¡Por fin!

All right, it's about that time. That's right: blog time. Leaving time. Finally-got-my-passport-from-the-crazy-Chilean-consulate time. Time-to-actually-finish-packing-and-get-my-shit-together time. You know, that time. Time to get down to business.

As some of you may know, I've been trying to get out of the country this week with little success. I'm signed up to attend classes at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Universidad de Chile this semester, and I was SUPPOSED to be in Santiago to start my orientation this morning. I was actually supposed to fly out of Phoenix at about 9 A.M. yesterday, but, due to some unforeseen complications with my visa/passport/etc., I'm scheduled to fly out tomorrow. So I'll be in Santiago by about 10 A.M. on Friday. Finally! I am so excited. I've studied Spanish since 8th grade (eight years!) and I've wanted to travel to South America for just as long (if not longer). I am almost in shock to be finally going; I've been studying and waiting for so long, it seems surreal to actually be leaving.

As far as the hang-up with the visa goes, I'm not going to get into describing it as much as I could because 1. I've described it too many times already, 2. I'm tired, and 3. It's not particularly interesting, so I'll try to make it short(ish). In a nutshell, the Chilean consulate in L.A. received my student visa application, took it out of its envelope, put it on someone's desk, and let it sit (untouched) for over a month until I was finally able to hassle one of their cranky employees into finding it Tuesday morning. It took a week's worth of e-mails and phone calls to finally get that cranky government official to shuffle around the office, find my documents, and (after a significant amount of sassing and complaining) agree to overnight ship my passport to my house (with my pre-paid FedEx label, of course). So, I basically had an extended, week-long heart attack until this afternoon at about 1 P.M., when FedEx dropped my documents on my doorstep.

So in the end, I finally have my passport (!), am mostly packed, and am finally leaving the country, even if I had to cancel and re-schedule all of my flights, leave two days later than expected, and pay all sorts of fees and rate changes on all the flight changes (I'll also have to apply again for my visa when I'm in-country. Sweet!). Yay! I'm on my way. And, on the bright side, I didn't end up having to pay the actual consulate anything (part of not touching my application was not processing my money order), and I got to hang out with my friends, family and boyfriend for at least a little longer (though, sadly, most of my extra time was eaten up by phone calls to advisers, travel agencies, airline officials, etc.). Oh well. It's all taken care of now and having my passport in my hands has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Time to replace it with a hiking day pack:)

So enough of that. I'm sick of that. Now I'm just feeling the lovely feeling of having everything taken care of that needs to be taken care of (somewhat counteracted by the nervous/scared/worried/excited feelings of leaving everything behind for 5 months, but whatever). Traveling is wonderful; I love moving from place to place, meeting new people, starting all over, trying new things, tasting new foods, learning new languages... all of it, but leaving things behind is always hard (especially the night before. Especially when you're leaving things behind that you really care about). But I've come across a couple quotes recently that resonated with me, that capture some of the reasons why I love traveling so much, why I'm so excited to go, why I love changing things up entirely from time to time, and all that. Kind of mottos for existence, or whatever. So I'll leave you with those quotes, and hopefully the next entry will be less complaining, more dancing! Or whatever. Excellent!

Be not the slave of your own past.
Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far,
so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power,
with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

. . .

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

On to adventure!!! ♥