¡Terremoto!

As many of you know, there was a major earthquake in Chile at about 4 A.M. (~12 A.M. AZ time) Saturday morning. Everyone in my house and everyone I know is ok, and there was relatively little damage to our neighborhood. Everyone is asking me if it was scary, or if I'm ok or whatever, but in reality, things were relatively minor where I was; until I talked to my mother yesterday afternoon (when the landlines came back), I didn't even think that any of you guys in the states would've heard about it. The truth is that much of where I am is running relatively normally; yeah, we don't have power, and the metro, supermarkets, airport, and some streets are shut down, but other than that, things are pretty normal. Gracias a Dios, everyone we know is ok. Yesterday morning I wrote a little bit about what happened, so I'll post that here. As you'll see, I really didn't think that the quake was a big deal (we didn't have radio, telephone, TV, news, anything, so we didn't hear any of the statistics or death tolls that we're now hearing), not until yesterday afternoon and today, anyways.

From yesterday morning (~11 A.M. Santiago time):
“This morning we had un terremoto (earthquake). At about 4 A.M. Santiago time (~12 AM Arizona time), I woke up and felt like I was experiencing extreme... I don’t know, vertigo? The feeling you feel when you get off a boat or a a plane but you still feel like you’re on it. I was only semi-conscious at the time (I was sleeping when it started), so I didn’t really realize what was going on, but Carlos and Kelly came running into my room and pulled me under the doorway. Afterward it was just the sound of car alarms going off, dogs barking, and, later, the sound of the neighbors coming out of their houses, checking up on and talking with each other. We didn’t have power, so the only news we could get was from the neighbors who had a battery-powered radio. The quake was about an 8 on the Richter Scale, so they say, but we haven’t had radio or electricity since so I really don’t have any details.

It was really strange. I had never experienced a strong earthquake before, only the aftershocks that sometimes reach us from LA or wherever, so when I woke up, I didn’t really think to react or move. I just kind of laid in bed, thinking that everything was wiggling and that it had to be an earthquake (what else would it be?) and “oh, how strange”, but I really wasn’t awake yet and I didn’t think to move. The sensation was really different than what I had expected; I kind of expected it to be more abrupt, like when you put things in a box and shake it, but it wasn’t. It felt like being on a boat; it like the entire house had been put on a boat on choppy water.  It lasted longer than I expected, too; maybe it was just in my head, but I felt like we were under that doorway for a long time, like it would maybe never stop. And it was interesting: I wasn’t scared, mentally; I didn’t really feel any fear in my head. My body knew it was scared before my head did: my heart knew to beat faster and my lungs to breathe deeper before my head knew to feel fear. Very interesting. I’m sure tiredness had a great deal to do with it.

Anyways, everyone in the house and all the family members are fine (I haven’t talked to any of the kids in the group, but I’m sure they’re ok). As soon as the land lines started working in the middle of the night, everyone started calling up and checking in (I slept through all of that, but Kelly told me the phone woke her up every ten minutes). I still haven’t had the opportunity to call or text home (it’s pretty early there anyways, and I’m sure they haven’t heard about it yet) because my phone service is dead and I haven’t wanted to call using the house phone ($). I’ll contact them once it’s not so early in AZ (it’s still about 8 or so there) and I have electricity to charge my US cell phone (shouldn’t be too long, they’re pretty used to earthquakes here, though not this big usually. Apparently they haven’t had one this big since 1984).

Around here things don’t seem to be so bad: a fallen wall in the garden, some downed trees here and there (our fridge also tipped over a bit, but it’s fine now). I don’t know about the rest of the city, though. Apparently there are about 60 or 70 dead throughout Chile, but again, that’s all just hearsay since we don’t have radio or internet. Kelly was saying it was very lucky that we were all in the house, that I wasn’t out carreteando (partying), and I have to agree. I wouldn’t have known what to do if I was out by myself (let alone out by myself and drunk without telephone or public transportation). Could you imagine being on the metro during that quake? It would’ve been terrifying (though luckily the metro doesn’t run at that hour, so no one had to go through that, thank God).”

So you can see, the intensity/the gravity of the situation didn't hit me until I talked to my mother yesterday afternoon. And it still hasn't hit me, really, because I still haven't seen any photos or video footage. It's a very different thing to know that several hundred people have died and to see it with your own eyes. I still don't think it's hit me yet.

So, again, everything is good, everyone is fine, no se preocupen (don't worry:-) ). I'll try to talk to everyone whenever I can on the internet, but my house still doesn't have power so my internet access is fairly limited (I'm at my host grandmother's right now writing this; some neighborhoods weren't hit as hard and still have power).

Thank you for your thoughts and concern, que todo les vaya bien.

♥

Aquí estoy

...and I am EXHAUSTED. Still. Though not half as bad as yesterday, let me tell you. I think this is the first time I've ever really had jet lag; all I can do is sleep.

Anyways, Thursday was entirely consumed by travel. I left PDX at 9:20, flew to LAX, chilled for about 5 hours, then flew to Miami. The flight was delayed for about an hour on the runway, so I had to run to my gate when I arrived and just made it onto the plane. Mildly stressful, but no big. Arrived in Santiago at ~10:15 Friday morning, went through customs, etc. then went straight to meet the rest of the students in the CIEE (exchange program) group. Definitely the most lucid, attractive, and awesome I have ever come across for a first impression (~24 hours without sleep, with little food, no shower, etc.). Had some orientation session business until about 4:45 and met mi familia at about 5. They took me to their house, showed me around a bit, and left me to shower and sleep. I have never passed out so hard.

Today was pretty laid-back-- my host mom took me into the city to buy a cell phone (it's cheaper to have a Chilean phone than it is to use your own from home) and to show me how the metro works. Good news: it seems very easy. Bad news: it's going to take over an hour for me to get to school. Oh well.

Tomorrow is a free day and then the other students and I start a "Contemporary Chile" class on Monday. It's a week-long de-briefing on the language, culture, history, etc, and every day after class we go to some important site that pertains to what we learned that day (pretty excited about it). I'll do my best to take some pictures or whatever without seeming like too much of a tourist (possible? No sé. But we'll see).

Living with a host family is really... interesting. It's very weird to be pretty much entirely dependent on people you've only just met and with whom you can only mildly communicate, but my host parents are very nice and very patient. Their names are Kelly and Carlos, and they're in their late 50s. They have three children: a daughter and a son that are grown, married, and out of the house, and a 23 (or 24?) year old son who is currently on vacation. He (Javier) won't be back until the end of the month, but they showed me a picture and I noticed (with joy) that he has the beginnings of a fierce South American mullet (see 'el choco fashion'. Hilarious). The mullet is a trend I have followed avidly around the globe, and Javier's has great promise. I'm pretty excited about it. Anyways, apparently he doesn't talk much and only uses modismos (slang) when he does, so we should get along fine (Ha!). So for now it's just me, Kelly, Carlos, and their adorable Cocker Spaniel, Danka. ¡Que rico!

But yes, it's about 3:45 A.M. here (everything in Santiago runs a little later; my neighbors are still blasting reggaeton/Michael Jackson/Tears for Fears and talking quite loudly), so Imma go to sleep. I'll try to get some pictures up of my family (and Danka!) fairly soon, but we'll see how it goes. ¡Buenas noches a todos, que todo les vaya bien!

¡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!!! ♥