Parque Santa Lucia

This parque is one of my favorite places to explore. It was an army fort in the 1800's and now is a maze of pathways, fountains, trees, and vines. You can see the "New" Santiago peeking out from the background.

Last night I had my first dream in Spanish

I can’t quite remember what it was about except that at one point I was getting directions and the end of the dream someone gave me a dog and I named her Lula – short for Talula. Weird right? When Spanish comes back into my dreams though, I get pretty excited because I know my brain is getting back into it even if I still have doubts while I’m awake. And the dog? … an extra bonus I guess.

I had my third day of classes at Escuela Bella Vista, which I am really enjoying. Its great to be a student again!! The school is full of people from all over the world, which is exciting. There are a couple other Americans (all from Northern Cali, I don’t get it) but it has a really neat international feel. There are students from Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, Finland, Sweden, England, Italy, New Zealand, Turkey, and uh… Northern California - among other countries. The collective experience of traveling and living abroad is incredible; I’ve talked to people who have lived in Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Brazil, Peru, China, Japan, Thailand, all over Europe, and even Antarctica (for real). And now they’re in Chile. For many people Spanish is their 3rd or 4th language, which I think is SO COOL. I spend 4 hours a day in class and each afternoon there is an optional hour and a half with the professors and other students of conversation or a movie, and Friday nights a couple hours at the bar (its amazing how fluent we become after a few cervezas!). The class style is complete immersion and most of the students are dedicated to perfecting their skills so we all speak in Spanish regardless of how long it takes us to get the point across, and by the time I leave in the afternoon I’m starving (why does thinking make you hungry?) and exhausted. I've learned so much already and I look forward to class every morning which is a great feeling.

Oh… an update on the apartment situation! I went to meet Neva and her other potential roommate Carolina yesterday to go up to the flat in Lastarria. And shoot, as much as I LOVED the neighborhood, the apartment wasn’t really what I was looking for. Both girls are British and are in Santiago working for the British consulate. They don’t really speak Spanish at all and hang out with a lot of “Ex-pats” (as many foreigners refer to themselves here - i hate the word), which kind of turned me off. If I wanted to do that, I could have just stayed nice and comfortable in Jackson. Also, they were kind of pressuring me into signing a lease, which had to be done today and if they didn’t have a third person (me) they would lose the apartment. I don’t know… bad vibe. I backed out as nicely as I could, so I’m back in the housing game, but definitely more certain now of what it is I’m looking for.

I do still believe everything I wrote in my last posting though… you never know how good things find their way to you, sometimes it happens only AFTER what seems like a disappointment, so I’m still hopeful that something good in the housing department is on its way.

Whoa

Wow, OK. So I’m not really sure how to start today. First, sorry I’ve been gone so long! I’m hoping to post every couple of days but this week has been NUTS. Nuts, really… and every time I started to write it just couldn’t come close to what I was feeling. Yesterday marked exactly a week since I arrived in Santiago. Besides a long spell of loneliness yesterday while I was sitting all by myself on a perfect afternoon in a beautiful old park while pairs of friends and lovers and the cutest families walked around me (blah, that sucked), I've been feeling really strong and even kicking butt a little bit.

I went into commando-kelly "survival" mode last Monday… intently searching for a temporary space to unpack my bags for a couple weeks, scouring for a more permanent one to start building a little life here, trying to buy a cell phone (an absolute essential here), buzzing off to meetings at the NESsT office to finalize my responsibilities, sifting through the sea of Spanish schools, orienting myself to the Metro and trying my luck on the Micros (deathbuses – yikes!), and more than anything wandering around the city hoping to find a tiny glimmer of where exactly I might find MY place in this humungous metropolis.

I am a huge HUGE believer in vibe - in that gut feeling that you cant describe, even to yourself but for some reason things are RIGHT. I can think of a hundred examples but you know what I mean, right? Like all these pieces that are floating around in the universe suddenly slide into place and BAM it’s all very clear. And it’s just good. Serendipity, Symmetry, Fate. Whatever it is, I’ve tried very hard to surrender to it… not in a hippie weirdo way but when I let go and just let things happen or take a leap in the direction that FEELS right (thought not necessarily the easiest way to go) it works in very magical ways. Which makes me think that there is some method to the madness and randomness of life but that’s a whole other discussion. Probably a whole other blog.

I’m not sure if I can explain it very well but... from the beginning my move to Chile has felt much different from all of my other travels. I think its been a long time coming and once I put it in motion and decided I was going to go for it - more than a year ago now - incredible doors have opened (sometimes with a little more force on my part ☺). It has felt like a big wave, building and gaining an incredible amount of energy as it all comes together piece by piece. There is something inside of me this time that has been very still, very calm and focused and unafraid, not even nervous, really. It’s a great feeling, not one that I’m used to – this “calmness”. But I’ve decided to trust it and plow ahead, pulling on the small threads that seem right even when the minutia seems to not be working.

