First and foremost... Happy New Year, Everyone!!! ¡Bienvenidos 2012!
Okay, now for my Christmas update. I hope you all had a very, very Merry Christmas. I heard the weather wasn't too cold, which is a plus, but the fact that there wasn't much snow is kinda a bummer. If there's one time a year, ya'll want snow it's around Christmas, right? Nonetheless, I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family (and ate lots of yummy, delicious food that we'll all have to work off with our "new years resolutions" eh?).
As for me, truth be told, my Christmas was a little less than merry. I don't think I've been quite so homesick in my entire life. Don't get me wrong, my Chilean family is amazing, the best. But they aren't my family and around Christmas time... We spent the holidays at the beach, which I think was one of the reasons it was hard. I wasn't even at my "home" in Santiago with our decorations and everything so it honestly didn't even feel like Christmas. I won't go into excessive details but in my opinion Chileans just don't celebrate Christmas quite like people (or my family, at least) in the US. In the States, it is something special. Now maybe that's the obscene amount of marketing that I'm feeling, but there is just something about snow and lights and Christmas music and a fire inside drinking hot coca or something with the tree in the background and the smell of Christmas cookies coming out of the oven. All the things I have taken for granted once or twice, all those things I missed like crazy. Not to mention, my family, whom was definitely the biggest reason for my tears on Christmas. (And if you know me at all, you know I am not someone who cries often. Thus if I shed a few on Christmas day, you can assume that it must have been tough. Haha) So let me be the first to confess that I have definitely taken my family for granted once or twice, as I'm sure we all can admit to as well. But, in accordance with the theme of the number one lesson I am learning in Chile, I am realizing how much I have and I am learning to appreciate every moment exactly as it is.
Sooo I would be a hypocrite not to realize how lucky I was to be in Chile for Christmas with a family I adore. Other than the moments that I was shedding a few tears or whining about wanting to come home to my parents, we had a blast baking Christmas cookies, listening to Christmas music etc. As you will see from my Chilean Christmas photo album on the left, we baked a TON of cookies. Thus, to get rid of some, we made cute little bags of our goodies and took them to neighbors and friends. ((US cookies are a HIT in Chile so my backup plan in life is to come back to Santiago and open a bakery with my host sister who also LOVES to bake.)) Other than the baking, we took life pretty easy, especially when we got to the beach. Although the weather was a little cool, it was a nice break from Santiago, which is still an oven. We did get some sun time though. You know me, gotta work on my tan, which my host sisters tell me doesn't exist; they tell me I am "salmon" colored. Ha..ha.. One of the highlights of our time at the beach, not Christmas related, was making sushi. We hit the jackpot because the family in the cabana next to ours was from Japan. So mom and daughter came over to help us out. Thanks to their help and not our "expertise" we had a mountain of delicious sushi to share one evening! Can't wait to come home and make sushi with Jared and Gina (so you two better be ready!). Anyways, we really did have a good time at the beach. Christmas was just so-so but I think New Years Eve took the cake. We grilled out and had some delicious food. Then we watched the fireworks over the beach. Ideal, right?
That really sums up my Christmas at the beach. I am still missing home like crazy, which makes me think that in two months I will be MORE than ready to come home.
Two months, Sarah? Why so long? What are you going to do now?
Well, as it turns out, I have a sweet job teaching English (and art and sports and crazy camp songs) to a bunch of little Chilean children for the month of January. The gig actually starts tomorrow so this evening I will be packing up my life and heading over to a little "suburb-ish" of Santiago called Calera de Tango where I will be living for the next month. More details to come once I get started. After that I could totally take the next plan home to the States, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't go all the way to the "end of the world" (i.e. Patagonia) before I left Chile. Thus, February will consist of me (sola) backing packing down to Tierra del Fuego and seeing some penguins, glaciers, volcanoes etc. I am trying to swing a cruise to Antarctica if my budget can handle that (although I doubt it can..). Although I have at least two more months here, I can tell you all one thing I will be more than ecstatic to climb aboard that 747 (or whatever) and take off for the US of A. Sure it'll be a little bittersweet because I don't know when I'll return but it will be nothing like Spain, which was heartbreaking indeed.
Okay, ya'll, I better start packing! I hope your new year of 2012 is off to a great start!
¡Ciao!
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