JANUARY 1ST 2010! NEW YEARS DAY!
So yesterday was crazy.
I went rock climbing with K and R. The first course went well except that everyone is yelling at me in Spanish—I am learning fast left and right in Spanish but it was confusing and I was trying to focus on climbing higher…
Then came the second course and well, something happened. I was up there and so close yet not to this ledge. I wanted it and I kept thinking, Ethan Hunt—Ethan Hunt, Nerissa! And so I mustered all my leftover strength and jumped aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnndd slipped—I didn’t catch the ledge and I don’t remember what exactly happened… but I found myself on the ground and my head hurt and back hurt and there was blood and that freaked me out. That would freak ANYONE OUT! Cause I didn’t know where the blood came from or what was going on.
*The rope was caught in a crevice and slipped out when I missed the ledge causing my body to swing like a disoriented Tarzan into the opposite jagged cliff so I was informed later. The blood was from my head. And yes I cried. Stupid emo.
Then I helped K move in to our apartment—YEP SHE’S OFFICIALLY A NEW ROOMIE—but my head hurt so bad and I was tired.
R wanted me to go to the doctor but I think I’m fine… if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have woken up today right? Besides where would I have gone? He said he had a friend who was a doctor but I don’t have insurance.
Then K went out with a friend for New Years and my roommate and I celebrated together except I wasn’t much fun. I mean, I smiled and walked about but I really hurt. I looked in the mirror and my back was all scratched and it hurt when moved my arm—which makes me think I might’ve bruised another rib—which is fine, I brought my rib brace with.
I just feel spacey.
Oh, but New Years Eve is CRAZY HERE! The streets shut down completely! Everyone walks around the streets drunk or carrying alcohol—they sing—and fireworks that can be seen all down the coast…
The story goes with the fireworks that:
Vina del Mar, Renaca and Con Con are the richer, upper class Chileans while Valparaiso is made up of blue collar workers—the middle class to pobre. And the fireworks are for the people of Valparaiso who couldn’t afford to celebrate like those from their sister cities. It’s a nice story and the fireworks were beautiful and that’s not the concussion talking, I saw pictures today.
The fireworks started at midnight and that’s when the parties start! Not before and end after midnight, this country parties all next day—today! When I was walking down to the internet café at like 10 am, I heard people still drunkenly singing on a karaoke machine—in ENGLISH! So funny!
They love their 80’s down here! Depeche Mode is everywhere!
And the hair and sunglasses… it’s more 80’s than I ever experienced and I was born in 1980!
I didn’t drink last night either—I felt too looped already I didn’t want to go down that path—
JANUARY 2ND 2010
Decided to leave on the 31st de Enero. It feels like my hearts already left here. Es muy triste! Es no bien! I should be loving every moment—living every moment as if it’s my last cause what if it is?
I want to keep traveling. I hated coming back to Valparaiso from the South.
Maybe I’m not over what happened with our apartment. I don’t smile at people so much now—cause I wonder if they were the ones who did it and then well, I get kinda angry and make threats in my brain and I just don’t want to stay in Valparaiso anymore.
*Ironic that I despised Valparaiso because on my first trip to Chile I LOVED VALPO and wanted to move there immediately.
It is a beautiful ciudad full of culture and art but most of all a reality check of life outside of the United States.
No matter how broke I could be I will never be as broke as many of the people there. They live in tin cans, burned and falling down. The higher the cerro (hill) the more impoverished they are. My roommate and I only drove up—up—up once and I saw life. Life I’ve never led and hope to never lead…
Living in Valparaiso made me grateful for the United States.
The events that happened earlier and are later expressed in upcoming journals are not…awesome.
Yes someone tried to break into our apartment 2 weeks after we moved in and yes it made me quietly paranoid and angry towards my neighbors.
But, because that happened I learned a pretty valuable lesson about what it means to be an outsider—not just language or culture but in understanding a different set of actions and consequences. But most of all it was about fear and the loss of power that happens when you don’t know the rules. (Not laws but societal rules).
So yesterday was crazy.
