Despedida de los Cuartos (Farewell to the Seniors)

In Chile, they combine prom with an all-night graduation party called "La despedida de los cuartos" and mine was last Friday night. It is essentially a prom, but they have it as a graduation celebration for the seniors and the juniors--technically--are the ones who throw the party for the seniors, so the seniors go for free and the juniors pay for themselves and for a senior. The party started at 10 PM and went until 4 or 5 AM (I left "early" at 3:45 AM).


I went to the hairdresser's with my friend Cata and went back to her house until our friends Vale and Vale (both are named Valentina, a very popular name here) picked us up and drove us to the centro to the building where we were having the despedida. Unlike in the US, there are no huge pre-prom parties where all the friends go to one house to take lots of pictures beforehand, we took most of ours on location before the doors opened.



Once we got inside, all the teachers passed out alcoholic cocktails to all the students (even though you are supposed to be over 18 to drink and all the juniors are under 18) to toast to the seniors. After an hour-long "cocktail" we went to have dinner where they had some version of scalloped potatoes and steak with gravy. Even though they couldn't compare with my grandmother's scalloped potatoes, I was still ecstatic because it is one of my favorite dishes that I have never seen here before.

I spent most of the rest of the night dancing to reggaeton, which is all that they dance to here in Chile, like a latin version of hip-hop. Although it was a very different dancing setup because in the USA kids usually dance in clusters with their friends, all in a circle and so it doesn't really matter if you don't have a "partner" because everyone is all bunched together anyways.

But in Chile, it is REALLY strange not to dance with a partner (usually boy-girl but it's okay for a girl to dance with a girl). And since kids still want to dance close to their friends, 2 parallel lines end up forming of couples dancing instead of clusters all smushed together like you see in the U.S.