Momma's and Steve's Visit

We had a really great 9 days together, it went by extremely quickly though, almost within the blink of an eye. I have got to get used to time flying because it always seems to do that here. Here are some photos of our trip: Fisherman in Zapallar (the beach town we visited), "La Chascona" which is one of Pablo Neruda's homes, bike tour of santiago, me infront of awesome graffiti and mom&me. It was a really great trip!






Thanks so much for coming all the way out here to visit me Mom and Steve, it really was nice to have a little taste of home!

My mom and I talked this morning about what home is anyway. Home isn't a place i've decided. I have a home in Minnesota, but also one in Arizona(dad), in Pennsylvania(school), in California(ryan) and now in Chile. So instead of associating a certain place with home, I just have to carry my "home" around with me on my shoulders.. "wherever i lay my hat, is home"

Hope you all had a nice weekend as well!

*Vanessa*

Please say he doesn't wear a gold chain, please :)

This afternoon I am sitting in my room, listening to Mason Jennings and packing up for my weekend trip with my Mom and her boyfriend Steve. We are leaving in about an hour to go to Zapallar ( a small beach town a little north from here ). We are staying there just tonight and the day tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon we are going to drive into Santiago and spend Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night in Santiago. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with my family and exploring this beautiful country I have been living in.

here are some photos of the beautiful weather and relaxing times we have had at my parents hotel:




Completely unrelated...

Isn't it crazy how you can listen to a song and be completely taken back to a place, a moment? I am always amazed that I could totally forget about a moment from my past but then the second music hits me just right, everything comes surging back .. deeper than a photograph. Today I have been listening to Mason Jennings all day (as I mentioned before) and I listened to a song called "Something about your love" and I was taken back immediately to last summer when I went to visit Ryan. I left four days after getting out of school and we spent about two weeks driving the California coast. We saw a Mason Jennings concert my first night in town and that was the first time he played the song "Something about your love" and Ryan and I were there to witness it! About a week later, his new album came out while Ryan and I were hanging out in San Francisco. I remember walking into this record store and buying two copies of it, one for me and one for Ry. We came back to our hotel, put the CD in Ry's computer and listened to the whole album. For me it was one of the happiest moments ... just reminiscing :)

Something about your lovee... ooooh something about your love
aint no modern love gonna set me free
like the kind of love that you give to me
I'm coming home to be with you
something about your love... oooh something about your love.

Hope you have a WONDERFUL weekend,

Vanessa.

Rabuco (pueblito en el campo)

My program took a small day trip to a little pueblo in the middle of the countryside... We went to a grape factory that produces grapes for Dole! We learned to dance the queca (chile's national dance) and competed in some universal field games like a sack race and carrying an egg on a spoon. It was some quality time with some good friends.






Today my mom and her boyfriend Steve came in from the United States to visit me!!! We had a wonderful day walking through Viña along the ocean. It is absolutely perfect today, sunny and bright!! Then we went to the botanical gardens to celebrate the birthday of one of my good friends. It was so cool to have my mom and steve there.

Now i am relaxing a bit before we go out to dinner tonight with my host family and me! Its going to be a lot of translating, haha.

Besos,

Vanessa.

That Great Feeling

Dear Friends,

Thank you all so much for your comments about my feeling homesick, I hope you know how much your words impact me. And luckily, I am now feeling much better. I have been thinking that even though I think I will always miss being away from my family and friends and home, I am only here for such a short period of time so I need to live it up!

I have a really great moment yesterday.. I walked down to get on the bus to go to my class, just like any other day here. And i walked onto the bus and there was a man standing and playing the guitar and singing beautifully in spanish. The music flowed through the bus, but no one even noticed, it was just another day to them. We took the bus along the coast (cause that is how you get to my university) and i looked out and pondered the vast seas that flow. To everyone else this was just another day on the bus, but for me... it was another reminder that I am in CHILE and the world really is a wonderful place.

Other than that, I bought a plant. I bought a plant of orange gerbera daisies, (my favorite) and they are currently sitting happily and healthily in my room. They really do light up a space.

Un mar de sueños,

nessa.

Some photos of Valparaiso

Valparaiso isn't the most beautiful city on first glance, it isn't fancy and it isn't modernized and in all honesty it is quite dangerous. But i have really fallen in love with the colors of life of this place. I don't like here, but my classes are there. The colors just lighten up my life. Back in the day, people didn't have enough money to buy paint for their houses so they would wait for the sailers to come into shore. The sailers would always paint their ships before going into the shore, for best appearnce, so they would give their extra paint to the people. That is why there are so many vibrant colored houses. It didn't matter to them what the color was, or if they even had enough paint to cover the whole thing.. they would paint their house half red and half green if that was the only option they had. Pretty interesting stuff.



I visited a really cool cemetery ( i think that is an oxy moron) But it is really old and has a lot of cool stories to it. This is the grave of a woman Emilie Dubois who was actually a theif and a murderer! She would rob and kill the rich and give to the poor. She actually killed a lot of people, and so she was jailed and when she was buried her bones were just thrown into a pile with other criminals. However, the poor people of Chile saw her as a hero.. almost like a Robin Hood figure. So a lot of money was saved up to make a nice shrine place and her grave is the most visited grave in Valparaiso. Criminals and prostitutes worship her and there are signs everywhere thanking her for what she helped them to achieve. So interesting!



Sending inner peace,

vanessa.

Feeling Sad.

Today I am feeling sad, I am feeling homesick and I am feeling exhausted.

