Tales From The South: Just Another Boring Sunday

On a Sunday not too long ago, my boyfriend and I decided to take a day trip out of Valparaiso. There are plenty of towns around here that we haven't visited yet, despite having lived here since March, so we  figured, HEY. COME ON. SERIOUSLY. Let's go do some sightseeing.

I made coffee, as I normally do. (Editor's note: while I have assumed some Argentinian customs such as mate, Jorge too has been adopting some North American customs, such as consumption of Mr. Smith's Hazelnut Coffee.)

I went to the sink to wash out the french press, as I normally do.

I reached for Jorge's typical red mug, as I normally do.

But inside of Jorge's typical red mug was something that is normally never there.

I don't know how this little guy got inside Jorge's typical red mug, but he was trapped. I screamed. I called for Jorge. Reptile doesn't make an appetizing creamer, I assumed, so Jorge helped transfer the new friend into a jar, where we spent the next 15 minutes looking at his awesome shiny colors and tiny feet.

Jorge eventually released him back into the wild (re: the stairway outside our front door) and then we continued with our day.

We ended up going to Olmue, which we accessed by taking the metro until the very last stop, transferring to a bus and riding for an additional 10 minutes. The metro was a lovely part of the trip because, contrary to most of Valparaiso, is it clean and orderly. There was a range of quality entertainment provided for us as well in the form of street musicians (or in this case, metro musicians), singers, theater, and snacks. The artists and purveyors roamed from car to car, and the entertainment respectfully limited the performances to one per car as we traveled. There was masked dramas a la Greek Tragedies, an up and coming 15 year old pop singer, a flute-and-percussion ensemble, and plenty of guitarists. Jorge and I tipped the crap out of these people. At one point, one of our seat mates was a man with a startling amount of body hair. If you've ever seen somebody with a startling amount of body hair (carpeted legs, I'm talking), you'll know that it feels simultaneously unsettling and fascinating.

In Valpo, waiting for the metro to go to the end of the line

Olmue is more in the interior, toward the mountain range, so it doesn't experience the heightened cooling effects of the sea like Valpo does. As soon as we got off the metro we almost melted. Valpo seems to sit at a perpetual 68 degrees, whereas Olmue was a sweltering 90. Once there, we didn't do much. No really, we did startlingly little. We perused outdoor markets, bought mate, ate a delightful lunchdinner that included ceviche and some sort of wine spritzer, and then bought pants and dresses. 

And then we freaking went back to Valpo.

I like my sightseeing to be pleasurable, lazy, and mostly unproductive

And there's your standard boring Sunday in South America. And by boring I mean not boring at all, because life is fascinating always, no matter where your Sunday is happening!

2014, are you...are you actually here?

Chances are, most of the eyes on this blog have seen their fair share of New Years.

That's not a thinly-veiled insult regarding everyone's collective age -- no, man. Come on. Back off.

But seriously, we've been around the block a couple times or decades, and we all know what's up. People make resolutions, break them, sign up for expensive weight loss programs, ditch it a week later, and wait until the next year to set new goals.

WELL I SAY SCREW THAT.

While I believe that real goal acquisition can occur at any time of one's life, no matter the date, no matter the calendar year, no matter the age, I also believe that goals should be realistic. Goals are just another way for us to try new patterns in life to see what works. We make resolutions to lose weight because whatever habits we have are not serving us and causing us to feel unfulfilled, or fat, or unhealthy, or bloated, or greasy, the list goes on -- so the resolution is hopefully a jarring-enough effort to imprint a new pattern.

But that principle underneath it all? The idea of trying new patterns and approaches, to see what ultimately benefits us? I really like that.

So, in the spirit of New Year's Resolutions, I offer to my readers my own attempt to shake up my own snow globe. I never make New Year's Resolutions, but this year I will think about some areas where I want to direct my attention, because attention to our patterns and habits is always a good idea.

