Day of the Military

Saturday continued with more celebrating with the Day of the Military. At a local park named Parque O'Higgans there is a massive Fonda in which a military parade takes place. The parade consists of the entire Chilean army and Police force literally. Chase and I decided that we needed to go see this for ourselves, so we set out on the metro to find the Fonda. It was definitely not an original idea the chileans that actually decided to stay in Santiago, headed to parade. Upon arriving we could not believe the masses, there had to be atleast 100,000 people Chase thinks maybe even 200,000 people crammed into this park.

The enormous crowd heading to the parade

The kids loved the fountain

More pics of the large crowds, that is my head though

Enjoying the cultural experience

My only regret is not getting to see the Cueca. Here are some young Chileans wearing Cueca dresses.

It blew our minds that people could take anything they wanted into the park. For instance there were thousands of people trying to sell their goods ranging from soccer balls, kites, ice cream, empanadas to umbrella hats. People built open fire pits and kids were flying kites wherever and whenever they wanted. It was really at your own risk to walk around both Chase and I had some close calls with some kits.

This guys was selling buckets to stand on, don't worry that I got one so I could see!

Kites are a huge deal here. Kids fly them everywhere, it does not matter if there are trees or power lines they find a way to get them into the sky. In fact they use their kites for kite wars in which they try to cut or knock other people's kites out of the sky, then it is everyman for himself as to who can catch the kite before it hits the ground.

Chileans and their kites, notice the intense string and holder they have

The parade was typical Chilean very slow to start. the first band paraded and then nothing happened for about an hour. Then the President of Chile paraded down in an open car waving at all the people. Chase and I could not believe that she was out in the open with absolutely no security. After waiting another 45 minutes without anything happening Chase and I lost interest and went to hang out at Andrews where we ended up watching the parade on TV. In typical Gringo style we left way too early. The Parade ended up being pretty cool, we just got there too early.

Parade

Riding the metro you cant see it in this pic but there is some serious PDA going on behind me

Chase thought it would be funny to take a picture of me eating cheetos outside the grocery store I was starving after the parade!

Even in Chile no Saturday would be complete without some College football. So once again we headed to Basic Bar to watch the UT vs. Tech game.

Go Horns go, I have a feeling we are never going to get to see a Baylor game so UT is going to have to be our team for the year!

Even in Chile you can find a local UT fan