did the dishes this morning, tidied up my room, and caught up on recounting my trip thus far! i am not used to writing in a diary, and this is basically what im doing now, so i hope you all will forgive me for a) just now getting my adventures “out there”, and b) the very informal and unexciting way in which i’m writing. i’ve never written for an audience like this before, so i hope at the very least you enjoy my pictures. =)
first legitimate stormy day here. we got a fair amount of rain, without wind, and this made max very happy. there is a serious drought here, but of course in southern chile it is flooding. another fine example of climate change producing extreme weather patterns. we had a mondo seinfield marathon, drank coffee all day, and were basically slugs. it was nice, haha.
First of all, it does not feel like ive been here over 2 weeks. so hard to believe. it was a holiday weekend (not sure which holiday), and the house was full of guests. a skiing friend of max’s plus his girlfriend, and two other guys + one wife who own a custom ski company. they are making max a pair of skiis, and they are also looking to buy some land in this area, so max invited them for the long weekend to check out a parcel that one of his neighbors is selling. everyone was super nice and i enjoyed getting to know them as best i could given the language fence (not a barrier since i can speak a fair amount of spanish, but it is still difficult to go too indepth into topics given breadth of vocab i still need to learn). given this fence, they were all still impressed by the level of spanish i am able to speak, so that felt nice. but in circumstances, for example around the dinner table, when everyone is talking all at once and a lot of slang is being thrown around, i’m picking up probably only 50% of the conversation. it’s a little exhausting for my brain, but great practice for my ears. and everyone has been understanding when i have to ask them to repeat themselves or speak more slowly. this wknd tho has made me realize i need to start reading more in spanish, and max needs to speak to me more in spanish. up to now, ive been speaking to him in all spanish, but he’s been speaking in english to me for the most part. but no longer! haha. but the weekend was full of conversation, exploring the surrounding nature and beaches, relaxing, and cooking/grilling. and we’ve had some amazing skies! one evening i saw the sun, venus, and the moon all set in the same night (sun set around 6:30pm, moon around midnight). and there were no clouds in the sky so the stars were brilliant. ive seen more shooting stars since ive been here than i have in my whole life. max is convinced i’ll see a green flash before i leave, because we’ve had such amazing sunsets with fairly clear skies, but they still havent been quite clear enough. every time max thinks it’s my night to see one, there has been the thinnest layer of clouds right on the horizon preventing it (so he says). he says he’s seen a couple handfuls, so i trust he knows what he’s talking about.
also, max finished constructing his hottub this weekend! it is homemade and so rustic! he said he’s been waiting 14 years to do this (since he first built the home) so im very happy for him. the custom ski makers left sunday evening after dinner, and his ski buddy + girlfriend left monday morn. but, a childhood friend of max’s arrived sunday night, and i believe he’ll be here for a couple nights now. everyone i keep meeting through max has been such great company, and i’m really enjoying this flood of practice speaking and listening to spanish. Monday morning after i made breakfast for Max and Raul, we went for a long beach walk on the otherside of his house, opposite of the kitchen view beach. This was my first time walking on this side, and it was quite an adventure to get over there (otherwise we'd have to trespass on a neighbor's property to use their stairs to get down to the beach). We had to climb over a bunch of crazy rocks, but it was fun. The pictures I took are looking up at the living room. When they went surfing later in the day I finally sat down and got this blog set up! I didnt want it to be a flood of stories all at once (i'd rather have been posting them every couple days), but better late than never!
