Lamentablemente

The Word of the Day, I was informed, was lamentablemente.

lah-mehn-tah'-bleh-mehn-teh
(adverb) unfortunately, regrettably

Examples

1. Lamentablemente, cuando llegamos a la playa había empezado a llover.
   Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain.
2. Lamentablemente, cuando Claudia llegó al viñedo, Eduardo estaba encamado, sin muchos ánimos de seguir luchando.
   
   

   Regrettably, when Claudia got to the vineyard, Eduardo was bedridden, with not much of a will to continue fighting.

   
   

   Both coincidentally and quite lamentable in and of itself, I not only already knew the word, but had also had it thrown at me just a few hours prior.  It was used as an opener to laundry list of unfortunate developments in my work situation.  Lamentablemente, the mining company had confirmed earlier that day that they changed their mind about needing a native speaker at the site.  Lamentablemente, they were now requesting a teacher who was qualified both to teach both English to their Chilean workers as well as Spanish to their Canadian workers.  Lamentablemente, I didn't fit the bill.  Lamentablemente, since I was only staying until July and wasn't going to the mine anymore, it wasn't worth their time to give me a visa... 
   
   I stared at my boss for a few seconds in silence until I could absorb the full shock of the blow.  Her tone of voice was so light and casual that I needed a moment to bend my brain around the words she was saying and wring out the weight of their true meaning.  Her tone and facial expression said something more along the lines of, "Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain." but the words coming out out of her mouth were infinitely more destructive.
   
   In my mind's eye, I could see all of my plans lined up in a neat little row.  With one clumsy flick of the wrist, she knocked down the first of them and they fell like dominoes; each one colapsing onto the next.  There wasn't a glimmer of sympathy involved, not even a simple "I'm sorry", just the dreaded Lamentablemente. I was back to square one.
   
   I felt like Charlie Brown, running at full speed towards that football, only to have it yanked away at the last second and fall flat on my ass.  That's beginning to describe my relationship with the academy alarmingly well.  It seems to be empty promise after empty promise with them lately.  I always approach cautiosly at first but (much like Charlie) am quickly convinced to give more trust than has been earned.  
   
   Within the next few weeks, I'll be scrambling to put together a new plan (be it in Iquique or elsewhere).  When my other boss gets back from vacation, I'm sure he'll have lots of lovely things to tell me about how great it will be for me if I stay on here in Iquique.  He'll hold out another football and things will seem shiny and new and promising again.  Maybe I'll run after it, or maybe I'll just walk away.  
   

Noticias del Norte

Well, I´ve officially been back in Iquique for a week now and I must say, I'm feeling pretty awesome about the decision I've made.  But before I get into that, can we take a moment to appreciate the new blog layout and the little animation thingy that I made?  What do you think?  Would it detract from my blogger street cred if I told you that I made it using paint?  Shit, too late.

Anyways, as I was saying... life in Iquique has been great.  I have been surfing, tanning and spending time with a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in what feels like a really long time.  I'm also meeting a bunch of new people from all over the world, thanks to my new job.  A few days ago, I started working  as a receptionist at the hostel where I'm staying.  The job has been a serious lifesaver since I came back with close to no money and have yet to start any classes.  The kids' course I was promised didn't pan out after all because of low enrollment, but things are rolling right along with the mining job.  On Friday, I spent three hours in the clinic doing a ton of different exams. Now have the official stamp of approval to go up to the mine (from the medical perspective, at least).  The visa situation is another story but that is suppose to be getting sorted out this week.

Today I met up with my co-worker, Maja, who use to work at the same site. She gave me the low-down on the students and a few extra tricks of the trade.  Looks like I'm in for a cold "Bolivian Winter", which might actually be nice after so many weeks of face-melting heat.  My projected start date is next Monday but it still feels like there is a lot to do and I'm a bit dubious.  Meanwhile, I'm digging the job at the hostel and taking things one day at a time.

I'm not really sure what to expect at the mine site.  To be honest, I've heard some slightly scary things about the working conditions but I'm actually looking forward to getting an insider's view of something so essential to Chile's entire economy.  I'm also stoked for the improvement in my own economical status that this job will make.

