I'm within the one week mark for my Chilean departure. This is a busy checklist week:
- allergy shot/pick up medicine pack CHECK
- blog-setup CHECK
- skype-setup CHECK
- figure out banking in Chile CHECK
- florida-pictures/thankyou/fleece CHECK
- tent from Jesse CHECK
- international link...
- prepack...
- W2...
- power converter...
- paint deck...
- gift for host family...
- pack-final...
Yesterday I met with Professor Judy Beck at UNC Asheville whose office I conveniently "stumbled" upon in the Astronomy department to find find that she spent all of last last year in Chile--La Serena (a bus ride south from my Antofagasta). I spoke with her for about 45 minutes, satisfying all of my various predeparture questions and concerns, and caught a glimpse of what it looks like from the inside, as a foreigner.
This encounter was very encouraging and exciting, finally pasting a relationship, face and personal experience over a generic typeface on the map. It was the shift that finally put flesh on a concrete, geographical location--a spot on the map that has painfully become the static, direct object for every "so what are you doing now" conversation over the last 11 months.
"Chile" and "Antofagasta" have finally become liquid, evolving entities that will wear a different face with each conversation I have, stimulating actual sights, sounds, smells and tastes rather than a flat, thumbnail image generated by google image search. Southern bound...
