To Crear or To Create...


Wow...so to start, this is the first time I´ve posted from a computer here in Chile (I usually use my own laptop or else Marks), and it´s so strange to have everything in spanish. I´m rather used to the language now, but it´s still weird to see familiar web pages appear unfamiliar.

As I said, I´ve really been getting better with the language here. I spent this past weekend in Viña del Mar, a city on the beach about an hour and a half´s bus journey away. It´s still pretty cold here in Santiago, but you´d be surprised what only an hour and half´s journey north can do for the temperature ..I spent saturday on the beach in a tank top and jeans rolled up to my knees, watching a few adventurous people dive into the freezing ocean...(doesn´t that sound weird that north is warmer???) I, myself, ran in as far as possible, and I suppose I tempted the Gods a bit too much, because a wave came and soaked my entire back side... I then spent the next hour plastered face down in the sand waiting to dry :) I wish I could post pictures, but yet again, my laptop is still not hooked up to the internet. The beach was gorgeous, with an amazing sunset which I enjoyed from the top of a rock with a few friends. We basked in the warm glow of the orange and pink sky until we looked down to find that the tide was slowly coming in and we needed to make our way back to the road if we hoped to do so without swimming.

Apart from the gorgeous beach, I also somehow managed to volunteer myself and a friend into attmepting to play rugby with some girls one day this week. I´m leaving for the dessert on thursday, but if there´s time, I might be experiencing the fascination of rugby first hand...gulp. Thankfully the girls didn´t appear particularly large, but still...mom...I´ll warn you if I´m going :) haha I also did some merengue dancing this weekend. The clubs in Viña apparently play much more salsa music than in Santiago, and I was able to attempt to dance with a few of the locals. I have to say that I didn´t stand out nearly as much as I did when I used to attempt to dance back in Ann Arbor...so I suppose I learned something.

As I said earlier, I´m going to the desert on thursday. The next month or so are going to be pretty crazy (not that the past month hasn´t). I´m leaving for San Pedro, the desert to the north, on Thursday night, and will be spending about a week there. After that, I´m headed to Bolivia and Peru for the next week. The day after I return home (from about a 30 hour bus journey...fyi) my parents are flying in at 7:30 am for about 10 days. Needless to say, I´m going to be fully occupied for quite a while. Part of me is loving it, and yet there is still a part of me that wishes I had just a bit more time to sit down and do nothing but draw or paint. But then my other half argues back that I might never get the chance to come here again, and off I go once more...