This is where everyone was...

On Thursday night, we (Sigrid, Gabriel, Sebastian, Carrie, Pancho, Jose, and I) wanted to go to the Thursday night place, El Huevo. Literally meaning The Egg, El Huevo is a four floor dance club in the middle of downtown Valparaiso. On Thursdays, you can get in free before 10:00 pm, and it will only cost you $1.000 pesos (about two bucks) before 1:00 pm, which makes it very popular.

We wanted to leave around 8:00 or 8:30 so that we could get in line and be in before 10, since it is common that the line may take 1 to 1 1/2 hours to get through. However, we ended up leaving at around 10:00, and by the time we got to El Huevo, the line was around the corner, down the block, and around the next corner - the longest line any of the Chileans had ever seen to get in. To me, it looked as if all of the youth in Valparaiso had decided tonight was the night that they wanted to get in to El Huevo.

After taking a look at the line, we decided to go take some beers at a bar and come back later to see if the line was better. We ended up going to "El Gato en la Ventana, " or the Cat in the Window, which is a bar that has folk music. Although we may have been too late for El Huevo, we were way too early for this bar and ended up being the only ones in there for a while.

Around 12:30 or 1:00, the live music started. It was a duo playing folk music in the Andean tradition, which I was pleasantly surprised by. By the time the music started, the bar was pretty packed, but we had gotten great seats to the show. After the music was over, we stayed for a little while longer, talking and listening to the music that was on recording.

At this point, I really have to thank my parents for being so worldly and introducing me to the music of Buena Vista Social Club. The music that they play and that I have been exposed to in that genre is not just their music, it is typical music in the story of Latin America. And when that music came on, I was able to sit there and sing along, just like the Chileans. I thought to myself, I'm not completely foreign to this culture.