It has been two months of my living in Santiago, Chile, South America, southern hemisphere, earth.
It doesn’t sound like a particularly significant amount of time, but I feel I’ve done a thing or two so far. Also I’m quite comfortable, and while I’m musing on the last two months I have to say that things could not have gone much more smoothly.
I have a sweet apartment in a nice neighborhood. It’s very close to the subway. My roommates, two gringas from CA and MN respectively, are fun and very nice. I really like my job. The majority of my classes are teaching college-aged students (which I wanted), while I also have classes with adults and teenagers. The variety is great.
Santiago is a good city. It has a lot of culture. The weather has been amazing. The produce is excellent. Nightlife is fun. And Santiago even hosts mega festivals. There was one last weekend
called
.
I bought my ticket back in February, with the vague assumption that I’d meet all these new friends to go to the great big party with. This really did not pan out. The sole distinct disappointment after two months here is my limited use of Spanish. It’s really not too difficult to avoid speaking much Spanish at all, which is what I have tended to be doing in recent weeks. It’s sapping my confidence. But I’m gonna take lessons or something; I won’t lose. Anyway, probably due largely to my legitimate language ignorance, I soon realized that I was heading to the festival solo. And until the last moment, I didn’t really grasp that the festival is very expensive for many/most Chileans. Sure, Lollapalooza Chicago is expensive for Americans, but somehow all those deadbeats, drugged out hippies, and general riff-raff are able to scrap together the bills to attend the show and make spectacles of themselves in the broad, public daylight. But here, it seems apparent that disposable income is much more scarce.
Asides aside, I followed my Saturday schedule brilliantly — as if I were some sort of super planning agent — while also meeting a few new friends. I managed to catch Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros in a lively, hectic, hot, claustrophobic environment that was very satisfying. My new friends and I then strolled over to the main stage to catch the last half of The National. They were good, but something felt a little off. The National have a number of brooding songs, with themes of self-pity and general unhappiness. It was weird because the band just seemed to be singing about some American experience, some mood or feeling not shared by the world here in the southern continent.
Throughout the rest of my ridiculously fun and entertaining Lollapalooza weekend I slowly began to become aware of more cultural differences, both between the moods of the music versus the crowd and between this crowd of Lollapalooza goers and the ones that stomp the grounds every summer in Chicago.
I have not been to Lollapalooza in Chicago, but I’ve been to some pretty decent-sized festivals, including Pitchforkfest in Chicago two times. I’m pretty sure I have a relatively accurate grasp of what American-style big festivals are like regarding the people. I’m talking about the crazies that come out of the woodwork. This is the fun part of festivals! The drunk people, the drugged-up-on-crazy-drugs people, the bizarre outfits and more bizarre behavior, and the rowdiness of the dancing areas in front of stage. All of these quintessential aspects of the big American festival experience were almost wholly muted, in exchange for something altogether more mild and grossly more polite. People afforded each other almost an extreme amount of personal space in dancing areas. There was some hand raising and cheering, but people weren’t exactly getting off their feet. These aspects gave the festival a very different feel.
Speaking of different feel, beer and alcohol were prohibited. No beer vendors in the main of the park. Maybe this is fine for a great afternoon and evening of The National, Empire of the Sun, and The Killers, but something is wrong when it’s Sunday night and Kanye West comes out in a pink leather jacket/pants combo with huge gold chains (& somehow pulls it off), and EVERYBODY is completely sober. That’s just immoral. Anyway, I had my whiskey flask, and I know some of my compatriots were following suit, but a Kanye show ought to be a party, c’mon now kids.
Another minor disappointment of Lollapalooza Chile 2011 was the lack of food vendors. No beer vendors, no food vendors. They had the standard “buy tickets in exchange for drinks/food” that are common at festivals, but it was a monopoly. And the food menu was literally “sandwich”. No details, no pictures of said sandwich, mind. I don’t think I saw anyone eat one, either. But I did find some dude with a little basket selling ham and cheese sandwiches on white, round bread for $2. That’s what I ate.
Despite the food/beer woes, I was extremely pleased with the stages, the park, the incredible weather, the ease of taking the metro to the location, the ease of entry to the festival, the polite people, and the great music. Top experience. Probably one of Kanye’s more G-rated shows, but if that means I can walk right through the crowd without getting beer spilled on me and getting cursed at, I think I’ll take it.
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