Chile being a mainly Catholic country, I assumed that Christmas would be the biggest celebration of the year. I was wrong, though, New Years is definately the biggest, at least for my family. My family owns an apartment in La Serena, where we were planning on celebrating New Years. I went home to Ovalle to get more clothes on the 30th, and came back late on the 31st. On the drive to La Serena, we kept driving by these stuffed dummies on the side of the road. My mom explained that they are dressed in clothes from the old year, and at midnight, they get burned. By the time we got through all the traffic (La Serena is apparently a very popular place to celebrate New Years) it was almost 10:00. In Canada, we would be well into New Years celebrating by then, but in Chile, as always, everything starts later.
We had a big family dinner, with all my host siblings, a friend of my sister, and my exchange friend from Ovalle, Nicole. It was an all-seafood meal, which I loved. We had muscles and this shrimp cocktail type thing, then this big peice of white fish called reineta, which is really popular here, with tomato and seafood sauce. It took us until almost midnight to eat it all. We did the countdown, then at midnight, exactly (the only time things are on time here) the fireworks started. Also, we had to eat a spoonful of lentils for luck in love, and 12 grapes for luck in each month of the new year. We all quickly did this, then ran outside the apartment to watch the fireworks. There were three sets, all along the beach and one in Coquimbo, the city right next to La Serena.
After the fireworks, we went back to the apartment to dance some cumbia. Not the national dance of Chile, but a very popular dance in Chile, especially at New Years. Around 1:00, my exchange student friends all came. There was Nynne from Denmark, and Christina, Kate and Hanna from the USA. It was Kate´s birthday, and my mom knew that, so she brought her a cake from Ovalle. We ate her cake before we headed to the beach, where the party was just starting. There, we partied with my friends and family until 7:30am! We wanted to stay up to watch the sun rise, but the morning was too cloudy, so we couldn´t even see it.
It was a really fun celebration, and I´m so excited to see what the New Year brings for me in Chile.
