Too often I find myself complaining here. If it's not one thing it's another - the mechanics suck, the food isn't spicy enough, the education is lousy, blah blah blah. And though some of my complaints may be valid (the mechanic one) I hardly think Chile is to blame for everything - I mean, I'm pretty sure they have cars break down in the U.S. too (but you couldn't prove it by me). I guess the problem is that I've always thought of myself as a pretty open-minded person, fairly well-traveled, liberal, accepting, etc. but like I said, lately I've caught myself being super judge-y about all things Chilean. Even though my snarky remarks are almost always in my head (or said to an American friend) they are seriously counter-productive when I'm trying to live my life here.
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The Beginning /
Our groundbreaking trip was at the end of May 2010. We packed up everything into the Beast and hit Route 68. I remember I had had a little too much wine the night before and was feeling pretty uneasy and actually physically ill as we started up the curvy, fog filled road into Laguna Verde. After arriving in the pueblo of Laguna it took us an extra hour to get to our property because we had forgotten how to get to our new place. The roads were (and still are) basically dirt paths in the woods wide enough for a car and a horse to pass each other, but not wide enough for two cars to pass each other. With the determination of new landowners, we finally found a road we knew and arrived at our destination.
Read MoreWeek in Review /
This week was eventful...Sunday we went to a little Thai restaurant in Valparaiso on Cerro Alegre called Samsara. My Pad Thai was mediocre but my cocktail was delicious.
Read MoreAlmost an argument for the use of public transportation /
Yesterday was huge: after all this time living here and hating my commute to and from work (sometimes over two hours) I finally got the courage to drive to work. Now you're probably wondering what took me so long. Please refer to the following investigation of Chilean transportation through the eyes of two Americans who don't have mucho dinero.
Read MoreAfter landing /
We landed in Santiago on different days - husband and Japhy (the dog) on the 30th of November and me on the first of December. We had rented an apartment in the 'bohemian' (read: population divided between punks, hippies, old alcoholics and real estate entrepreneurs) neighborhood of Barrio Yungay prior to our departure so thankfully the three of us had somewhere to go when we landed. It was costing us a fortune to stay there but there was a full-size bed and a TV in the bedroom, so in between giving hubs a crash course in teaching English as a Foreign Language, visiting language institutes begging for employment opportunities, and scouring newspaper ads for an apartment, we installed ourselves in front of the TV for healthy doses of Americana. CSI Miami. I think the both of us felt a little disconnected at the time, we are finally here, now what? kind of a feeling.
Read MoreAttitude Adjustment /
This weekend we decided we needed a bit of a change in perspective. We had been arguing over the usual stuff; my unhappiness over our situation mostly and my husband's feeling of responsibility for that. Poor guy. It's been really stressful these past almost three years to say the least and it was our breaking point. Something had to give. So, we decided to start working on the one thing that we were actually in control of - our attitudes.
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