Cuzco, Peru

Last June I convinced my bff to cash in some more miles and head back to South America for the 2nd time to join me in Peru. If you knew M, you'd know that it doesn't take much convincing or arm twisting to participate in any kind of travel adventure. I think it was our first trip together in the summer of '08 to San Francisco that proved that we were compatible travel buddies, and her husband was even lucky enough to follow us around while we each tried to "out-itinerize" the other with tours of Alcatraz, wine tasting, baseball, biking the bridge, and reading street maps to try to get back and forth from our hotel using streets that weren't steep enough to require an oxygen tank.

Sorority pose at Alcatraz

Lots of wine tasting of course

Brewers vs. Giants on a chilly summer night

Biking the bridge on a 45 degree cloudy morning

Prepping for a whirlwind adventure in Peru was a little different, especially when your point of arrival is at approximately 11,000 ft. above sea level and you need to drink tea made from cocaine leaves to combat the altitude sickness. (oxygen tank mentioned above would've come in handy there too)

They say it's important to plan a couple of days in Cuzco to acclimate before heading to Machu Picchu just in case anyone in your group gets altitude sickness since obviously it's not ideal to end up puking and in bed the day that you have your entrance permits to see it. Cuzco is charming and we both put on our nerdy Spanish teacher hats and decided to explore the local sights like Pisac Market, NOT drink alcohol (which is hard for the 2 of us to do when we're together), rest up and NOT eat cuy picante (a guinea pig type of delicacy that they eat there). For two adults who exercise and are in pretty good physical health, it's really not an exaggeration that you get winded walking up and down stairs. Altitude sickness really is just dehydration, so it's also important to chug water like nobody's business, and that means lots of trips to the market to buy bottles and bottles of water. After having spent a year in Chile with clean water, it was definitely an adjustment to remember not to put my toothbrush under the sink.

Plenty of tiny markets selling souvenir crap like this stuff that I first fell in love with in China "adidas/alpacas", really???

We spent lots of time around the Plaza eating, drinking Coca light and people watching

A shot from one of the second floor balconies where we could sit and observe

Pisac Market

I miss getting my produce like this 

So many varieties of potatoes

and corn...

Burying and cooking Pachamanca, a dish that's cooked underground using hot stones, potatoes, meat, etc.

I was obsessed with taking pictures like while I lived in South America, I must have known deep down that I'd end up in AZ...

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

I can't believe that it's been almost a year since I touched my blog...When I look back, I see myself so focused on what was supposed to happen next that some days I forgot to live my life, something totally contradictory to what I had learned while I was living abroad. Instead, I came back and reverted to my good old American ways of worrying about what people would think if I was unemployed or what they would say about me having to stay with my parents for awhile. I buried my head in my computer and spent hours online looking for job opportunities that simply weren't there. When I finally let go and decided to go with the flow, I found myself here in Tucson, a place that I had previously visited 4 times. I'm not sure why I was resistant, but when I got here in December I decided to make the most of it. I got a part time job, I started volunteering, I joined a hiking group, and I met a good girlfriend who is in a similar position as me and we decided to combine our "new to Tucson" forces and see and do as much as we can on our limited budgets.

Here I am almost 6 months later, and with a lot of perspective I realize that my biggest problem had been trying to control all of the tiny details of my circumstances that simply didn't need to be controlled. I got everything  that I was asking for in coming here, I just didn't know it at first.I wanted a place with a good climate, outdoor activities, beautiful scenery, job opportunities for teaching both English and Spanish, an "international" type of environment, a situation where I had enough money to live on, and health benefits.

Tucson has been the perfect transition for me from Chile, I just didn't know that I'd have to wait 6 months before I could even start my transition. My part time job is fun, I get to work outside 90% of the time in a beautiful nursery with hardworking, fun people who make me laugh and make me feel like myself again. I teach English classes to refugees and adults who can't afford to pay for classes but understand the importance of transitioning into their new culture. I tutor English and Spanish, and next week I'll begin teaching university ESL classes for foreign students coming to the University of AZ to begin their studies here in the US. I'm lucky that my parents have a place for me to live here with beautiful views of the canyon and within walking distance of a National Park. I'm finally living my life and not making any other plans, and it's a great place to be.

Proof that our pets will adapt to any new circumstances

Happy Hour in the desert

May 5th Super Moon

June 4th Lunar Eclipse

Last stop, Peru

I'm back in the Northern Hemisphere, but before I close this blog out for at least a short while, I wanted to do a photo post of Peru. Yes, it'll be a photo post since I'm currently too lazy to share any more than that. I'm doing what I always do in the summer, enjoying my summer vacation...!!! It really doesn't matter that this vacation could extend beyond the summer since I'm technically unemployed. Details, details, people. Said photo post will also require a faster internet connection speed than I have up here in the north of Wisconsin.

What does it all mean

As I spend my last full week in Santiago and prepare one bag to go to Peru on Saturday and the others to go back to the USA, I've been thinking about how easy it is to begin to questions one's decisions. I think when you're getting ready to close the door on something it's a lot easier to overlook the things that may have sent you packing in the first place...

