This is my first entry since arriving in Chile. I got here about ten days ago and ever since then it's been pretty much a whirlwind of traveling and meeting new people. My flights weren't too bad. I had a five-hour flight to Toronto first, but the plane was so empty I had an entire exit row to myself. My next flight was severely less comfortable. It was about eleven hours and I was crammed next to the window, unable to straighten my legs. The traveling went as smoothly as it possibly could, however. My flights were on time, I had no trouble at immigration, my bags arrived with me and my pre-paid airport transfer was ready and waiting for me.
When I got to the hostel there were a couple people from the program already here. As the resident Chile expert I wasted no time in rallying a couple of them to go with me to do a little exploring and have a couple beers out in the sunshine. It's summer here, which means it is hot and sunny always. The next couple of days were spent mostly hanging out in the hostel and walking around. We bought tickets to go to Viña del Mar, which is a little beach town just about an hour and a half outside of Santiago. A friend of mine lives there and his brother manages a building that has rooms that are typically rented to students during the school year but are more or less vacant in the summer, which meant that we got to stay there free of charge! It wasn't exactly in the center of the city but we were only about a half hour walk from the beach. From there it was also easy to take buses to the neighboring cities of ConCon and Valpo where we ate incredible seafood empanadas and saw Pablo Neruda's house "La Sebastiana." After three days there a friend of ours who has a whole mess of family here in Chile invited us out to his grandparents' house for a lunch and to spend the night. How could we possibly say no?
The grandparents live in Algarobo, a really charming beach town about an hour from Viña. The community there tends to be a little wealthier and a little older and so it was beautiful, quiet and peaceful. We were happy to spend our last days of vacation there because, as always, our vacation was more exhausting that relaxing. The lunch they prepared for us was incredible. We started with chilled white wine and strawberries followed by a pisco sour (traditional drink in Chile) and then we got massive fried seafood empanadas that were incredible. I could have stopped eating there but then we were served seviche, tomatoes, potatoes and green beans. I could have stopped eating then too, but the final course was served and I was sorry I was already so full because it was an incrible fish, cheese and onion stew served in clay pots from Pomaire called "gredas." After a meal like that I had to lie down for a nap until we could go for a walk into town and along the beach. My favorite thing about the day was that everyone in the family spoke only Spanish so I spoke almost no English all day, which is just heavenly for me.
The next day we woke up leisurely and got served breakfast. We took a two hour walk on the beach to prepare for our next meal. One thing I know from experience is that I'll never go hungry in Chile. Our new abuelitos sent us off back to Santiago with an invitation to come back whenever we want to.
Back in Santiago we finally had an orientation and met our program directors, Bruce and Andrea. They talked to us for a little while about the program and about Chile. They seem really great and I'm excited to know that I have friendly, knowledgeable people to rely on here. I've met lots of great people in the program too and we've all been having a lot of fun together. The living situation is a little tough to handle. Part of our program fee that we paid initially goes to put us up in a hostel for a month. The problem is, the hostel has one kitchen and one fridge for 70 people and I'm currently living in a room with six other girls. We have no space for our clothes and it's a slightly stressful environment. I could move out whenever, but it seems like a huge waste of money because they won't refund our stay at the hostel even if we move out early. I think that will be one of the bigger challenges the next couple weeks.
Tomorrow I have to take a test called the TOEIC (I don't know what it stands for.) It's an English proficiency exam that native speakers should pass with flying colors but we're taking it because our students have to pass it in order to pass our classes and so we need to know what to teach to. Then Tuesday we'll be getting our Chilean IDs taken care of, which is a fairly annoying process involving the equivalent of the Chilean DMV. We meet with the head honcho of the whole DuocUC program on Wednesday, are supposed to find our campuses on Thursday and then meet with our program directors on Friday. On Monday we start teaching!!! I'll try to write again after my first week of classes to let you know how they're going. And I'll try to post pictures from the beach soon. Our internet at the hostel is pretty shoddy and the pictures take forever to upload. Hasta luego!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wanderlust
All that is gold does not glitter;
Not all those who wander are lost
- JRR Tolkien
Although I first discovered this quote back in high school and found it pertinent to my situation at the time, I think that perhaps I didn't fully understand it until now. The truth is that when I was a senior in high school, when I first read this, I wasn't wandering at all. I was on a straight track to a four-year university with a plan, which I thought was flawless and perfect. Only now, six years later, have I accepted my roll as a wanderer and realized just what that means and what a blessing it is to be so free that I can turn my life into an adventure.
I look around at so many of my friends; most are freshly graduated from a university. We had the unfortunate luck of graduating at one of the worst times in the country's economic history. It hasn't been this bad since the Great Depression. As a result many people I know are forced to take menial jobs for slightly over minimum wage to avoid moving back in with their parents and some haven't even had that choice. To me, it seems that there is no better time in one's life to wander than this, always remembering along the way that just because you wander doesn't mean that you're lost.
Academically oriented people can be completely single-minded sometimes. Life goes like this: go to school, graduate, get a job, get a spouse, have kids and die. That's really only six major events in your life, if you count your death as a major event. How many people only want to have six things to look back on as they age and mentally peruse their past? I suppose that's enough for some, but I want to have about a hundred. I want to look back on adventures, crazy people I've met and crazy places I've been. I want to get to know the world better. Most people barely know anything outside of the city they live in. No wonder we're always destroying each other and our planet in the process.
I've never really been a spontaneous person until the last year or so of my life, but after discovering the joys of spontaneity I can't help but encourage others to leap without looking at least once in their life. Just get up and go somewhere! Forget about what you think you should be doing, save up some money, buy a plane ticket and just GO. Think about all the things you regret doing...now think about all the things you regret not doing. Which list is bigger?
Not all those who wander are lost
- JRR Tolkien
Although I first discovered this quote back in high school and found it pertinent to my situation at the time, I think that perhaps I didn't fully understand it until now. The truth is that when I was a senior in high school, when I first read this, I wasn't wandering at all. I was on a straight track to a four-year university with a plan, which I thought was flawless and perfect. Only now, six years later, have I accepted my roll as a wanderer and realized just what that means and what a blessing it is to be so free that I can turn my life into an adventure.
I look around at so many of my friends; most are freshly graduated from a university. We had the unfortunate luck of graduating at one of the worst times in the country's economic history. It hasn't been this bad since the Great Depression. As a result many people I know are forced to take menial jobs for slightly over minimum wage to avoid moving back in with their parents and some haven't even had that choice. To me, it seems that there is no better time in one's life to wander than this, always remembering along the way that just because you wander doesn't mean that you're lost.
Academically oriented people can be completely single-minded sometimes. Life goes like this: go to school, graduate, get a job, get a spouse, have kids and die. That's really only six major events in your life, if you count your death as a major event. How many people only want to have six things to look back on as they age and mentally peruse their past? I suppose that's enough for some, but I want to have about a hundred. I want to look back on adventures, crazy people I've met and crazy places I've been. I want to get to know the world better. Most people barely know anything outside of the city they live in. No wonder we're always destroying each other and our planet in the process.
I've never really been a spontaneous person until the last year or so of my life, but after discovering the joys of spontaneity I can't help but encourage others to leap without looking at least once in their life. Just get up and go somewhere! Forget about what you think you should be doing, save up some money, buy a plane ticket and just GO. Think about all the things you regret doing...now think about all the things you regret not doing. Which list is bigger?
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