One month down, three to go

Well, as all of you probably know, I left to study abroad in Chile on July 23. I haven't written anything of my experiences thus far, but I'm sure many of you have already seen the plethora of photos I've uploaded to facebook. If not, check them out! There will only be a few photos on here.

So I guess I should start from the beginning.

July 22. I picked Keith up from the ferry at 7:45 as usual. When he got to the car, he hugged me extra tight. He took me to Azteca as a last hoorah for us, as we love to go out to eat. I got a little Spanish practice in with the waiter, and told Keith to best plates to eat. I always end up ordering for him.

After that, we had to run to Fred Meyer to get me another suitcase to replace the one that a taxi driver had broken in New York. Standing in the luggage aisle with him was a bit of an experience - it would be the last time we'd go shopping together for a year.

When we arrived home, all we could do is what we do best - coexist. We have a way of just sitting next to each other, close enough to touch, without saying or do anything. We've fallen asleep in parks, relaxed on tiny couches, and spent hours at pizza parlors in downtown Seattle. It's just something that we do, something that I cherish. I believe there can't be much that is more relaxing and satisfying than just having a little while without words, and being able to share that with someone else.

After Keith went to bed, I turned on some acoustic music and packed my entire life into two suitcases. I was leaving for an entire year, with the exception of three weeks in December that I'd come home to visit everyone. I knew Keith had been pretty upset about it a few weeks prior - he never wanted to talk about me leaving of course, so I wouldn't bring up any exciting news about Chile, my new host family, anything like that. It really was a suffocating experience to know that there was nothing I could say to soften the impact for him, and watching what little stuff I own being crammed into two canvas bags that must weigh less than fifty pounds a piece was a bit overwhelming. I finally called it a night and laid down next to my honey without having finished packing. I couldn't stand the fact that he was sleeping alone and I was still there one more night. I cuddled up with him and he mumbled something (he's always talking in his sleep) and I held him closer than ever.

July 23. Karl, our housemate, woke up bright and early to drive Keith and I to Puyallup, where we would meet my sister-in-law and go to the airport. The ride down was fun, I always have a blast being around Keith and Karl and the rest of our friends. I think Keith slept on my shoulder most of the time, as he usually does when we're in transit. We stopped at Jack in the Box for what was supposed to be my last "American" meal, and met Tessa. Karl actually seemed to have a little sparkle in his eye when he said bye, which made me really happy. Being able to get to know him better after having met him three years back has been really gratifying; he's such a nice guy. Even though he left a thousand Cherry Coke cans all over the house for me to gather before the ants got to them, I had a great two months living with him.

On the drive to the airport, I had to sit in the front because there was no room in the back. I was a little nervous we'd be late because I had to deposit a check and we couldn't find a Bank of America, and spent too long driving around the SuperMall looking for one. We ended up being pretty early, which was really gratifying. I went to check in and was told that one of my bags weighed 62 pounds, and that I was going to be charged $80 for it. Keith helped me take all the soft lightweight things such as clothing and toiletries out of my carry-on and organize them into my heavy bag, while I put all the books, binders, school supplies, and computer hardware into my carry-on. My carry-on weighed 28 pounds after that. I checked my bags, and we went outside to chill for a little while.

Since Keith works in Seattle, he told his boss he was coming in a little late, and he arranged a coworker to come pick him up. I still had probably a good two hours before I had to start going through security, but his coworker called and said he'd be there in about 20-30 minutes. That's when everything really started to show on Keith's face. We held each other close and told each other sweet nothings and I tried to reassure him that everything was going to be fine and that the time would fly by. I held back tears to show him that we can be strong through this phenomenal distance (before I left I gave him a webcam and a mic and made him download Skype so we could still have some way of seeing each other). I don't think I've ever seen him so bummed out, and it tore me up to sit there with him and know that at any moment his coworker was going to show up and we would have to say goodbye, and he'd have to go back to work, to the warehouse that he despises, the whole day, and go home for the first time on the bus, to an empty house, with just the cat waiting there to greet him.

Finally the moment came. We stood up, we hugged, we kissed, we looked into each other's eyes... It was all so emotional. I told him that I loved him more than ever and I was going to call him when I landed in Atlanta, and to try and make it through work without being too bummed out. He told me he really loved me too, he's going to miss me so much, and to be careful out there. Then he walked to the car, and I turned around to walk inside. The second I turned my back to him, I began to tear up and cry a bit. It was ephemeral, but it hurt more than anything had hurt in a long time. What hurt me the most was knowing that while in Chile I was going to explore, learn, interact, come into contact with new and unimagined things, and the time for me was going to pass much quicker than it would for him. He would continue going to work every day, being away from the house for eleven hours a day, riding the ferry two of those hours, coming home to an empty house and only seeing Karl on the weekends because Karl gets home from work when Keith is already in bed. I just couldn't imagine how lonely he'd feel. I felt awful for him, and I was already replaying all our best moments in my head.