Overall, I imagine it to be pretty much exactly like this, only with copper instead of diamonds...and in Spanish of course.

She Left as She Came; in the Rain and with Too Much Luggage

Sunset south of Iquique (taken from the window of my bus)

After innumerable warnings about the quantity of rain in the south (supposedly regardless of season), I experienced exactly two days of it.  First there was the beautiful misty morning that greeted me upon my arrival to Puerto Varas.  Then, after almost a month of uncharacteristically high temperatures, the south of Chile granted me one more beautiful day of rain in Temuco before I set off on a 25-hour bus ride northward through the driest desert on earth. 

My decision to leave Pucón was a combination of push and pull factors.  For now, I´ll keep it classy and leave the details of those push factors off of the internet.  In all honestly, I really would have loved to spend more time in the south but, to put it nicely, the stars just weren't alined this time.  I will say that met some genuinely amazing people during my trip and I have no doubt that I'll be back to visit them before my time in Chile is up.  However, for the time-being, my place is in the North.

It seems strange to call a place home when, a year ago, I barely knew it existed.  However, upon my return to Iquique, there was no denying it; I was home.  I've done my fair share of running around since I left Iquique in late December and, after six weeks of being away (and 95 hours on a bus), it feels sweet to be back.  For all the things I love about traveling and being in new and exciting places, there's something undeniably comfortable about familiar places and faces.  After running into several friends on the street this evening and popping in to visit a few more, my decision to return to Iquique was reaffirmed.  It feels good to be with my peeps.  Some reassuring news from work also helped sweeten the deal.

For now, it looks like my near future will involve a little waiting and thus require a bit of patience but I've become pretty accustomed to that.  Unfortunately February is vacation season in Chile which means everything runs just slightly worse than usual.  Luckily, I have surf, sun and good people to keep me distracted while things get organized.  The picture is a little foggy but it looks like my career in mining will be taking off after-all. I, as usual, will keep ya posted.

On Family Life & Fleeing the Country

"Well, transience always carries with it an air of possibility" 

-T.H. Watkins

I snagged that little gem of a quote from a PBS special about the gold rush a few years back and am recently finding that it's becoming increasingly applicable to my life.  

One thing I've noticed about that so-called "transience" is that the speed at which it can change your day-to-day reality is remarkable.  Unknown landscapes become your backyard overnight and complete strangers become your family in a matter of hours.  After a few days, something that was so recently foreign to you, becomes the new norm and you slip seamlessly into routine, just in time for everything to change again.

That's a pretty accurate way to sum up the past few weeks of my life.  In Santiago, I spent 3 days with a friend of a friend and her roommate and daughter.  They were absolutely lovely.  I spent my days doing job research and load after load of free laundry (uh-may-zing after 3 months without a washing machine) and my nights eating onces with the family and talking with them until the wee hours of the morning. Their kindness and generosity overwhelmed me.  They not only put me up but also fed me and offered to help me find a job in Santiago, a place to stay in Valdivia and even to loan me money.  I didn't accept any of those offers but I did take them up on a suggestion to leave a bag at there house for the time-being and thank God I did.  Next time I go abroad, all I'm bringing is a change of clothes and a tooth brush, that's it.  Ok, maybe a stick of deodorant...maybe.  Lugging around all of this baggage has seriously been the bane of my existence on this trip.

And I've been doing a lot of lugging.  As I mentioned, I kicked off my summer in the south with a few days in Puerto Varas where I couch surfed for the first time.  If you're unfamiliar with couch surfing, it is an amazing site that connects people from all of the world.  Travelers can contact people who live in the areas where they're traveling and be hosted in those places for free (have I mentioned lately that I'm broke...pinch every peso!)  I'll admit, I was slightly sketched out by the whole thing at first.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my valuables hidden and my pepper spray handy upon arrival.  There's always that initial suspicion of someone who wants to do something nice for you for no good reason but it didn't take me long to loosen up.  

My second couch surfing experience in Caburgua was even more amazing.  The girl who hosted me was renting a lakeside cabin in Playa Blanca with her family.  I spent a couple of nights with them there and then went back to their house in Temuco (about an hour away) for one extra night.  The whole family was such buena onda.  I had an amazing time with them.  Not only was the place beautiful but the people were tons of fun.  Great location, awesome company, good food & drinks and all for free?!  Holllller.