SHANNON'S 2014 LIST OF RESOLUTE IDEAS
1. Make a list of New Year's Resolutions for the blog (ACED IT)
2. Use the tag "Ways to Explain That Unexpected Pregnancy" at least one more time in a legitimate context
3.Buy a laptop that doesn't feel like the weight of a dead adult male after carrying it for five minutes
4. Drink less coffee..................maybe
5. Continue my dedicated Ashtanga Yoga practice
6. Enter another short story and/or travel writing contest
7. Move to another foreign country (might be goodbye to Chile soon!)
8. Complete an unaided yogic headstand
9. Actually read more, like things that aren't being wildly passed around facebook. Although usually good reads from NYT or Slate or whatnot, I want to get back to books and magazines.
10. Write. And write. And write write write write!!

What resolutions, goals, inclinations and ideas do you have?

More Backstory....

This article gets at one of the main reasons why I fled the USA in order to live abroad: I Am Not My Job.

While I wasn't coming from an area as ridiculously expensive as NYC, I find the USA to be expensive in general, and my life there included some necessary evils in order to maintain a functional, productive life. (cars, mainly).

I was in the camp that pursued the day job and relegated my passions to spare time. Which, as anyone with a semi-professional 9-5 can attest, means that you're working far more than 40 hours per week, most likely commuting, and very little of that leftover energy typically goes toward passion-promoting activities. You just wanna sit the hell down when you have the chance.

Which is why my novels went untouched for years and my writing craft totally withered into a crusty shell of its former glory. My dreams were still there, but the time to accomplish them continued to evaporate as the years marched on. The majority of my available energy went into common domestic tasks, socializing with friends, and getting my yoga done (and not even religiously).

The move abroad was necessary for me to feel like I was finally getting a chance to focus. Ditch some of the responsibilities that felt, to me, like they were clogging my plumbing (insurance bills, car maintenance expenses, buying gas) instead of allowing safe passage of goals and inspiration. Some people can feel this way perfectly fine in their hometown or adult landscape. I, however, did not. I felt constantly "busy" and never "productive", as the author mentions in her article. And I needed, desperately, to make a change to more productive and far less busy.

My move to Chile has afforded me this. In a huge way. Although it's a relatively expensive Latin American country, my lifestyle costs are minimal, and I am for the first time living in a way that feels authentic to me. Now when someone asks me what I do, my answer is "I am a writer." I still have a day job (though sometimes writing IS the day job), but the difference is that I feel confident and secure in responding this way because my passion has finally taken precedence in my daily life.

The author of the article says she doesn't advocate that everyone move to the mountains like she did, but hopes that other young creatives can begin to consider different home bases as they seek to pursue their craft. And while I don't think moving to the mountains (or the seaside...or South America...or Chile, for example) is hard and fast necessary, I DO recommend such a move. Move to the Catskills, or the Andes, or Costa Rica, or into a strange commune on the other side of the US, or into a distant uncle's cabin in Oregon, or to the freakin' Phillipines. Try it. See what happens. Because if such a move or adventure is possible, your creativity can only improve because of it. I did have to move my home base to be able to milk the sweet teat of creativity. And look at what has come sputtering forth: heinous analogies.

Now that I've got some of my creative goals underway and I know more of what it feels like to be living a creative life as opposed to waiting for the weekends to maybe re-visit that old story I stopped working on five years ago, I feel confident that I can someday come back to my home country and effectively be a creative writer.

Maybe not quite yet, though.

But someday.

Signs of Change

There comes a point in life when you look around and you realize little things have changed despite your best efforts.

I won't lie, when I started dating the Argentinian Jorge, I wasn't too keen on learning Argentinian Spanish or adopting his customs. I don't know why -- it just wasn't on my agenda. I had come to Chile and that felt to be enough of a cultural endeavor.

Eating lunch at 4 or 5 pm? Dinner at 10? Drinking mate (pronounced MAH-tay) instead of coffee? Bread and/or mayonnaise with every meal? WTF with 'vos' and 'desis'? Sorry, the correct terminology is "tu" and "dices". Thanks. 

Both of us being ex-pats in Chile, it hasn't been too hard to concentrate on learning Chilean culture and Spanish instead of Argentinian. I at least have an excuse to resist mate, I figured.