Winter is coming. It's been beautiful and will reach 70 degrees today, but the cold and rain isn't too far behind...

Let's just say that some things about the institute that I work for are less than desirable and probably aren't going to change for awhile...

A lot of expats that you meet and get attached to are here temporarily, if I were to be the one to stay, they would be the ones leaving eventually.

As sad as I am about leaving, the bottom line is that although I'm ready to go home to see my family and friends and tie up some loose ends. I have some boxes to pack at the school that I left behind. I have some more boxes to pack at my townhouse that I'm turning over to someone else for another year...

I can thank my experience in Chile for giving me the tools to take each day at a time and worry about things as they come up.  My "one year ago" self would never have survived the premise that in a week I'll technically be homeless and unemployed. My "10 months later" self knows that I'm meant to move on from Chicago and go somewhere else, that it's time to leave Chile (at least for a few months), and that if my job opportunity back home doesn't pan out that it's because I'm meant to do something else.

The Plan, Part 1

I've had some things in the works for awhile now and although I still don't know it all, I will share with you what I do know. I've given my notice at my institute and I'm leaving Chile to head back to the USA on June 15th.  A few months ago, after a lot of thought about what I wanted to do next, I decided that I didn't see myself living here long term and that it was time to go back and make a new life in a new place back in the States. It wasn't a decision that I made lightly, and I still have a few lingering doubts about whether it was the right one or if I jumped the gun...
I resigned from my old teaching job back in February, my townhouse is now rented until August of 2012, and as of this moment I don't have another job or a place to live. I do have some job opportunities at home that I'm still waiting on, and I know deep down that if those don't pan out that there are other options here in Chile should I decide to come back at some point.
I really like teaching English and working with business professionals and I've enjoyed my opportunities here to gain more professional teaching experience and to improve my Spanish.
It's definitely an "in-limbo" period, but I think for now I'm doing the right thing. I'm sad about leaving Chile, it's been a good home to me, I've made some really good friends here, and I've loved my English students.
Whatever comes next, I know that I made the right decision in coming here in the first place!

Killing Time

I like most parts of the English teacher gig, mostly because it is so different from my old lifestyle as a teacher, always in one place, same schedule everyday, no time to ever go out and do anything during the day except for the occasional Friday race to order and eat a Jimmy Johns sub and be back at school in 50 minutes.
Here I have the opposite problem, sometimes I have so much time to kill in between things that I wish I could stay in one place. It's not really worth it to take the metro home in the late afternoon because that would just mean having to take it again at the busiest time of day in order to get to my night class. I usually end up with about 2-3 hours to kill depending on if it's a day that I meet with my private student at 6:30. Sometimes I'm gone for 12+ hours and realize that I've only been teaching for about 4 of them, but it really comes down to what time and how far away your classes are. I think most English teachers must be master time killers, knowing exactly what coffee shop is where, how good the wifi is, and exactly how long it will take to walk or ride from Point A to Point B.

Here are some of the ways I have been killing my time:

1. Starbucks
Pretty much the only place with soy milk, so bring on the wifi, lattes, and comfortable chairs. I'm pretty sure I've spent more money at Starbucks here than I ever did back home.

2. Journaling
I've actually filled up 2 whole notebooks since I've been here, not bad.

3. Itouch surfing
See number 1

4. Lesson Planning
Sometimes...

5. Eating lunch at 4:30
Too early to eat lunch before I leave the house and by the time I get to my next stop it´s around 4:30. I eat the lunch/dinner combo and then have a late night oatmeal with apples snack. Nothing wrong with just moving the foods around to different times of day, and grabbing lunch somewhere is a great way to kill at least an hour and have a place to sit for awhile.

6. Walking an extra couple of metro stops when it's nice out
I love walking, but when I'm weighed down with a lot of books it makes it a little less enjoyable. The best part is the people watching, I can't get enough.

7. Reading the magazines from El Mecurio
Some days I try to listen to my own teacherly advice...to keep improving at a language, spend some time reading to help learn new vocabulary.

8. Yoga
I'm lucky enough that my yoga place is within walking or biking distance from my house. Walk to class, hop on the metro for the day, and off I go, or sometimes the reverse plan is also true.

Regardless of what I'm doing, sometimes it's just better to be out and about rather then hanging out in the casita!

Fall Colors

Last night we finally changed the clocks. It's obviously a negative when it comes to the shortening of the day and the fact that it got dark at about 6:00 this evening, but a huge plus for the morning because it's been pretty cold and dark and REALLY hard to get out of bed when it's still black outside until after 8am. 

I can't complain about the weather, with the exception of this past Friday and Saturday, it's been absolutely beautiful. Crisp and chilly in the morning and in the evening, but still sunny and reaching low 70's during the day. 

I love the combination of the fall colors against the palm trees and the tropical plants like the hibiscus that still have flowers on them. It sometimes takes a careful eye, but if you can manage to look past the layer of smog, Santiago really is a beautiful green city.