February has come and almost gone, and I sometimes still can't believe that I live here. More than that, I sometimes can't believe how normal it feels to live here. I have found a home and a family (of friends) that keep me feeling completely comfortable to be myself. I've lived in my new house for about a week and a half, and I absolutely love it here. Every afternoon or night that I come home, we sit and talk as a family and eat lunch/dinner together to share what has happened in our day. I feel extremely lucky to have found a place to call home.
This weekend, I escaped with some friends for a little while to camp in Pichilemu, a small surf town about 4 hours outside of Santiago. It was a much needed break from daily life in the city, and it was a great way to test my camping skills. I don't have much experience with pitching tents and cooking over campfires, but I was all up for it. We left from Santiago at about 10:30pm (since our bus was 1.5 hours late...typical Chile) and we arrived at 2:30am. We found a campsite nearby the bus station and pitched our tents in the dark. By the time we got the first part up, we were rolling on the ground laughing at our abilities, or rather lack there of. At about 3am, we joined the rest of the town in the center to walk around and eat empanadas and ice cream - the typical summer diet of Chileans. At some point, we decided that our tents were calling our names, so we retired to get a frozen, hard, uncomfortable sleep on the ground of Pichilemu. Although we barely slept, we felt rested in the morning due to our excitement of camping and being near the beach. We cooked oatmeal over the fire and passed around fruit and bread.
The day was lazy. We sat on the beach playing games, making guacamole, taking pictures, and swimming in the ocean which was just as frigid as the shores of Boston. The further south you go, the colder it gets, which is still a concept I haven't fully grasped. Therefore, I was a little surprised at how numbing the water was, but I braved it anyways and swam for a little while once I could no longer feel my body. We spent the rest of the day being beach bums and enjoying each others company. At some point, we headed to the bus station to buy tickets for our return the next day (to make sure we wouldn't get stuck) and we found out that all the buses were full, and there was only ONE left going to Santiago for the rest of the weekend which was about to leave in 20 minutes! Long story short, we RAN to our camp site, packed up our tents and bags quicker than anything I've ever done, and ran back to the bus station with our tents and bags in shambles and in tow. The bus had already left, but we spotted another bus with "Santiago" on it, so we rushed over. It was about to pull out of the station and had no space, but we persuaded the driver to let us sit on the floor next to the bathroom. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly the most comfortable trip home, but it was certainly an experience.
Upon our return to Santiago (at 11:30 pm), we were incredibly tired but we weren't ready to sleep. We spent time in my house relaxing with some red wine and conversation to help our "difficult" transition back to the city.
Things since then have been insane. I have recently signed on to work with a new company and they'll be offering me a contract that'll be good for legal work for about 5 years (don't worry, I don't plan on staying that long). Therefore, this week I'm finishing up classes with my other institute and I'm preparing myself to start somewhere else. That means a lot of paperwork, quite a bit of stress, and little free time.
They have told me that March brings swarms of people back from vacation to live in Santiago, so I'm preparing myself for the waves of new faces and packed metro rides (though walking is my preferred mode of transportation). For now, I'm enjoying the "quiet" streets and open parks, though I have little time to enjoy them.
I'm missing you all quite a bit. Some days are easier than others, but some days it hits me hard knowing that I am so far from home and so far from my past comfort. Luckily, the home I have found here offers me a lot of new comfort, but there are some things that are simply just not the same.
I hope you're all doing well.
Keep the hugs flowing and send some to me along the way.
Lots of love.
Living in such a large and busy city, it's easy to forget that you're surrounded by beautiful mountains and nature that perch just out of reach. It's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life (such as looking for jobs, settling in, roaming the streets, and trying to meet as many people as possible) and completely overlook what the land has to offer.
About a week ago, some of my friends (also some people I'm living with) called me and told me to meet them at a particular cafe. They said we were going on an adventure for a little while to escape the dirty city boundaries and get some fresh air. I was extremely tired, but I decided not to pass up a chance to have a small adventure, so I complied and met them at the cafe. We sat around for a little while enjoying the sun and the conversation, and once the afternoon started to turn to evening, we decided to head out. We set out in my friends car and drove past all the newly familiar places that I've gotten to know so well (on foot, of course), and we prepared for a few hours of relaxation and real air that hasn't been laced with smog and smoke from the buses that roar through the city.