But then comes the day-in and day-out. There's the fact that the person I hear and speak to most is Jorge, and no matter how hard I wish it otherwise, he will never use the tu form when he speaks. There's the fact that when he gets excited, upset, impassioned or irritated, his Italian-influenced Spanish starts flooding out, and I understand even less of what he's saying (when I'm not giggling). There's the fact that he takes me to his country to meet his entire sprawling Argentinian family, and we spend lazy afternoons sharing mate and getting to know one another and I begin to understand the real meaning of taking mate.

It's the end of the year so I'm looking around at my life, taking stock of where I am and what I'm doing, asking myself if I want to keep doing this or maybe take another leap. Asking myself hard questions (Do I like what I'm doing? Do I feel healthy? Am I happy?), looking at other areas (a move to Ecuador? What about Columbia? Costa Rica?), thinking about other lifestyles I might want to explore.

And while the swirl of questions continues dense like a cloud around my head, I look around my immediate area -- my desk, my plethora of pens, the journals, the craft supplies that I always give away but continue to follow me and accumulate no matter what country I'm in -- and I notice something suspicious.

This is mate. My very own mate.

As in, I own this mate set.

I'm drinking mate, by myself, and I might not have even made coffee this morning.

And maybe some mornings I wake up and prefer mate over coffee.

And maybe sometimes I look at Jorge and in my head I use 'vos' (though I would never say it to his face). (Yet.)

And maybe yesterday I slathered mayo all over toasted bread and then ate it. Happily.

And pretty much every day I eat lunch after 2pm. 

And when I get excited, upset, impassioned or irritated with Jorge, I find his same Italian-Spanish mannerisms and expressions slipping out.

When did all of this happen???

2013 brought a lot of unexpected lessons, changes, cycles and more. It has been, by far, the best year of my life. If I can end the year thinking 'vos' and drinking mate over coffee, then anything is possible. 2014 is on the cusp of existence and I couldn't be more excited for what lay ahead. I lift my mate to you all as we close up this lovely year and embark upon new journeys.

Salud!

Sharing Forks and Sitting on the Floor: Thanksgiving in A Vagabond House

I live in what I affectionately term a "Vagabond House".

This is a house which is rented for 3 months or more (sometimes up to a year) by bonafide transients, typically (and in my case) foreigners without legal residency in the host country and with plans to move forward to some destination once said lease is up.

Due to the nature of the "vagabond house", it doesn't make sense to invest in too much furniture, because we'll just have to sell it. We have a stove, a washer, a fridge, mattresses, and some left over surfaces from whoever lived here before. Also, we bought one couch and 12 plastic chairs.

Everything else we have in here was constructed by us (i.e. Jorge, or Martin and Amanda....okay, mostly just not me) from dumpster diving acquisitions: a side table which Jorge nailed together from disparate found pieces, which he and I then lovingly painted wild colors; multiple crates that now hold tomato, chard and kale plants; decorative items such as the rusty children's bike that hangs suspended from our ceiling, etc.

While the Vagabond House doesn't have everything in a material sense, it has everything we need. (Well, a real French Press might be nice, but...hey. Vagabonds can't be choosers.)

But the key word there is "we"; the 5 of us that live in this house.

The Vagabond House doesn't have everything to accommodate the oh, let's say, 15 guests who are planning on showing up at your door for an Ex-Patriot Orphan Friendsgiving.

When my friend Peter and I were talking about Thanksgiving plans back in early November, it was a natural decision – yes, the feast must be here!  We have a very large house with an established reputation for fun times and hosting. Despite the lack of accoutrements for said wildly-large-Thanksgiving-feast, I told myself, “Hey. It’ll be fine. It’ll work out somehow.”

It was around one day before Thanksgiving that I realized that it might not actually work out. My guest list was 20+ people, with an established rule that “any American who doesn’t have a place to spend the holiday is welcome to come”, which meant that the 20+ people could swell considerably, depending on how many adrift Americans were found.