All of this fun is finally catching up to me, it isn't easy being so far away from everything you are comfortable with. I feel really honored to be able to travel and explore like I have been doing, but I should note that there are times when I want nothing more but the comfort of a familiar place. That which is especially hard is the distance between my boyfriend Ryan and I. We always have a long distance relationship, but it is very difficult to stay connected while we are so far apart. I also feel distant from my parents, although I can talk to them easier (since they are just in the U.S) and I don't feel like i need that every day communication, but I do feel far away from them.

I had a scary realization today, that I am getting old, growing up... but I am not quite ready for it. I have been living far away from my family since I moved to college, only seeing each other occasionally, but it is all starting to catch up with me. As you most likely know, my dad is living in Arizona now, my mom in Minnesota and me in Pennsylvania (or Chile right now) Even if I were to move back to Minnesota, I still wouldn't be in the presence of both of my parents. Plus, I don't want to settle down in Minnesota. But I DO want to lead a life where I am very close with my parents.

It is also hard with friends, I feel as though the friendships I have and the friendships I am making are wonderful, but it is almost impossible to be forever lasting because they live all over the country. On the one hand, it is wonderful because I will have friends in every region of the country to visit.. but in terms of a day to day schedule.. I am ready for something settled, for something permanent. I am ready for a daily life that isn't always changing from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, or Arizona to Home, or the U.S to chile. I am looking for a family that is settled.. not having to travel just to see a loved one.. and even for being in a relationship where I don't have to travel a million miles just to see the person.

Everything is so temporary, and I don't think it will be permanent for a very long time. So what do I do? At this moment, the only thing that is permanent is my relationship with myself. I am always with me. I will always be there for myself, so that is the goal of right now. To develop a relationship with myself that is unbreakable, unbeatable... to have a strong internal force, to learn about myself and to grow!

I don't think there is any better place to do it than right here, in Chile, being challenged yet being supported. Ironically my angel card of the day was "resilience."

keep on fighting nessagirl!





cheers to working on strengthening our individual selves,

vanessa.

ps - feelings of sadness are normal, please don't judge.

Brittany Spears

Buenos Dias!

Last night I went out with two of my gringa friends and then a group of Chilean boys and girls that I just met last night. One of the boys I met was very flamboyant with very tight pants and danced in his seat almost the entire night. After people were getting ready to go, he asked if we wanted to go with him to another bar. So, four of us girls walked over to the next bar that just so happened to be a gay bar.

I have never been to a gay bar before, and my oh my was it an experience!! There was a screen behind the bar that played every Brittany Spears song along with the music videos to each. The bar was packed with Chilean men who couldn't understand a word of english yet knew EVERY WORD to EVERY SINGLE SONG that Brittany sang. Not only that, but a lot of them knew the exact choreographed dances to the songs. The boy we went with knew all the dances and loved showing us, haha. He was actually pretty good at them. He also practiced his soprano singing skills with me.

After an hour or two I thought I was exhausted of watching men in tight shirts kiss, I was about to leave when the lights went out and the stage lit up. To my great surprise, there was a drag show on the bar! The first person to get on looked so much like a woman! She wore a tiny little jean jacket and a jean skirt that barely covered anything. The next person wore a long white dress, and danced almost a tango. Truly an experience of a lifetime :)

I don't know much about the Chilean society in terms of homosexuality, one would think that because it is so Catholic it would not be acceptable. I loved being in a place where everyone felt so comfortable being themselves, even if it was a wee bit awkward for me at first. It was cool to see people with the freedom to express themselves.

Celebrating Brittany Spears and awesome gay guys,

*nessagirl*

Clocks and Classes

A note about the culture of Chile:

All of my literature classes have been cancelled today so that the students and professors may attend the protest that is going on in Valparaiso today. This will be the 5th class cancelled for one of my courses, and we have been in session for 4 weeks. They just push the material for that day back to the next class period. Apparently, if they push it back too much then it just continues on until you no longer have a break. Craziness.

Just another little side note: There are no clocks in our house. There is one alarm clock in my mom's room but she never uses it. There is, however a church right outside of our apartment that rings every hour on the hour. This is honestly how my host family figures out the time. It is no wonder that they don't leave the house until the time they are supposed to be there because if they are supposed to be somewhere at 2, they wait till they hear 2 bells and then they leave. How fascinating.

Sometimes I get frustrated with how late people are here, or how they walk so slowly, not understanding that you have to be somewhere. But since thinking about it, I have realized that we are slaves to the clock in the U.S. My lifestyle there is something that can be written down on a calendar, knowing ahead of time where I will be at every moment. I realized that this place gives you more time to create your life, maybe it is just my life here compared to my life in the U.S but I suddenly feel liberated from the hands of the clock.

Find some time to liberate yourself today from the ticking of minutes.

Sending Love,

Vanessa.

p.s - here is a poem I wrote yesterday

Pewen

Fruta saborosa mia,
decoras tu cuerpo con armadura
como un soldado en guerra.
Pero que estas luchando?
Para que necesitas este proteccion?

La dulzura de tu mismo
esta escondido a mis ojos
debajo de tu concha dura
porque no abres para mi?

Yo ofrece mi boca lista
y tu como el pewen,
eres dificil a pelar.
Ahora ensucio mis manos
para revelar
el sabor de tu corazon.

Translation:

Pewen ( a type of fruit)

Flavorful fruit of mine
you decorate your body with armor
like a soldier in war
But what are you fighting?
Why do you need protection?

The sweetness of your self
is hidden from my eyes
underneath your hard shell
why wont you open for me?

I offer my ready mouth
and you, like the fruit
are difficult to peal.
Now i dirty my hands
to reveal
the flavor of your soul.