To be honest, these random little encounters I've had with now four different individuals/families (in Santiago, Puerto Varas, Caburgua/Temuco and now in Pucón) have been some of my best experiences in Chile.  Hooray for talking to strangers.

Now, I find myself right smack in the middle of a completely different family; complete with a mom, dad, two small children (6 and 9), a few dogs and twenty-something foreigners from all over the world.   

After my night in Temuco, I bid farewell to my new adopted family and headed back to Pucón where I had landed a job at  La Bicicleta; a hostel/restaurant in the central part of this cute little city.  For now, my plans to work in the mine are off, or at least postponed for the time-being.  In the meantime, I'm going to take advantage of being in this gorgeous (although, right now, hot as hell) place and try to do all of the outdoorsy stuff I can.  Bring on the hiking, kayaking, rafting, canyoning, biking and whatever else you've got for me Pucón.  

Tomorrow I'm off to do an (insanely expensive) border hop to Argentina to renew my visa and earn my ninth Chilean passport stamp upon re-entry.  I'll be hanging out in San Martin de los Andes for the day (maybe day and a half) thus bringing my total bus time for the past month up to a record-breaking 58.5 hours (ew).  I'll be setting off around 10:30 AM and returning either later in the same night or the next morning depending on the bus schedule, available accommodations and, frankly, how I feel.  Who knows, if I really fall in love with it, I may never return.  Crazier things have happened.  I guess that's the beauty of transience, anything is possible.

Puerto Varas: Sweden in Spanish

 

Blame it on the fact that I've been stranded in a desert for the past nine months and everything green looks the same to me, but upon my arrival to Puerto Varas on Tuesday, I couldn't help but be reminded of my very first international adventure in Sweden, almost four years ago. 

Perhaps it was the lush vegetation, the quaint little country houses with streams of smoke pouring out of cute little chimneys or the lingering smell of waffle cones which seems to follow you freaking everywhere (or is that just me?) but there is something about Puerto Varas that left me feeling quite deja vu-ish.  Despite a signifigant difference in the blonde population, the two places are strangely similar.  Every so often, my reminiscing would be interruped by the shrill cry of "weon" reminding me that I wasn´t in Scandinavia but rather suprisingly in Chile; the same country where I´ve spent the past eleven months.

I arrived in Puerto Varas around 9:30 in the morning. The gorgeous green countryside was draped in fog and it was raining just the perfect amount.  I made my way to the house where I was couch surfing just in time for introductions and a quick breakfast before I dropped off my things and set out to wander aimlessly for a while, as (you may have noticed) is my tendency.  My trek lasted about two hours and wasn't unlike the walk around Värmdö from which this blog got its name.  

Later in the day, I had an interview for a language school.  At this point it looks like I´ll be returning to Iquique to work in the mine but I´m keeping my options open.  If I've learned anything in the past year, it is have a plan B.  The school was great and the owner was super nice but the salary is about half what I´d be making up North.  Womp womp.

I went out with my couchsurfing host and some friends of hers for a few beers (can you say microbrews on tap? ohhh yeaahhh) on Tuesday night and the next morning I went to the National Park .  Needless to say, a few hours of nature was just what the doctor ordered.  Since I´m a little crunched for time at the moment, I´ll  just let the pictures (below) speak for themselves. 

 

Próspero Año y Felicidad

 

Cheap cherimoya champagne, plastic rainbow wigs, and far, far too many hours without sleep; if how we spend our New Year's Eve is at all indicative of how we will spend the next year, mine will be filled with love, laughter, live music, fireworks and more public urination than I'd care to admit.

Following the advice of several friends who told us traffic would be crazy if we didn't get to Valparaíso early enough, we left Santiago at 8:30 AM which landed us in Valpo around 10:30.  We didn't book a place to stay since things were so pricey because of NYE.  We figured we'd be up all night anyways so why not just wait a few extra hours and go back to Santiago in the morning?  I carried around our few essentials in my purse and we got ready in a gas station bathroom (keeping it classy, as usual).

