Chile: Where every day feels like the best day of your life and no matter how hard i try, the wheels on this car keep going and speeding down this street, stopping for no one.
I find my heart preparing to break into a hundred tiny pieces. Not only will i leave a huge chunk of my heart here in Chile but that huge chunk is going to be divided into so many pieces to so many places. To each of the amazing people I have met and loved, as they all return home or stay in this country. To the streets I walked every single day and the people I passed along said streets. To the panaderías and plazas, the U.S. will never find a match. To my home in Viña. To the metro and the micros and the port. To the beach and the contemplative rocks where I sat to watch the sun set and the waves roll in. To the hills of Valparaíso and the many hidden treasures I discovered up there. To the starry Southern Hemisphere sky. To the many many many beautiful memories that I hope to never ever forget. These are where the pieces of my heart shall stay.
I´m waxing incredibly nostalgic and i havent even left yet. my excuse is that this week, in just two short days, the goodbyes are going to begin. as if they havent already begun. i hate goodbyes. i much prefer "see you later" over "have a good life". i cant imagine never seeing some of these people again and I know that I will. I trust that I will. And i hope to come back to Chile some day. it will never be the same and i might even be disappointed, but i hope to return all the same. i dont want to say goodbye. i dont want this dream of a life to end. this life where all i have is fun, intermixed with some work here and there, where i can travel and explore and walk for hours without even getting into a car or any other form of transportation other than my own two feet. the truth is, i dont want Chile to end. im sorry, i do miss you all. but i dont want Chile to end. i dont want the time to arrive when i look back at the thousands of pictures i have taken here and i remember the good times ive had as a distant memory, with a little smile playing on my lips or maybe a laugh out loud, in regards to a memory.
moving on from my realization that this is really and truly coming to an end and well, for me i have a bit more time than the majority of my friends here but still, saying goodbye to them will not be fun and i am NOT looking forward to tuesday. or thursday. or friday. these are goodbye days. think of me will you? i know you do, i think about you every day i am here but especially on those days. you are reading my blog so i assume i can count on you for that. :)
ill rewind a bit to Thanksgiving because everyone wants to know how my Chilean thanksgiving went. to be honest, i kind of forgot it was turkey day until Thursday arrived. i would tell you it was the best day ever but i know ive said that alot and as i said with what i started this blog with, just about every day here seems like the best day ever. can you see why i dont want to leave? its not reality, and i like that, being the idealist and dreamer and traveler that i am. but really, it was a GREAT day. the sun was shining and it was really warm and beautiful out. I woke up and went to my last Spanish culture class and said goodbye to all of those people that I had met and shared experiences and thoughts and learned Spanish with this past semester. I then went to the international office computer lab. i spent the next 2 hours or so laughing harder than i have laughed in a long time, having the time of my life. so many people pass through the intl office and we were all pretty giddy from finishing a lot of studying and projects and just being able to enjoy a pretty day. after being really loud and obnoxious with all of our laughter and camaderie i went to the market to buy a bunch of delcious fruit with adam jordan and leslie. i love fruit. bought some strawberries, peaches, chirimoya, bananas, oranges. remember how i told you i dont want to leave? summer time in chile means delicious fruit time too. hoo-rah.
the afternoon was pretty tranquil, I cut up the fruit and made a fruit salad. hung out with jordan and helped him buy presents for his family members, walked around in the day, ate some delicious ice cream and smiled.
i then ran off to a potluck with the group of characters i met the first week of school, my orientation group. we all brought food and shared it, talking about the end of the semester and our travel plans. no turkey. there is turkey in chile because i ate some last week but its expensive and they dont sell it whole. so we had chicken instead. fine, im in chile. the only thing i really missed was getting to eat pumpkin pie. that may have to be arranged for when i return...;) chicken and my fruit salad, salad with avocado, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread (but not how i like it, also going to make some of that when i return home..), some good red wine, and yeah, a meal. so that was fun. getting back to viña was a bit of an adventure as i was far out of town and there were no buses, but i eventually found one and it all worked out....
my next activity of thanksgiving was meeting up with the group in viña to meet heidis parents and share thanksgiving dinner with them. i´d already ate of course but we did have some delicious desserts. i had a frozen lúcuma cake which was amazing of course.
the third and final activity of the evening consisted of going to Valpo (Yay!) and hanging out in the basement level of a jazz club, dancing the night away to old school pop songs and laughing with friends.
all in all, a fantastic Thanksgiving. :)
today was super fun as well, i went to Valpo and climbed up one of the hills to a museum where they were having an outdoor foto contest, anyone could bring their prints to hang outside and be admired by passers-by. fantastic. i love photography. the area was brimming with people, looking at the photography, snapping pictures, hanging out with family, slowly wandering enjoying a lazy Sunday. i too enjoyed the photography, went into the museum and looked at more art and political cartoons which i understood most of but a few of the jokes were lost on me. finally i went to the main floor of the building and encountered a little cafe. im kind of obsessed with cafes. i had the best kuchen i have had in chile, raspberry. wow. it was incredible. along with a little cup of coffee and some gasified water. i spent time there delighting my taste buds and getting some writing out onto the pages of my journal. yeah, that rocked.
later this evening i helped decorate the Christmas tree. yes, there is one month til Christmas! ah! we put little balls and ribbon on it and it looks pretty awesome if my opinion counts. fun family activity, listening to the radio with its mix of english and spanish songs both of which to my delight i knew the majority of and could sing along. we dont do a whole lot as a family outside of lunching so this was special and fun.
im going to leave you all with a little gem of a story. a couple days ago i was sitting in the living room, chillin with my computer when the 2 dogs began to bark. peca NEVER barks. but there she was, literally throwing her head back howling while tula barked louder. for 10 minutes or so. obnoxious! i hate the dogs but it was annoying so i tried to comfort them but it didnt work. so i went back to my computer and turned up my music. a few minutes later, i had to get up to get some stuff in my room and i found a little pile of dog poo in the hallway. im not sure why i didnt deal with it right then, but i didnt feel like it...sometimes it works better for me if i just stick to one task at a time. so the poo pile stayed. fast forward to a few minutes later when i was running to my room to grab more stuff that i needed. well, im sure you can guess what happened. my barefeet landed right in the pile of poo, forgetting to jump over it in my rush. i stopped and just started laughing then super grossed out immediatley trying to wash my foot off. gross. so i guess i learned my lesson, clean up the poo first before continuing with other tasks. if you think on that deeper, you can find a life moral. good luck with that.
so apparently now i will have good luck b-c i guess thats what you get when you step in poo. so im told.
all is well here in Chileland, i hope you all can say the same in your respective places. send me some messages as far as how you are doing! see you all soon! :)
love and a BIG hug,
katie :)
p.s. i leave to go camping december 1st and after this time life is projected to be crazy between trips and goodbyes and traveling. my dad will be here til the 14th and then i might be able to write you a little but there will probably be too much to write about. ill see what i can do. needless to say, in case you forgot the date, i return to Indianapolis on Tuesday, December 18 around 12:30pm. im wearing my flip flops in protest of the almost certain frigidity of the weather. have a most wonderful week and i hope you get to experience a SUPER FUN day here soon enough! :)
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