I flew through security for once. Usually when I have all my computer junk with me, I get stopped and screened only to find that what they thought was a sharp weapon was just my external hard drive. I knew there would be one or two students from my program, ISA, on this flight, so I made sure my ISA shirt was visible and sat around at my terminal for a good hour or so. I didn't end up meeting anybody.

The flight to Atlanta was smooth, relaxing, on time, all that. I had a window seat, and I watched us leave Boeing Field and fly over South Seattle, and blew a kiss to South Park, where Keith's work is. It was surreal to realize that I wouldn't be back until December to my one and only home, the city I could never move away from.

I arrived in Atlanta and the instant I stepped off the plane I ran into another ISA student, Kevin from Bellingham. He was on my flight, but I hadn't noticed him beforehand. We walked straight to our terminal because we only had about an hour layover. There we met another ISA student, Amy from New Jersey. There were a lot of people at our terminal getting on a flight to Manchester, so we thought we'd go get a quick bite to eat and come back to see if there were any more students there (we were given flight rosters beforehand, and noticed that about 20 students were going to be on that flight, so we were looking for them). We ran to Qdoba and grabbed some food to take with us, but when we got back to the terminal, it was a ghost town. No one was there, the gate was closed, the screen was turned off. We were confused. We walked around a bit to ask another desk attendant what was going on, but they were all busy. We finally went and found a screen with departure information, and saw that our flight had been rerouted to a terminal half way across the airport. I had two carry-ons, a huge quesadilla and a drink, and I had to run somehow to the other terminal. It was quite an interesting jaunt.

We got to our new, unannounced terminal at 10:05pm. Our plane was due to leave at 10:10. The woman at the counter not only stuck to the book, but she was extremely rude. She told us that we could absolutely not enter the gate, we should have been there a half an hour before, the door was already closed, and obviously we had been taking our sweet time to get on the plane because we all had boxed food from the food court. We tried to tell her that the gate change was not announced on the loudspeaker as it usually is and that we went to the gate on our ticket only to find it to be desolate. She told us she didn't have time to help us right now and that we all need to go and take it up with Delta. I was pissed.

We waited in line for two hours at the Delta helpdesk and got nothing accomplished. We didn't even make it to the front of the line. Kevin had discovered that we could use some Delta help phones to call and reschedule our flight, and Amy's mom booked her a hotel room at the Embassy Suites and she offered to let us stay with her. The only problem was, all of our luggage was supposedly going to beat us to Santiago, and since I had switched out all my clothing and toiletries to make my luggage lighter, I had no clothes, no toothbrush, no nothing. Neither did the other two. And our flight wasn't going to be until 10:10 the next night. I knew it was going to be a rough couple of days.

July 24. We checked out of the Embassy Suites, probably one of the nicest American hotels I've stayed in, around 11:00. What were we going to do for eight or nine hours before having to do the routine airport sweep? Well, Amy was on facebook the night before and had seen that two other students had missed their flight to Santiago also.

In the airport we met Tara from Idaho and Josh from Colorado. They had been on a flight together from Colorado that ended up arriving late to Atlanta. We all decided to gallivant around Atlanta for the day, as none of us had been to the south. We were scoping out some restaurants that would have more authentic southern food, but all we could find were fast food places and Japanese food. We ended up stumbling upon a little gyro restaurant and ate some delicious things there. We explored the City Hall and various other things. We were obvious tourists because we were all wearing the same shirts, so every once in a while some people looking for spare change would come up to us and say, "Hey, where y'all headin?" Josh would usually come up with something witty like, "To Hell if I don't change my ways!"


After a little venturing in Atlanta, we got back to the airport early to ensure we wouldn't have to spend another night there. We finally got on the plane, which was delayed about a half an hour, and settled in separate areas of the plane in preparation for our ten hour flight. I actually ran into my former math teacher at Seattle University, Professor Carter, who was flying down to Santiago to teach for a semester. That was wild. I was also seated next to a guy named Linco from Chicago whose dad is a Valparaíso native, and he was going down to visit him. He told me about all kinds of delicious food to try, things to look out for, places to visit, etc. It was really cool to have someone who'd been there before several times to be able to tell me about the area. Maybe I'll get a chance to meet up with him while I'm down here.