So getting to the point of this entry (I hope you don’t mind we took the long way here) today has been one of those BAM! Whoo Hoo! YAY! days. I’ll explain… I’ve been doing a lot of “wandering” as I mentioned before – checking things out, let it all sink in, trying to keep an open mind, putting my feelers out. My third day, I stumbled upon this great little neighborhood called ‘Lastarria’ which is tucked in between Parque Forestal (Forrest! Yay!), Museo de Bellas Artes, 2 Universities, and has so much personality – little street cafes, Turkish bakeries, winding pedestrian walkways that dead end into gardens, music clubs, eclectic record stores, old bookstores, tons of tiny shops with shiny, funky stuff, young fun interesting looking people walking in the street. Over this week its become almost a sanctuary for me… trees, dogs, bicycles, people doing that crazy Brazilian capoeira thing and playing music in the park… but everywhere – EVERYWHERE - I looked (and I was being industrious as hell) it seemed impossible to find any kind of room rental anywhere close to this special place. I was bummed and thought maybe I should go door-to-door and shop-to-shop to see if anyone knew of a room because THIS place was IT. I never got up the nerve to go that far but I might have… IF TODAY IT HADN’T LANDED IN MY LAP.

I was on the internet at school after my first day of Spanish classes (which were awesome) and searching AGAIN for housing when one of the teachers, Christian, asks me to hang around for a bit because he knows of a girl looking for a roommate in the Bella Vista neighborhood. Bella Vista, I thought… not what I want, but I had seen so many CRAPPY rooms for way too much money, I figured I’d wait 20 minutes and if she didn’t show I’d hit the pavement again. Suddenly this beautiful girl comes blowing down the hallway and into the computer lab and exclaims “Kelly!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before but it turns out she overheard me talking to Christian last week about my apartment search and asked him about me. We went to talk about the flat she was about to move into, and it just so happens she is looking for a third roommate – her excitement about the place was contagious and it turns out it wasn’t in Bella Vista but the EXACT street that I had been so drawn to in Lastarria, a barrio of a couple square blocks and the one place in the city (of 5 million people and infinite geographical possibilities) where I got the best feeling – that “vibe”. Craziness. I visited the building today – which is beautiful – but wasn’t able to go up to the apartment because the current tenants weren’t home.Tomorrow I have an appointment to go up and actually see it.

There’s more, but this is getting really long so I’ll save the rest. And I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Lots of love. K

Hello Hello! For my first posting I bet you were expecting a picture of something more exciting than a concrete wall. But I couldn’t help it!... I love this. I think too, it’s pretty revealing of how I’ve found Chileans to be on first contact – very sensitive and sweet. This is a parking sign outside of the grocery store down the street from my apartment in the middle of the bustling capitol city of Santiago, indicating special parking for handicapped people AND pregnant ladies. Literally, a “Future Mommy”. Ha!! I’ll spare you the Cultural Anthropological analysis for now but I think this is a good thing. As amused, overwhelmed, and stimulated as I have been since my arrival on Sunday, I seem to be very confusing to a lot of Chileans. Its pretty cute actually because I have been told by 4 or 5 people that they cant “figure me out”. The cabdriver from the hotel I was staying at drove me to my new apartment today and finally blurted out that he wanted to know where I came from. Because they had been trying to figure it out… I looked maybe Mexican but not really, almost Chilean but definitely not, I spoke Spanish but not like the Argentineans - but I could be; I seemed Latina though, so maybe I was from Spain? But no... An Anomaly! I sat there giggling to myself and thinking they should let me know once they figure it all out ‘cause I have some questions myself.

It’s been a pretty exciting couple of days, it’s great to be back in South America in a big beautiful city that is so different but seems very familiar in other ways. My Spanish is coming back slowly but surely, I feel like a champ for semi mastering the Metro after a couple rookie errors, and I think I’m going to be able to do this thing. Today I moved into an apartment with a very nice Chilean guy named Eduardo and a Minnesooooouuten (from Minnesota that is) who is here teaching English. Funny, I was having these random good vibes about Minnesota before I left Jackson, anyone remember that? Maybe it’s a sign!? I’ll take it! My room is pretty neat, one entire wall is glass panes, half of which open to a patio, so I get lots of sunshine and look right out onto a garden and a wall full of climbing vines and plants. Nice. It may be a temporary place because the location isn’t the best but the set up is much better than a boring hotel.

I start working in about a month, (more on this in my next post) and visited the NESsT office yesterday to introduce myself and check things out. They have an office dog named Elvira, also a good sign. Tonight I’m going to practice my “you want to be my friend” smile because I’m going to need a couple of those pretty soon :) Speaking of… please do post comments or whatever on my little website... I think its pretty easy to sign in and it would be great to see your writing here next to mine.

Love, Kelly

Whew, so this has been a little intense. A lot intense actually. After so much scrambling and effort, panicking, planning and packing, the reality of leaving Jackson kind of snuck up on me and pretty much kicked my butt. I don't think I have ever cried as much as I did in the days leading up to finally pulling it all together and driving away. My poor Papa had no choice but to sit back with his fingers crossed while I refused to give up the steering wheel even with tears streaming down my face, gasping for breath, and whimpering to myself as we headed out over Teton Pass. Jeez.

The time I spent in Jackson was pretty incredible. I had some serious thoughts about bailing on the whole Chile plan and settling in to some great little cabin on Fish Creek with a couple puppy dogs and a sunny deck, my heart happy and ready to start putting down some real roots for once.
Not me, right? Not Now!! Yikes! Get this girl on a plane!!

It is good to know though that there is at least one magical vortex of a place that can grab me and shake me and make me feel so alive and so Right. And maybe there is one or two more out there - there's SOMETHING out there. And hell,if not, I know the way back.