Aside from the 20+ guests, I realized something else: only 5 of us live in the house. Which means we bought/inherited our dinnerware based on this number. We have 4 coffee mugs, 9 regular glasses, and 2 wine glasses. There were less than 10 each of forks, spoons and knives; two pots for boiling water; one large casserole dish type thing that wasn’t a casserole dish but could be used as one; and one large bowl for mixing and serving purposes. Furthermore, we have 8 large dinner plates, 6 bowls, and one tiny plate that isn’t good for anything except, well, a pat of butter.

The math in my head went something like this: 6 + 5 + 9! / 17 – 4(x) + 33 =…..DRASTIC SHORTAGE.

The solution? Strongly urge people to bring their own cups. And silverware. And go buy a couple more casserole dishes.

I did these things, and on the morning of our Thanksgiving, we started baking and preparing extra early in preparation for the hassles of transferring dishes into holding bays while certain things were used and then unoccupied and then eventually re-transferred and…phew.

But I didn’t mention the best part—the Chilean stoves. Instead of clearly-defined temperature marks and an ability to know the difference between broil and bake, the Chilean Gas Oven features an infuriating knob with no lines, no numbers, and no indicator as to whether or not you are scorching the crap out of your casserole or just lightly heating it for 12 hours. "Turning it on" requires a terrifying 10 seconds of sticking open flame into two inconveniently placed holes where, once it lights, sometimes you can smell your eyebrows burning.

But you know what? Despite the shortage of items, implements and objects typically associated with Thanksgiving-Without-A-Hitch, despite not having an electric stove or any idea if I was baking at 245 degrees or 750 degrees….it worked out perfectly.

I made a literal vat of homemade mashed potatoes, the Bradford-Famous Corn Crop, AND vegan stuffing. Not to mention Amanda put TWO turkeys into the Chilean Thinly-Veiled-Inferno Oven, and neither were scorched, singed, or lightly caressed by heat for half a day.

Corn Crap Close-Up

It was a wholly successful Ex-Patriot Thanksgiving: made somewhat easier by the fact that the final count came to 17.

My general premise was as follows: any attending American should bring a homemade and/or beloved home dish, and all non –Americans bring something for drinking purposes. This way, we maintain the “typical food” of the holiday while nobody breaks the bank on supplying beverages for so many people. In addition to what Amanda and I created, we also were treated to the following dishes: a basic salad, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, bread pudding, cheesecake, home made bread, and pumpkin pie with cream. Oh – and a crap ton of wine.

Not too shabby, right?

I don’t know if I would have ever agreed to host even 17 people in the USA prior to moving abroad, much less the original estimate of over 20. I think I might have been too overwhelmed by a perceived "lack" of things for such a big number.

But this year, as I saw the number of guests climb and the number of dinner plates remain resolutely at 8, what became very clear to me was the following idea, which has permeated my life abroad as I follow the regular rhythms of life under very different circumstances:  if I have something to share and you have something to share, we can make something work. Thanksgiving 2013 proved to me just how far you can go with far less than what you’re accustomed to.

Sure, most of my guests were sitting on the floor (re: vagabond housing), leaning against the wall, or otherwise disobeying every rule your grandmother ever set forth for proper dinner etiquette on a holiday. I mean, for god’s sake, there was no autumn leaf-themed napkins!

But we were happy as hell. Delicious food, excellent company, and just enough spoons to go around.

Digging in! 

Me and Chelsea went first -- no need to delay,

we Americans know what to get extras on first. 

Happy International Orphan Friendsgiving!

And like every Thanksgiving in the States...there's always leftovers, no matter how much you stress about feeding everyone. We had enough turkey and potatoes left over to have a Thanksgiving on the Ocean the next day!!

Thanks for a great GraciasDando, Valpo!

Between Here And There: Part 2

In April of this year, I went to Mendoza on my first official border run, which I wrote about in the original post, Between Here And There. I spent only two days there -- a perfunctory visit as opposed to a sight-seeing, money-spending, OMG-I'm-visiting-vineyards-and-drunk-at-3pm trip like I typically like to have -- so when my next border run came up at the end of October, my boyfriend and I decided to make a vacation of it.