During the day, we entertained ourselves by wandering around (as if we didn't do that enough while we were there over Christmas) and meeting up with different friends throughout the day.  We also did a boat tour of the bay which was nice (and only about 4 bucks), rode the famous outdoor elevators and ate a big delicious seafood lunch.

When nightfall hit, we headed to the Plaza Sotomayor for a concert, street party and an awesome fireworks display.  After ringing in the new year, dancing and drinking there for a few hours, we met up with a friend from Santiago and a group of his friends and stuck with them for a few more hours of aimless ambling around the city (only this time slightly more inebriated).

Around sun up, we were kicking ourselves for not booking our return bus until quarter to eleven.  At seven, we headed to the bus station which was a virtual refugee camp.  Displaced partiers were strewn from one side to the other; littered across the floors and up and down the staircases.  We wove our way around the labyrinth of bodies, only to find that it would be impossible to change our tickets for an earlier time.  We decided to adopt an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach and found a loose scrap of cardboard, nestled ourselves amongst the other NYE casualties and made ourselves comfy. 

The bus station personal eventually got fed up and intentionally set off the fire-alarm...three times.  When that proved to be ineffective, they sent in a police officer to yell and shake his baton around.  I had a nice spot next to the fellow with the tye-dyed fanny pack (pictured below) until the cop starting using his baton to smack the railing that was propping up my head.  I'm not sure if his plan of attack was entirely successful but it was enough of an annoyance to make Jeff and I relocate to the grass outside.

By the time we bussed back to Santiago, metro-ed to our friends' house to pick up our stuff and walked to our new hostel, it was almost 2 pm.  We stumbled through the front door and dragged our feet up the four floors of winding stairs just in time to collapse into a big bed and sleep off what was left of New Years Day.

Chile has some interesting New Years Ever Traditions, of which I participated in just one (see photo above).  Most of them are meant to bring financial prosperity  and, in retrospect, I probably should have done more of them. There is still a lot of uncertainty about what 2013 will bring.  Will it take me back to Iquique to work in the mine?  Will it pull me south to Puerto Varas to start a new teaching job there?  Will the yellow underwear trick fail me and send me scraping together monedas to buy my return ticket to California?  To be honest, all three are possible, if not probable.

If my New Year's Eve serves as any kind of window into what my new year will look like, there will surely be ups and downs ahead.  Things may be sticky (like the cocktail of fake snow and booze that I spent a good part of the night drenched in) but I will find good things in surprising places (like confetti in my bra the next day).  There will be beautiful miracles (like finding a drunk friend in a crowd of thousands) and some mysteries that are better left unsolved (like what kind of meat was used in the 'sándwich de potito' aka 'butt sandwich' that Jeff ate in Plaza Sotomayor).  There will be some things that instantly become crystal clear to me (like the fact that a three dollar bottle of champagne sold on a street corner is bound to be terrible, no matter how much I like cherimoya) but there will others that I will never fully understand (like this cryptic message scrolling on loop our entire bus ride from Valpo to Santiago).

A merry new years to all and to all a young man neoplan bus young man truck.

German technology. Chinese prices.

21.12.12

All of this recent talk about self-driving cars has got me thinking, why on earth has no one invented self-packing suitcases yet?  Driving a car is really not an inconvenience.  Moving is a nightmare.  Since I left home at 17, I have gone through the process of moving all of my earthly possessions an innumerable amount of times.

Ok, maybe not so innumerable.  I have done the official count (using almost of my fingers and some of my toes) and the grand total is fourteen.  FOURTEEN times!  I've moved fourteen times in the past seven years.  Tonight, for the fifteenth time, I find myself slipping into the old routine.  It goes something like this:

Step One: Wait until the last possible moment.
Step Two: Drink an ungodly amount of caffeine
Step Three: Find any smaller and seemingly more manageable task to distract yourself from the actual task at hand
Step Four:  Organize and pack every item possible before your heavy eyelids refuse to tolerate any more resistance and you are forced to submit to sleep
Step Five: Push all remaining clutter off of the organizational epicenter (aka, bed)*
Step Six: Crawl in
Step Seven: Pass out

*If exhaustion is too strong and you are unable to clear off the bed, just push the junk over and make a little space for yourself to sleep in.  Finish packing in the morning.

