The Lead-Up to Santiago

Why do this?  Simply, moving to Santiago (or anywhere else in South America) is an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.  I'm doing this to hone my Spanish, experience another culture, see the world from a different perspective, have an adventure, make great memories for life, and answer the questions of "can I do it?" and "what would it be like?" that I don't want to grow old without answering.

Seeing as this is my first blog entry, I'll first focus a bit on my mindset leading up to the move.  Please note -- I'm actually writing this on my second day in Santiago.  I couldn't bring myself to do much writing in my last weeks in Ohio; that time was devoted to saying "see ya later" to my friends and family and to finalize elements of this trip.  My first day (days) in Chile will be covered shortly. 

I can remember the moment that led directly to the move to Santiago:  it happened in the summer of 2004, during two weeks of solo travel after a study abroad experience, when I was walking around Barcelona and enjoying myself.  During a period of extreme enjoyment of my circumstances I raised my head to look at the windows of an apartment building and thought "how cool would it be to live up there?".  I immediately had a mental picture of my life -- walking through the streets of Barcelona, attending events in the city, meeting up with my foreign friends, and having a unique experience.  At that moment the seed was planted, I knew that I would someday find a way to answer that question.

In the following years I dabbled in this goal.  I wondered where I would want to go and how I would do it.  I knew I wanted these things:  1. a country that spoke Spanish (to allow for perfecting of my Spanish); 2. a large international city with decent public transportation (to have international opportunities, more ease to cross the city to attend events and meet friends, hopefully better job opportunities); 3. access to the ocean (to learn how to surf, a minor -- but real -- goal).  Over time I settled on South America as the destination -- Central America was too close to the US and to what I was familiar; Spain was too developed, too refined, and too similar to the US.  From my limited travel experience, along with knowledge gained from books and others, I felt that South America had an element of "grit" and uniqueness that would make it an interesting destination. 

Moving quickly from 2004, in 2010 my life situation was in tune to allow this dream to be realized.  After some research I decided to focus my intentions on Santiago, Chile,  which matched the profile that I was looking for in a destination city. 

Toledo, Spain (summer 2004)

With my host family (minus Jorge); Toledo, Spain (summer 2004)

Train station on Spain-France border.  This was the setting for a memorable experience involving the Middle East, terrorism and racial differences (if you've heard the story you know what I mean).  (summer 2004)

 *note:  I packed very light for my Europe trip, hence the reason why you see the same shirt in these photos.  (I think I took 4 shirts total)
**note #2:  Yes, that's my real hair.