a different view.

i can't get over the mountains here. seriously, i'm a little obsessed and i think i'm starting to freak people out, ha ha :)

i've never lived in a place with mountains so close - and not only close, but the kind of mountains with snow caps that you think of as only existing in stories. well, unless you're from a place like santiago, chile :D i can see the andes out my window, snow caps and all (on clear days). and on the way to the office, i can see the mountains on the other side of the city, spread out and glorious in their snow-capped amazingness. i don't know how everyone else walks by on the street and pretends not to notice, but i know that i can't stop staring as soon as i walk out of the labryinth of the metro. call me crazy :)

it's something that has always resounded of something more for me though, being amazed at things that others take for granted. people did it in atlanta all the time. visitors come, you show them around to the places that you walk past every day but then you find something new, something unexpected, something amazing that was sitting under your nose for months or years and you had no idea. it's incredible. this morning (well, afternoon) a friend from the lc here, tomás, and i ran up the cerro san cristobal here in santiago - 6 km, all uphill, ending in an incredible view of the city and all of the snow-capped incredibleness surrounding it. at the top, there's also an area with small shops and food stands and at the very very top, a huge statue of our lady of santiago, or the virgin. tomás, who has lived in santiago for years, hadn't been there in awhile and was still amazed by the view and even a small church that we found up there too where they still have mass every sunday. everything was very peaceful, even with all of the families walking around. i unfortunately didn't have my camera, just the crappy one on my phone, but i'm definitely planning on going back soon to get some shots :) i'm also hoping that the next time we decide to engage in the masochism of running up this hill (more like small mountain), i can make it without having to stop and walk 3 times...we'll see.

so to sum it all up, cerro san cristobal is a must-see in santiago, always be open to discovering the unknown that's been right in front of you forever, and bring your camera to document...always :)

catching up

it feels soooooo good to catch up sometimes :)

tonight i had the chance to talk to one of my best friends of all time for over an hour on skype - for free! i love technology :) a lot can happen in a month, as it turns out.

i also realized that though what i learned in brazil is still very true - a place is nothing without its people - the converse is also true: if you have the people, even if you're not in the same place, it won't matter. i've known this particular friend for over 10 years. we went to different colleges after high school, and though we didn't get to see each other all the time, it hasn't mattered at all in terms of our friendship. i have a few other friends like this too, and it always feels really really good to catch up :)

before i even had thought about coming to chile, the prospect of moving ANYWHERE and starting over scared me a lot. you just get so comfortable, you know? and then you start to take for granted the people that know you best, just because they always have. i love making new friends, but it takes a conversation like the one i had last night to make you realize how long it takes to build a friendship like that - i've already been so lucky as to make some cool friends here and that we all get along as well as we do, considering that we'll be living and working together for an entire year. but there are just some parts of yourself you don't let go that fast, i guess, whether you mean to or not - and there are also some parts of yourself that some people may never know because it was you when you were 10 or when you were 16. they can't help that, of course :) anyway, to sum it all up, it seems that i'm in a good place in terms of friends right now, no matter where we all are in the world or where we're all from in the world :)

the same is also true for relationships, it seems. still more in love than ever, even thousands of miles away :)

damn, i've been lucky. now if only i could find a good way to just bring all of us together...

adjusting

adjusting to life here wasn't nearly as hard as it was in brazil. i guess because maybe i haven't felt singled-out or alone here (i do live with 6 people, after all, ha ha). by tuesday though, this number will decrease to 3, and i'm wondering if the reality will set in then. i don't have a family here as i did in brazil, despite its differences from my own in the u.s. and when i'm faced with only having a few people here, all of whom are from different countries, what will it be like then?

i had my first (and hopefully last) visit to the doctor yesterday. my insurance company found him for me and helped make the appointment (and then paid for it, yay!) which was good. my friend javi went with me to an address that we knew was in a nice neighborhood, but didn't know exactly where it was. after taking the metro and then the bus, we start walking toward the address and quickly realize that it wasn't for an office building but for an apartment! a guy in his 50's or so wearing a doctor coat opens the door and lets us in to a huge apartment, very nicely decorated, and with an office in the back. wow. the doctor was very nice - i think he was german. he spoke perfect english in a british accent and books about germany covered the back wall of his office. he asked me a lot of questions about my symptoms before he started to check anything out, then did some basic looking up my nose and in my ears stuff, ha ha :) i guess the weirdest part about the whole thing was that it wasn't a typical office. it wasn't sketchy, exactly, but i don't know - i was glad javi was there.

so now i have some (very expensive) meds to help me get better, which takes me out of commission to enjoy the colombian night and my own u.s. night festivities this weekend :( at least i can eat the peanut butter sandwiches and goldfish i brought from home, ha ha :) monday is the first official day of my term, finally arrived after being here for a month. has it been that long/short? in some ways it feels much longer and in others much shorter. i missing everyone at home a lot, especially since i've been sick :( i'm excited about work though, so we'll see. also crossing my fingers that juan gets the traineeship he interviewed for this week - i really really really hope so :D

in and out.

last weekend i had the awesome experience of not only participating in but also facilitating in sdl pacifico, one of the 2 biannual regional conferences they have here. sdl is basically the spanish version of lds, and there were 3 main tracks - a regionally-run outgoing prep seminar, a leadership track, and an intro to leadership track done in the form of an aiesec simulation. i was working in this last track, introducing the newies to ogx, why it's important, how we can do it in the best way, etc. at the same time, i had a fictional lc all to myself to help coach through all of the other activities. they ended up doing really great, but this point was a little difficult since not everyone knew english and my spanish was unintelligble sometimes, i think, ha ha :) overall though, very challenging and fun experience :) probably one of the coolest things was that i got to meet a lot of people that i'll be working with over the next year. here, relationships are very important for the working environment too, so i feel like i got a good start, at least :)

sdl took place from friday to sunday at a cabaña an hour away from concepción. by the time we arrived back in concepción after the conference and then boarded a bus back to santiago, we arrived here at 6:30 am. wow. exhausted, we each took an extra 3 hr nap to make up for lost sleep and began our day at 2 pm with general transition. we ended up working pretty late the first night, until 9 pm or so and covered lots of material. and the following days of the week followed suit. days flew by filled with SWOT analysis, presentations, discussion, strategy, notes, diagrams, mate, chocolate cookies, mandarinas, goodbyes, hellos, and everything in between. my predecessor, vika, left wednesday night for buenos aires and leaves tonight for russia - marina, the previous vp tm left yesterday morning for buenos aires and leaves next weekend for russia. tomorrow, marek, the new vp tm from poland will arrive at 7 am and the next day juli from buenos aires, the new vp er. everything's been happening so fast with people coming and going and planning and transition happening all the while. i can't believe that by tuesday i would've already been here for 3 weeks, a time that passed slower somehow in brazil.

i think it's because there's a whole group of people here in my exact position - foreigners, working on the new mc, living together, getting to know the city, etc. maybe i don't feel so singled-out. maybe it's because i've done this before (to a certain extent). either way, i'm feeling comfortable and excited about the position - just really missing some pieces back in the u.s. that's something i don't think will ever pass, just something i can't let debilitate me. i'm thinking that i'll be so busy that there won't be time anyway, ha ha :)

so to you guys in the u.s., i miss you all like crazy - and to everyone here, thanks so much for everything, it's going to be an awesome year :)