Un asado chileno

I had my first ever cook out with my host-family this weekend. It was a bit different to say the least. 

The most entertaining part was starting the fire. First we had to fill the bottom of the grill with dirt, because you can't put hot coals directly on the metal; fair enough. We then made newspaper rings, covered them with coals and lit them. I felt this was a substantial way to get the fire going; wrong. We needed more "combustible" so my host-father proceeded to "clean out" old work papers. We burned more papers than Nixon. After about an hour or so of "cleaning", the fire was ready.

We started with hot dogs and chorizo, and finished with chicken and steak. The chicken and steak had enough salt on them that I thought they had fallen into the dead sea, but the chorizo more than made up for it.

After dinner we went to the house of a close friend of my host brother, who is almost like another brother in the family. Lucas is going down south to work for a year; putting his studies on hold. The entire family sang him a goodbye song. I've never seen two families so close like that.