It's December 2nd which means things are officially coming to a close. It means I will be home in less than two months now and that more tidal waves of change are on the horizon. November ended with a frenzy of events and random happenings that kept me happily busy and sometimes quite frustrated. On the work side of things, we finished three main events all within a week's span of each other to leave us dragging our feet and our eyelids just to make it through each following day. The experiences were interesting, but I am happily content with the knowledge that I only have 12 more official work days left until I am free as a bird. As fantastic as this experience was, I'm ready for a new one. My last event was simple and rather relaxing. My boss, Pablo, drove me out to a dinner party that our client was having and instead of running the show we ended up wine tasting, rodeo watching, and enjoying an incredible meal. It was a nice way to end things.
Within those weeks of non-stop events, we had some visitors in our house that I hope never to meet again: the well known and highly disliked family of cockroaches. I awoke in the middle of the night one night to get a glass of water, and I was pleasantly greeted by a party of cockroaches who were helping themselves to whatever happened to be on our kitchen floors, counters, sink etc...ew. We called the fumigator who came the following day to leave us with piles of dead cockroaches that were hiding in our walls. Unfortunately, for someone who is incredibly afraid of any type of bug (minus ladybugs and fireflies) this was not a fun experience. Well, I felt more relieved knowing we had blasted them out of our walls, and I began to sleep better and better each night. This came to a halt this past Friday night when I awoke suddenly (after about two weeks without seeing a single cockroach) to find a huge one crawling on my arm, another under my covers and a third conveniently up my shirt. Needless to say, I had a minor breakdown in the middle of the night trying to figure out how and why they came into my room, my bed and my clothes. It wasn't a pretty sight. As of now, I have sprayed every sort of cockroach killer possible, I have surrounded my bed with powder (they don't like dry things apparently) and we have called the fumigator once again who came yesterday. Quite the adventure. Our building informed us that unfortunately the 10th floor has a cockroach problem (gee, really?) and that they will be taking steps to look at it soon (aka: they'll address it in a few months...). I'm hoping we'll be pretty safe from another infestation at least for the next month or so until I flee from there.
After Friday nights incident, a friend of mine and I escaped to the beach to meet up with my roommate and her family (and 12 other people) to celebrate Thanksgiving in a house they rented for the weekend. We went to a small town called Zapallar which is on the coast about two hours away from Santiago (3 by bus). However, due to our attempt at cutting the travel time down (in a number of silly ways) we ended up arriving 5 hours after leaving the city. Luckiy, getting there was an adventure in and of itself so we remained pretty content with our effort. We spent the weekend in a gorgeous little house owned by a Chilean chef that had just enough room for everyone and a view overlooking the beach from the balcony. We showed our Chilean friends what a real Thanksgiving was like as we served two turkeys and many more typical dishes. It was odd enjoying it on the deck in the sunshine, but it was so great. We stuffed ourselves (as tradition) and layed around the house, the beach, the deck and anywhere else that would hold us. My friend and I roughed the freezing water for about an hour and then decided it was time to get out once our extremities stung and we were nothing but shivering messes. We huddled on the beach in a sleeping bag and clothes while those around us roasted in the sun (see below).
The town itself was home to houses that lined the shores and an array of colors that I havent seen in a long time. Both the vegetation and the residencies boasted bright colors that mixed with each other to create stunning scenery. The whole weekend was a treat for our bellies and our eyes. We stayed up until the last hours of the weekend and luckily got a ride home so we didn't have to have a bus adventure so late in the night.
Now, it's December 2nd and things are winding down. I have a few breezy weeks of work left, many goodbyes coming up as people meander out of the city and onto different things, and trips to plan for. I'll be going to San Pedro de Atacama for four days this month with my Chilean co-worker/friend before spending my last week in Santiago and heading down South. It's all going to fly right past my eyes before I even realize it, but I hope it takes my breath away as it does. In less than two months, I'll be home.
I'll update soon about my trip to San Pedro and my last days here in the city before heading south with a tent and a backpack.
I hope you're all well and staying warm up there in the north.
Keep the hugs flowing.
Save some for me.
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