Although, like most, I consider the process of moving a special kind of hell, there's also something undeniably therapeutic about it.  While rifling through old keepsakes, we are reminded of so many good times and good people.  Moving also gives us an opportunity to take a good hard look at the objects we are lugging around and determine whether or not their essential in our lives.  If not, we (hopefully) chuck them out, simplifying our lives (and making room for new junk).

The last night in any apartment always feels a little surreal and tonight is no exception.  Tomorrow evening, Jeff and I will head down to Santiago on an extremely long bus ride through the Atacama desert.  We will spend about a week and half bouncing back between Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Santiago.  On the third of January, Jeff will sadly head back to the USA and I will...well, as usual, I don't know what I will do.

I've become accustomed to dealing with a certain amount of uncertainty in my life as of late and, although it is a bit overwhelming at times, I'm trying to roll with the punches.  I'm still waiting to hear from the academy about my possible contract up in the mine.  In the meantime, I'm keeping my options open and considering either coming back to Iquique to teach Summer school kids' classes or heading South to explore (and possibly find work there).  As usual, I'll keep ya'll posted as plans progress.

As for now, I'm just glad to say that we all officially made it through another apocalypse.  This may be the end of another chapter, but it's certainly not the end of the word.

On Lewis Carroll and being a libra

"Alice laughed, 'There's no use trying,' she said 

'one can't believe impossible things.' 

'I dare say you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 

 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. 

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as 

six impossible things before breakfast."

 In case you didn't know, the Spanish translation for Alice in Wonderland is Alicia en el País de las Maravillas.  Since moving to Chile, I've been forced to accept the fact that people here will always wholeheartedly believe that my name is actually Alice and that I'm just trying to "Chilean it up" by introducing myself as Alicia.  Lots of my Chilean friends call me Alice; some because they genuinely think that's my real name and others just to tease me.  Needless to say, I hear an "Alicia en el País de las Maravillas" reference almost daily. Recently, this inspired me to re-watch the old Disney moviewhich got me thinking about a couple of things...  

First, hot damn Lewis Carroll did a lot of drugs.   

A. Lot. Of. Drugs...

Secondly, the story about the walrus manipulating the cute little baby oysters, devouring them and then getting chased by a redneck with a hammer is much more twisted than I remember.  Third of all (yes, here's where we get to the point of this post), the movie got me thinking about the idea of imagining "impossible" things.  I suppose, that unlike Alice (well, the other Alice) and the queen, I'm less concerned with the impossible as I find myself consumed with deciding between the seemingly endless stream of the very possible possibilities before me.

On a 40 minute walk between home and work, my life plan might change 3 or 4 times.  Now consider the fact that I do that walk between 2 and 4 times a day and things start to get complicated.  In the course of 24 hours, we're talking about a dozen different versions of the few years of my life.  I'm constantly tossing new ideas around in my head and adding new cities and countries into the mix.

Currently, I'm pretty settled on staying in Chile until next July when I will return to Cali to fulfill my bridesmaid's duties at the Bawk-stamijam wedding.  However, the details of the next seven months until then are not quite hammered out yet.  The idea that was rolling around in my head for quite a while involved moving to the south of Chile for a month or two and then going back to Santiago from March to July.

  Although this is still a possibility, my boss is now pushing for me to stay in Iquique and work up in the copper mine (teaching, not mining).  The schedule would either be 4 days in the mine, 3 days in Iquique or (for half the salary) 2 days in the mine and 5 days in Iquique.  Each plan has its pros and cons but, though I'm kind of getting ready to move on from Iquique, the idea of saving up a little bit of money (finally) and having the opportunity to travel more within South America seems particularly alluring at the moment.  As far as I know, the contract would be for 4 months.  I won't know the start date or any details until mid-December and then it's decision-making time. 

Until then, I'm trying not to think about it too hard.  The queen of hearts might be able to imagine 6 impossible things before breakfast but leave it to me to dream up 6 lifetimes worth of plans before las once.