July 25. 7:35am, we finally arrive to Santiago. The airport to me seemed a little bit unorganized and extremely busy, something I would become accustomed to in this entirely unknown environment. We found our bags, proceeded through customs (which was a lot smoother than customs in the US), and found our ISA directors. We met several other students who had somehow missed their flights back in the US too, and we all headed for our hotel in Santiago so we could join the other 50-something kids in our big group.

We got to our hotel, Hotel Rent-a-Home, and were shown to our rooms. We only had about 45 minutes of free time before we would embark on a day's worth of discoveries, so I took advantage of taking a long, hot shower after two days of traveling like a drifter. I had only gotten about six hours of sleep since the morning I'd left Seattle, and even with the shower I felt pretty disgusting. We saw all kinds of things that day, things that were quite new and interesting, and I can't even begin to name specifics I was so drained. I have lots of pictures though. I probably have about 150 pictures just from the few days we spent in Santiago alone.

Fast forward a bit.

July 27. The golden day; the day to meet our new Chilean families. We had all built little friendships with people in our program, explored considerable amounts of Santiago (even though about ten of us had missed a day there), and emotions were through the roof as we left Santiago in anticipation to lead new lives in this foreign locale. So many of us were exhausted that day; you could see many of the students crashed and hanging halfway in the aisles asleep on this hour and a half bus ride to the coast. Some of us would be living in Viña del Mar, others in Valparaíso. Most of us would be studying at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), but some would be at Universidad de Viña del Mar (UVM). Some of us would have lots of siblings, some none, some with a farm or a pool or lots of pets, some with single parents, or grandparents living in the house. As we were discussing all of the information we'd received on our families, we began our descent from the hills near Viña del Mar and saw something we never imagined.


Wow. Here you can see in the distance the sun setting beneath the clouds, with the gorgeous backdrop of the Valparaíso port and the vast Pacific Ocean that I know and love. This is when it really started to hit us. This is when it all started to finally come together. First we were just chit-chatting about our families on paper, but now we knew that in the fast-approaching end of the hour we would be meeting these families for real, these Chileans that would be welcoming us into their homes and giving us a space to call our own, a street, an area, a neighborhood, a city to be associated with as we learn and grow throughout this educational and intellectual endeavor of ours. I've never felt so nervous-excited in my life. Many students were so anxious that they were running to the little bathroom in the back of the bus, especially after the lengthy ride from the big city.

We all got off our bus in front of Casa Central, one of the main buildings to our university. Sixty-something kids on that sidewalk, face-to-face with sixty-something Chilean families, and in between us, a mountain of our luggage. My friend Jaimie from Wisconsin and I felt kind of weird looking into the crowd of families, not knowing who we belonged to. We all had name tags with the last names of the families we belonged to, so it was a little more weird thinking that they could spot us out but we were embarrassed somehow. My veins were pumping with anxiety and adrenaline. I am normally a very calm, collected, laid back person and do not get anxious easily, but this situation was quite overwhelming for me. It was a love-hate situation. I loved the feeling of absolute thrill but I hated the pit in my stomach. I knew Spanish, but I never spoke it back home. Never. We hardly ever spoke it in class, and even then, most of the kids in my Spanish 135 class still didn't know that you never pronounce the h. For this reason, I was incredibly self-conscious of the fact that as soon as I left this huge group of shaking gringos that I'd have to start adjusting to not only speaking in Spanish, but understanding the accent, the slang, the idioms, and the words that differ from Mexican and Spaniard Spanish I'd been used to learning.

The moment had come. Lizette, our director, began naming off family names. My bags were some of the last to be loaded onto the truck, so they were among the first to be unloaded, and thus were hiding in the very bottom of the pile. My family name, Peña, was called fairly early in the process and I made a point to dive into the mountain of luggage before revealing myself to whoever was waiting for me. As soon as I grabbed my things and turned around, my Chilean mother, Yanet, was standing there with a giant grin on her face. She greeted me with "Hola mi niña" and gave me a traditional kiss on the cheek. She told me we needed to find her daughter and then we'd be on our way. By then, the sun had set and it was relatively dark outside, but we found my older sister, Paula, and her boyfriend, and we managed to fit my two huge suitcases and two carry-ons into his little car with the four of us and we left Valparaíso to return to Viña del Mar (these two cities border each other, they're like sister cities, super close to one another, and people are always traveling between the two for work, school, play, whatever).

...Well, that's all I can say for right now, as I need to run to class. I'm sure this is enough reading to keep everyone occupied and send them away with a bit of a headache, so please stay tuned for my next blog, which will hopefully be a lot shorter. :]

Love,
Kelsey