I went rock climbing with K and R. The first course went well except that everyone is yelling at me in Spanish—I am learning fast left and right in Spanish but it was confusing and I was trying to focus on climbing higher…
Then came the second course and well, something happened. I was up there and so close yet not to this ledge. I wanted it and I kept thinking, Ethan Hunt—Ethan Hunt, Nerissa! And so I mustered all my leftover strength and jumped aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnndd slipped—I didn’t catch the ledge and I don’t remember what exactly happened… but I found myself on the ground and my head hurt and back hurt and there was blood and that freaked me out. That would freak ANYONE OUT! Cause I didn’t know where the blood came from or what was going on.
*The rope was caught in a crevice and slipped out when I missed the ledge causing my body to swing like a disoriented Tarzan into the opposite jagged cliff so I was informed later. The blood was from my head. And yes I cried. Stupid emo.
Then I helped K move in to our apartment—YEP SHE’S OFFICIALLY A NEW ROOMIE—but my head hurt so bad and I was tired.
R wanted me to go to the doctor but I think I’m fine… if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have woken up today right? Besides where would I have gone? He said he had a friend who was a doctor but I don’t have insurance.
Then K went out with a friend for New Years and my roommate and I celebrated together except I wasn’t much fun. I mean, I smiled and walked about but I really hurt. I looked in the mirror and my back was all scratched and it hurt when moved my arm—which makes me think I might’ve bruised another rib—which is fine, I brought my rib brace with.
I just feel spacey.
Oh, but New Years Eve is CRAZY HERE! The streets shut down completely! Everyone walks around the streets drunk or carrying alcohol—they sing—and fireworks that can be seen all down the coast…
The story goes with the fireworks that:
Vina del Mar, Renaca and Con Con are the richer, upper class Chileans while Valparaiso is made up of blue collar workers—the middle class to pobre. And the fireworks are for the people of Valparaiso who couldn’t afford to celebrate like those from their sister cities. It’s a nice story and the fireworks were beautiful and that’s not the concussion talking, I saw pictures today.
The fireworks started at midnight and that’s when the parties start! Not before and end after midnight, this country parties all next day—today! When I was walking down to the internet café at like 10 am, I heard people still drunkenly singing on a karaoke machine—in ENGLISH! So funny!
They love their 80’s down here! Depeche Mode is everywhere!
And the hair and sunglasses… it’s more 80’s than I ever experienced and I was born in 1980!
I didn’t drink last night either—I felt too looped already I didn’t want to go down that path—
JANUARY 2ND 2010
Decided to leave on the 31st de Enero. It feels like my hearts already left here. Es muy triste! Es no bien! I should be loving every moment—living every moment as if it’s my last cause what if it is?
I want to keep traveling. I hated coming back to Valparaiso from the South.
Maybe I’m not over what happened with our apartment. I don’t smile at people so much now—cause I wonder if they were the ones who did it and then well, I get kinda angry and make threats in my brain and I just don’t want to stay in Valparaiso anymore.
*Ironic that I despised Valparaiso because on my first trip to Chile I LOVED VALPO and wanted to move there immediately.
It is a beautiful ciudad full of culture and art but most of all a reality check of life outside of the United States.
No matter how broke I could be I will never be as broke as many of the people there. They live in tin cans, burned and falling down. The higher the cerro (hill) the more impoverished they are. My roommate and I only drove up—up—up once and I saw life. Life I’ve never led and hope to never lead…
Living in Valparaiso made me grateful for the United States.
The events that happened earlier and are later expressed in upcoming journals are not…awesome.
Yes someone tried to break into our apartment 2 weeks after we moved in and yes it made me quietly paranoid and angry towards my neighbors.
But, because that happened I learned a pretty valuable lesson about what it means to be an outsider—not just language or culture but in understanding a different set of actions and consequences. But most of all it was about fear and the loss of power that happens when you don’t know the rules. (Not laws but societal rules).
You are so right. I am constantly in this situation. Sometimes feels like I'm playing a game, but don't know any of the rules.
ReplyDeleteSally how are things in Chile? I've been thinking of coming down for a visit?
ReplyDelete-Nerissa
So what are you waiting for? ¡Venga, venga!
ReplyDelete