The Gringo Bar

This weekend some friends and I went to a bar called California Cantina. It is a gringo bar with an interesting history. Just to clarify, gringo/gringa is a slang word that is used to mean American. My host mom told me that it is derogatory in some Spanish-speaking countries, however in Chile it is used (usually) with affection. So this bar/restaurant that we went to was started by two guys from California who were studying abroad in Santiago and missed good hamburgers and tex-mex food, two things that are hard to find here. There were definitely a lot of English speaking customers and some of the waitstaff were bilingual. It was kind of a weird experience to only hear English and although it was easy understand, I think I prefer going to Chilean places. The food was great, and very American, and the hamburger came with palta (avocado) as a nice reminder that we are still in Chile!