(Did I mention Jorge yet? I apologize, blog-o-fiends -- I have an Argentinian boyfriend. He is lovely, and darling, and sweet, and supportive, and talented, and a total delight in my life. This month we will celebrate 8 months together. This is his face:)

I like his face a lot. Like,

A LOT a lot.

This was not only our first vacation together, but a vacation that would allow me to meet every single important person in his life. I was going to meet the entire family.

Jorge's family is big. They hail from rural Argentina, a total born-n'-bred-on-the-farm type family. Jorge is the youngest of 6 children, and his eldest sibling is over 45 years old. He has 17 nieces and nephews.

Let me repeat that. Jorge has 17 nieces and nephews. And the eldest nephew is ALMOST THE SAME AGE AS HIM. Jorge became an uncle for the first time when he was 6 years old. 

When we first spoke of the trip, I had nightmares about it. Not because I didn't want to meet the family (I did), but the thought of being surrounded by so many of his blood relatives who only speak deep-Argentina Spanish (i.e. mostly incomprehensible) and would be sizing me up as the novia kind of made me freak out.

Also, I'm an only child. I don't have troubles remembering my family member's names, because there aren't a lot of us. My family can comfortably fit into a regular sized living room. We don't have to opt for the warehouse for graduation parties, and instead can choose the picnic table option. I don't have 17 nieces and nephews. I don't actually have ANY nieces or nephews. 

We spent the first leg of our trip with 2 of Jorge's "brahs" in Mendoza, where I got to experience far more Mendoza than the first time in April. There were no pink fountains this time, though there was plenty of city-exploring and Andes mountain-visiting.

Me and Jorge, posing by mountains in Mendoza, 

'CAUSE WE BY THE ANDES, YA'LL.

The next leg of our trip featured Candelaria, the 4,500-resident pueblito where Jorge was born and raised. The majority of his family still lives there, minus two siblings who raise their families in the capital city of that province. This is where the cultural differences started to rack up. Let's use a list, because I haven't made one in awhile and am feeling twitchy:

More cultural differences between Argentina and Chile, and other things that are just bizarre:

1. Remember when I was horrified about chilled red wine, and *hard swallow* the use of ice cubes? Well, readers, things took a turn for the worse (for my palate, at least). There exists a phenomenon called vino cortado, which is red wine with soda water. Sometimes, they mix it with coca-cola. [lengthy pause] Needless to say, this was one cultural activity in which I did not participate. Most family members were horrified by the fact that I drank pure wine. COME ON, IT'S MALBEC!

Nothing to do with Malbec wine; this is part of the 

campo (farmland) where Jorge grew up and helped raise racehorses

and generally ran around half-naked at all times.

2. City planning is...different. In both the USA and Chile, cities are cities and towns are towns and there you go. Not in Argentina. They get a bit grabby with the city planning, and what is called "Mendoza" is actually several cities lumped together but differentiated by different names but still...Mendoza. The same for other cities in Argentina as well. It's kind of like how Brooklyn is still New York City but it's also Brooklyn. For my Ohio peeps, it would be like if Huron, Castalia, Sandusky and Milan were all called their names but technically named and considered Sandusky. Whaaat??

3. News coverage is a little excessive. While it reminded me of news coverage back home at times, especially with a preference for celebrity happenings over legitimate world news coverage, the segments in general were long-winded and redundant. The Buenos Aires news channel devoted a lot of time to the fact that it was drizzling. They sent a reporter to cover the drizzle, and the segment featured voluminous quantities of live footage of people ambling on city sidewalks where no rain could be seen. The amount of time dedicated to this segment was like something I'd see back home where a tornado had touched down in Oklahoma and ruined 35 houses and maybe some animals were injured. But no -- it was just raining. Invisibly. And not impacting anyone's day in Buenos Aires. At all. 

