1st of all, I’d like to thank the city of vina del mar for finally getting our water and electricity on! woot woot! After two full days and three full nights of no running water, lights or internet, I totally have a new appreciation for modern amenities.

So wow, where do I start?

I spent Thursday and Friday enjoying two days of sleeping in after my first three days at the winery. Friday, Mara and I spent a good part of the day soaking up some sun at the beach then met up with Dan and Pete to make tacos for dinner. That night the staff and other interns from the International Center in Vina were meeting at this bar called “Status Quo.” It was sort of a goodbye party for the people leaving and a chance for new people in the program to meet. Andy, Rachel, Nick and his girlfriend Ana were supposed to leave Saturday and Sunday so Friday was our last roomie hoorah! We got to Status Quo for a free round of pisco sours at 10:45. There were some old faces and new faces; we all sat around chatting, partying and drinking. After an additional mojito and pisco sour, we decided to head over to another bar near our house with some new pals. Amongst the new faces were Chase (from Nevada) and John (from L.A.). Both guys have been here a while, and are pretty into the nightlife in Vina. They know some of the people that own this bar/club called Bonita so we decided to check it out. We enjoyed the time spent in a private room downstairs dancing and taking advantage the free rounds of shots until we decided to keep on keeping on so we took off west about 5 blocks to another club. It was pretty packed and decided to go back to Chase and John’s apartment close by the club. At this point some of us had split up. Mara and Diego walked back to our house to call it a night, Dan went back to his apartment and the rest of us were there together.

So we made ourselves comfortable at John and Chase’s and sat down to play a round of card games when we felt the tremors begin. Even though we all felt our first tremor earlier on in the month, it was still a surprise when we all met eyes and could feel the earth vibrating slightly. We waited for it to pass as they usually do after 2-3 seconds, but not this time. We all remained glued to our seats, feeling the tremor continue to last and continue to grow into a growling quake within seconds. I don’t how long it took for the shake to reach full force but eventually all the lights cut out and we needed to make a move. We all headed to a doorway, stayed there for a few seconds and eventually moved outside to the apartment courtyard. Just walking through the house on the quivering floor was difficult (part of it ‘could’ be due to the free shots and pisco sours and mojito, but mostly it was the 7.5 Richter affecting my balance). The feeling of being totally consumed by a quake is unreal. The movement completely takes over your balance and center of gravity. Unlike anything I have ever felt before. I’m not sure exactly how long the earthquake lasted, but I think well over a minute and felt like eternity. Somehow in the midst of chaos, Peter managed to take a video of the earthquake action and his footage lasted for 45 seconds. Once we were outside, the commotion continued. It was about 3:30am and people were fleeing bars, clubs their homes etc. Car alarms were booming in the streets, ambulances and fire trucks racing around and cars were all heading west, away from the coast in case of an immediate tsunami following. Of course, we live 2 blocks from the beach and that’s where Mara and Diego were. We didn’t really care, we just wanted to get everyone together. We headed back to our house and talked to some people on the way that were actually headed to the coast like us. The consensus was that until we heard alarms, there was no “immediate” danger of a tsunami so we continued home. We all slept with our doors open and ready to make some moves in case we needed to. (I should mention that before we went to bed, we did our house duty and finished all the ice cream in the freezer so it wouldn’t melt since the electricity was out…and we had the drun-chies)

That night’s sleep was far from sound. The tremors continued throughout the night and all through the next days (I actually just felt another one as I am typing). In total there have been more than 150 tremors following; some of which topped 5.0 on the Richter scale even as aftershocks.

Saturday we were pretty shocked. No water and no electricity- we just spent most of the day napping after an anxious night’s sleep. We did go walk around town and look at some of the damage, and found an internet café and bathrooms to use. Most of the car dealerships we saw were destroyed. Shattered glass sprinkled the streets of Vina and the extent of other damage to buildings was mostly cracked walls and crumbling facades. Our house suffered some damage: a huge crack near the front door, broken mirrors that fell, all the furniture had shifted to the center of the room and there was tons of dirt and earth that fell from the ceilings. That was not a fun 5-minute pick up.

Saturday night we used our two candles and flashlights to light up a romantic dinner of scrambled eggs and bread. Luckily we had gas through the whole thing so we could cook on the stove top. And after a filling dinner we continued our roommate bonding by having the ‘bathroom’ talk. I mean, no running water means no toilets…when ya gotta go, what do you do? So Ana and I took a walk around the neighborhood to find a shady spot to take care of #1…meanwhile, after some creative thinking, people back at home figured out how to take care of #2. Bags. Plastic bags. LOL…we all died at the idea of pooping in plastic bags, but when you’re in the middle of a natural disaster people get desperate! Sadly to say, I didn’t have that urge to go and have yet to experience pooing in a plastic bag and throwing it away in a dumpster. But it was either that or dig a whole in the ground in front of the street. Everyone enjoyed the laughs (and the relief) of taking care of business- that story will be one for the books.

Sunday we decided to start the clean up. Our house is still pretty musty and dirty smelling from all the debris inside but all in all it didn’t take that much effort. Mara and I went to a gelateria in town that had electricity and watched the news for the first time and read the paper. On our way home we stopped by the supermarket for the first time since the quake. The supermarkets here opened the day after the earthquake but everyone was in panic mode. There wasn’t any looting going on but the lines were constantly out the door to get in and to check out. Finally yesterday the lines weren’t that bad. We picked up a few necessities but still, there was zero bread…no buns, no sliced, no rolls…zip. As we walked home we heard the fireman and police roaming the streets announcing “falsa alarma”…Mara and I were kind of confused as we didn’t hear the original alarma. We returned home to find our doors wide open and no one inside. There were papers thrown about and looked like people left in a hurry so we figured there must have been a tsunami scare. Right when we were about to set out to find our friends they returned in a fury. Apparently Nick and Ana were in the supermarket when a girl started freaking out and yelling about a tsunami. As you can guess, a group panic took hold and the supermarket started to clear out in an uproar. They went back to the house to get the others who were there and headed west away from the coast. Later on we found out that a guy set out a false tsunami alert online and got txted to people throughout the city. This guy got arrested I guess; his goal was to get people out of the house so that he and others could go loot all their stuff...just a story on the street buutt. After everyone was back together on the street we kept talking about tsunami’s and started scaring ourselves. The biggest earthquake in Chile was 50 years ago and the tsunami that followed was exactly 48 hours after the quake struck. We thought about how ironic it would be if that happened to us and well, we decided better safe (and possibly alive) than sorry. So half of us went to Diego’s house and half of us went to Peter and Dan’s house to stay the night. Although they don’t have electricity either, they had running water and it felt oh-so-nice to use a toilet and take a shower! Monday morning we had a meeting with our directors at the International Center. We just had a meeting to make sure everyone felt ok, safe and wanted to continue their internship/stay in Chile. There were 2 new people that we met today that are supposed to be moving into our house as soon as our roomies get a chance to leave. There are no buses down South and service to Santiago has just started up again. Both Nick and Ana and Rachel and Andy are leaving tomorrow. We are really sad to see them go but it should be fun to get to know new people….IF they stay. One girl got here Wednesday, had to stay in a really shady hotel and then went through an earthquake and a tsunami scare alone!...I wouldn’t be too excited about staying in Chile either.

Today our water and electricity came back on! So excited, and since the other roomies are officially leaving tomorrow we are going to have a true last night celebration in 886 2 Poniente.

Statistics are in…6th largest quake! And WE were apart of it!!!

This weekend has been a wiiiild ride.