The further we drove, the more apparent it was that there was much more that lies out of our immediate reach. The buildings started to gather more space between them, and the signs for empanadas and homemade goodies started to lace the streets. We drove for about 30 minutes before we started to enter the mountainous area, and I was already stupefied at how beautiful it looked. The mountains started to take the stage all around us, and we drove into them without looking behind.
We didn't know how far we were going to go, where we would end up, or what we were doing, but we knew we were headed for an area called Cajon de Maipo (the mountains and the whole area we were headed). The trees started to get greener, the air started to freshen, and the sound of rivers started to whisper louder and louder in our ears. Eventually, we got hungry, and those signs for homemade empanadas were what we were seeking. We stopped in a little town in Cajon de Maipo which was quaint and beautiful. The buildings were old and colorful, the people were roaming the square in search of nothing and everything, and the dogs were playing with each other in a constant game of tag. We, too, roamed the square for a little while in complete silence as our empanadas (typical food here...delicious) were all we could concentrate on.
After a little bit, we decided to drive further into the mountains. We stopped at old train tunnels, wild river, and fields where horses wandered without reason. We jumped on rocks, smelled the air, laughed about nothing and simply enjoyed listening to the quiet that surrounded us. I finally felt like I was seeing some authenticity of Chile instead of just another large city, and it was so refreshing. We did this for a few hours before having a coffee and some homemade bread and marmalade. As the moon started to rise, we decided to head back to the noisy of the city, but not before savoring the last 40 minutes of the drive home in silence. We rolled the windows down, sucked in all the air we could, looked at the moon illuminating the mountains in the distance, and we could all tell that it was just what we needed to rejuvenate. After throwing myself into such a new experience, I didn't realize how frazzled I really was and how much a small piece of nature could calm me. It was a small adventure, but amazing nonetheless.
The city has taken center stage again and I've been working as much as possible and trying to get accustomed with setting a schedule. I moved to my new apartment this weekend, and I'm already loving it a hundred times more than my other place. I feel that this is were I will soon call "home" since it's the closest thing I've felt to home since leaving the States. Other than that, I continue to get to know the city, the people, and the customs that will soon become normal to me.
I know I'll be taking many more adventures within the next year or two, so I'm trying not to get to antsy to travel, though my desire to see everything is difficult to ignore. However, everything here as proved to be an adventure, so I'm always on my toes and rarely at a stand-still.
I miss you all and hope you're well. I continue to think of home everyday and how you're all doing.
Keep the hugs flowing.
Send some down to this little country for me.
Love love love.
Some pictures of Cajon de Maipo:
My initial assumption was that I wouldn't find work until March. Everyone told me that it was useless to hope for a job beforehand, since the whole country is on vacation right now (which means either getting out of Santiago, or sleeping until 4 or 5 in the afternoon), so I didn't put much stress into finding a job immediately. To my surprise, an institute contacted me last minute and asked if I could start giving classes immediately to a few bigwigs in a company called Oracle. A bit frazzled and taken aback, I of course said yes, and I went in for training. Training was simply getting a lot of paperwork shoved in my face, a brief overview of what to expect and what to do, and a lot of "good luck's"....Oh.dear.
My first day of work was yesterday and I nervously made my way to the other side of the city where the high rise buildings rest, and the dress code turns to a business-like norm. I had to keep reminding myself that although I'd never taught before, in this situation I was lucky enough to have all the information (the English language) already ingrained in my head, and my sole job was to simply speak (which my mother knows I have no problem with). This class was a one-on-one class, so it was much more like a conversation than anything. We sat in a board room and talked about ourselves, our lives, and anything else that came to the table. My student, Oscar, said he doesn't want to waste time with the books, but simply wants to speak. Ok...easy enough. I will be working with him until September (I have no idea what we'll talk about 5 hours a week until September) and I have a funny feeling that we'll either end up with nothing to talk about, or I'll turn into a foreign "therapist" for a few months... In addition to Oscar, I have added on three other private lessons as well. One is through my institute, and two are people who responded to an ad I put up on the internet who would like to pay me to talk to them. It boggles my mind a bit that someone would pay to simply have me use my own language in conversation, but I have quickly realized that they don't have access to native speakers very often and many advanced level students are just itching to get some speaking practice in.
All of a sudden, my life went from teetering on boring, to running around the city to meet with potential students and trying to set a schedule that fits around my teaching time and travel time. As of this week I have classes everyday, and I'm going to have to remember who is who and what we each talked about. Luckily, giving private lessons is fairly easy to do on a whim since they are simply paying me to open my mouth and form words in my native tongue.