4. Meat, man. Meat. Meat meat meat meat. Meat meaty meatmeat MEAT!!! Argentina is famous for meat -- I knew that before I ever went there -- and while both Chile and Argentina are meat-centric cultures, Argentina wins the award on this one. Though my vegetarianism went out the window with my USA residency, I don't eat a LOT of meat in Chile, despite our frequent asados. I knew that going to Argentina under the wing of an Argentinian would be a, well, intestinal shockventure, since I wouldn't be cooking for myself at all. But I wasn't prepared for how damn GOOD it was all going to taste! Jorge's family killed and cooked a lamb for our arrival. That't not even a joke. I was honored, in a way, but also not sure that I should feel honored, because it's normal for them to raise and then kill lambs and then eat them in large group settings because all they can do is large group settings because there's 17 nieces and nephews. (Editor's note: my bowels went on strike after the third consecutive day of eating meat. My return to Chile -- and return to majority vegetarian diet -- has helped the situation, but there was a good week of alarming inactivity in my gut.)

This is Candelaria, by the way.

5. Americans aren't the only ones struggling with geography. I met plenty of people in rural Argentina who weren't really sure of USA's whereabouts. In a way, this felt good: finally, people who don't CARE that I'm American! In another way, this was shocking: how can you not know where America is? Or that we speak English? I suppose this revealed more of my latent egosim as an American, which is a good thing to get rid of while I can. Small towns are small towns anywhere, I suppose. And in some parts of the world, "America" is just a word you hear on the television. 

We wrapped up the last leg of our trip visiting Jorge's other siblings and their respective families in the capital of San Luis province (which also had an alarming amount of neighborhoods the size of cities grouped under the same city name but still called different names), and spent a lot of time eating meat, hanging out, playing with exorbitant amounts of nieces and nephews, and, well, eating more meat.

Jorge with Bauti, Alma and Tobias

(you guessed it -- nieces and nephews)

Jorge's brother and sister-in-law with spawn,

and us (not their spawn) during our daytrip to

La Florida, a beautiful spot outside of San Luis with

views of the Andes and a lot of gorgeous hues in the air.

We're back in Chile now, happy to be home but a little salty that the vacation is over. It was fun meeting all 3,487 members of Jorge's family -- I remember all of their names, I swear -- and it was great getting a tan that will soon wither in the penetrating gray chill of Valparaiso, but it's also nice to be back home: to Valpo, to our house and its rhythms and its kitchen and the coffee, to frequent and consistent wifi connections, and to regular intestinal events.

One Year Down

I recently returned to civilization (I.E. regular internet use) after a week-and-a-half stint in Argentina, cavorting through countrysides as my boyfriend Jorge and I made the rounds to visit his extensive family. (More on this later!)

The first day of our voyage via bus through the rocky roads of the Andes led us through border control as we crossed in to Argentina. Once we were safely through customs, I paused to take a gander at my passport stamps, as these tend to excite the giddy traveler girl inside me (*ahem* all of them are Chile/Argentina) and I noticed something odd.

The entry stamp for my trip of October 24th, 2013 was right below another stamp into Chile, dated October 24th, 2012.

I unknowingly celebrated my one-year anniversary of Taking the Leap on the exact date itself, and my passport stamps are lovely evidence of this! I couldn't have planned it better if I tried.

STAMPS N' STUFF. 

Here's to one full year of living my dream! I raise my internet glass of Argentinian Malbec wine (which I consumed heartily during my trip in Argentina, being that we visited Malbec Country in Mendoza, and somebody remind me again why I didn't know about Malbec before??) to this, as I had no idea on October 24th, 2012 where I might be a year later on Ocftober 24th, 2013, but as it turns out, I'm right where I'm supposed to be: happy, healthy, and having a crapton of fun and transformative life experiences.

A year ago, my best friend Leslie, her sister and now-my-friend Amanda and I started out on this adventure not knowing where life would take us, and our paths have all taken surprising and positive turns. There's something to be said for not having a plan and allowing the wind to take you where it may. In my case, it floated me right into a dream house in a beautiful, artistic city where I spend my days writing, working, learning and loving.

I am so grateful for this year, and for this life, and for all of the things that came before it to lead me to this moment and to who I am today.

Thank you to all of you that have played a part in my journey. I appreciate it so much.

(I'm raising the internet glass of Malbec again -- everybody, lift yours too and say "Salud"!)