scattered. confused.
I'm sitting on the roof of the hostel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, sipping mate out of my new black leather covered gourd, trying to come to grips with the idea that, come tomorrow morning, I will be home.
Since I left in July, lots of places have served as temporary homes, from a worn in apartment in Santiago to a gingerbread house on the mountain in Torres del Paine. Right now, home is the hammock on the hostel roof, with a view over Buenos Aires' spire-studded skyline. And now, in four more hours, I'm going home-home, back to Livermore, the biggest small town in California.
The good thing is that this trip is not really over--I'll be back in a couple of weeks, and I'll be traveling until the end of June. The bad thing is that time is becoming short: minutes feel like seconds, days feel like minutes, and months feel like days. Before long, I'll be in Nashville, studying political theory and wishing for nothing more than to hear the whisper of chilean sing song.
I came to meet David in Buenos Aires ten days ago. On the eighteenth, I waved a teary goodbye to Lucho and the rest of my adopted family, and slipped out of life as a Punta Arenense, back into life as a tourist. Early culture shock: everybody in every hostel everywhere speaks English. You say hola, and whoever is working the front desk answers hello. Unless you're stubbornly insistent, you will be waited on, served, conversed with in English.
Everyone who visits hostels speaks English. Almost none of them speak Spanish; generally, those who do are taking survival lessons. 'where is the bathroom?' they might ask, but their eyes glass over and the conversation dies as soon as anything of substance comes up. And so, I've been forced to start transitioning back.
My English is less polished than it used to be, and I get frustrated. All these months have me used to waking up to cafe con leche, or maybe some avena or pan... but now, it's coffee with cream, oatmeal or bread. I feel lonely, not only for people I've left behind, but for the lilting, sinsongy language we used to talk back and forth, the rapid fire conversation, the feeling that I finally belonged in their world. And now... I'm going home.
Since I left in July, lots of places have served as temporary homes, from a worn in apartment in Santiago to a gingerbread house on the mountain in Torres del Paine. Right now, home is the hammock on the hostel roof, with a view over Buenos Aires' spire-studded skyline. And now, in four more hours, I'm going home-home, back to Livermore, the biggest small town in California.
The good thing is that this trip is not really over--I'll be back in a couple of weeks, and I'll be traveling until the end of June. The bad thing is that time is becoming short: minutes feel like seconds, days feel like minutes, and months feel like days. Before long, I'll be in Nashville, studying political theory and wishing for nothing more than to hear the whisper of chilean sing song.
I came to meet David in Buenos Aires ten days ago. On the eighteenth, I waved a teary goodbye to Lucho and the rest of my adopted family, and slipped out of life as a Punta Arenense, back into life as a tourist. Early culture shock: everybody in every hostel everywhere speaks English. You say hola, and whoever is working the front desk answers hello. Unless you're stubbornly insistent, you will be waited on, served, conversed with in English.
Everyone who visits hostels speaks English. Almost none of them speak Spanish; generally, those who do are taking survival lessons. 'where is the bathroom?' they might ask, but their eyes glass over and the conversation dies as soon as anything of substance comes up. And so, I've been forced to start transitioning back.
My English is less polished than it used to be, and I get frustrated. All these months have me used to waking up to cafe con leche, or maybe some avena or pan... but now, it's coffee with cream, oatmeal or bread. I feel lonely, not only for people I've left behind, but for the lilting, sinsongy language we used to talk back and forth, the rapid fire conversation, the feeling that I finally belonged in their world. And now... I'm going home.