Other than the job, things are going wonderfully here. I have a group of friends that I feel comfortable calling on a day-to-day basis, and I am looking forward to moving into my new apartment in March (many of you have asked for my new address, and I mentioned that I'd put it on my blog, so I'll include it at the end) so that I can be settled once and for all and not have to worry about moving. I spent my first day outside the city a few days back when some of my friends and I went to the mountains to escape the noise and eat some empanadas. It was absolutely beautiful, and I'll write about that and try to put some pictures in as soon as I can. I was beginning to forget about the nature part of Chile that I had been looking so forward to seeing, so this day trip was just what I needed to remind me of the gritty Chile that I hope to see more of.
I hope you're all doing well back home. I miss you all and think about you all the time. The longer I am here, the more it sinks in how far away I really am.
For those of you who wanted my address...
NEW ADDRESS AS OF MARCH:
Alexandra Covucci
250 Av. Manuel Montt
Providencia
Santiago de Chile
(They don't use postal codes...so no, it doesn't have a postal code)
CELL PHONE NUMBER (in case anyone needs to get in touch...I'll include my house phone number when I move there):
Dialing from the US- dial 011-56-962601413
011 = international access
56 = Chile country code
962601413 = my cell
(if anyone tries it and it doesn't work, please let me know)
Keep the hugs flowing :)
Send some my way
love love love...and more
I still surprise myself when I say "I've been here for three weeks". As of now, it all feels like an oddly long dream, and that any moment I'll wake up and wonder where I am and why my adventure had to end. Although three weeks doesn't sound like much, the time keeps piling on, and pretty soon I'll have been here for more than a month and I'll be fully settled.
Things have been going slow in February. My friend Valerie just arrived two nights ago from her backpacking trip around Ecuador and Peru. She has recently decided to settle in Santiago after meeting some Chileans along the way and after hearing the advice of many other foreigners. Thus, the past two days and the next few have me committed to helping her find a place in the city and get on her feet in Santiago. It'll be nice to have someone familiar right around the corner, and it'll be nice to be able to meet each others friends and open many other doors. It's always good to find new places to meet new people.
When I initially got here, I heard it was nearly impossible to break into the Chilean social circle unless you had an "in". At first, I was skeptical of how difficult it was, but I soon found that meeting young people in the city is nearly impossible unless you either attend school or unless you're of Chilean descent. However, what they told me about the "in" was more or less accurate as well. Somehow along the way I've met a few Chileans in random situations and chance encounters. Suddenly, I was introduced to a boatload of Chileans who are highly curious of why I would ever choose Santiago and/or if I've tried a Pisco Sour, a Piscola, or anything else made with Pisco brandy (they are quite proud of their Pisco). Every time I meet new people, I am amazed at how quickly life can expand and form into something you'd never expect for yourself.
I was having coffee with a friend yesterday, and I got a call from a guy named Pancho who I met the first week I was here through some American friends. I had run into him a few times in the street and he kept saying he wanted to introduce me to some of his Chilean friends, but I shrugged it off thinking that he was far too busy, and that eventually we wouldn't get in touch and we'd both forget to call. However, while I was getting coffee, I got an unexpected call from Pancho and he simply gave me an address and told me to come meet some friends (mom, don't worry it wasn't as sketchy as it sounds...) When I arrived, there were tons of Chileans, tons of music, and tons of meat cooking on the grill. Pancho took me by the hand and introduced me to as many of his friends as he could before informing me that he was the grill "chef" of the night, and that his responsibility was to cooking wonderful meat.
Immediately, I was thrown into a whirlwind of Chilean conversations and questions. It was absolutely wonderful. Everyone was so open-minded and curious about who I was, and we shared stories of who we are and what we like to do. I met so many people who were self proclaimed musicians and poets, and I couldn't believe how much culture there was floating around in this small back yard near the hills. For the rest of the evening we danced, ate beef, and talked until we could all finally understand each other.
It's moments like those that remind me of what I'm doing here and why it's worth all the fears and frustrations that come along with it. It's only been three weeks, and I'm learning how to make new friends in a new country with a new language.
I remember looking up at the sky last night in between conversations and thinking, "if this is a dream, I think I'll sleep a little longer".
I miss you all and I hope things are going well. I think of you all the time.
Keep the hugs flowing.
Please send some my way.
Love. Love. Love.
