National holidays

I'm kind of on a tight spot with this particular post because it's been kind of a long time since my family has actually been in chile for the fiestas patrias. My mom is kind of a hipster so she usually takes her vacations on september instead of doing it in the summer, and so, the september holiday is more of a big trip opportunity rather than a national celebration for us. This year however we stayed here because she was sick, and i got to celebrate on my own, but i think it'd be a little lame to write about that when i'll have to record myself doing the same thing in a couple of days. 

In any case, there's a particular anecdote which i guess might serve the purpose of this assignment. It happened in school, when i was around 14 or 15 years old. We had this really great teacher who was in charge of our class, and she was really fun in a strict and intimidating way. For the last class of september she told all of us that we had to attend her class in China or Diablo de la tirana costumes, and whoever didn't would have to leave the classroom (keep in mind: this wasn't a school policy or anything, it was all her idea). So ok, we all got the costumes, changed clothes between classes, and showed up dressed up to hers, only to find that she was wearing her regular white lab coat just like any other day. We were all kinda pissed, and about to start complaining when she suddenly stops us, and just smirks to the whole class as she gets her purse (which was really big), while saying that we shouldn't get mad because her costume was right there. And what she pulled out of it was one of those huge realistic plastic horse masks that really look like they've got issues and she just put it on her head and started dancing cueca brava very menacingly at all of us (who were part terrified and part exploding with laughter). 

After the shock wore off she took the thing off and told us she'd brought empanadas for all of us so it was a pretty great deal overall. To this day all my friends still crack up about this because of how absurd and unexpected it was, but it's also definitely heartwarming to think about that teacher and how she went about her job with us.

(bad) photographic evidence of the event