at one p.m. (This is slightly a lie. Carlos had to get up early in the morning to work and when he got back home at noon, he went back to sleep.)