Oh, The Weather Outside wasn´t Frightful

Two of my coworkers came over to my apartment for Christmas Eve dinner. They are both Americans and expat travelers, like me. We cheese and champagne with peach juice for appetizers.

Over dinner we told each other our stories. We have all lived in Spain for a time. Anna actually lived in Barcelona for two years. Vanessa has lived in England and Austrailia too.

We had chicken fajitas for dinner, which isn´t Chilean at all, nor it is like anything I normally eat for Christmas Eve.  This was the first time time in my life I didn´t go to my grandpa Shea´s house for Christmas Eve. I called before my friends came over and my family passed the phone around. It was good to hear everyone´s voices.

After dinner we watched Home Alone. It´s just so American. I love that movie. So classic.

On Christmas Day, I slept late and then taught an early afternoon yoga class. I was really happy to see my students on Christmas. Though here Christmas Eve is the bigger celebration, which involves a family dinner and kids opening their presents. It was strange to see people doing normal things on Christmas, like going skate-boarding and bringing kids to the park. To me, Christmas day has always been such a departure from the normal routine, the normal things.

One of my English students gave me a box of gourmet chocolates. There are some unique flavors mixed in, like papaya. It is too hard to choose, so I close my eyes to pick one to eat.

Merry Christmas

My friend Leti and I made Christmas cookies! It was a marathon, as always. We baked for hours and blared Christmas tunes.

Let is so creative so I stepped up my game with the decorating. Eventually we ran of Christmas-y ideas for decorations. And started using purple icing.

Leti made this Chilean flag cookie. Our first Chirstmas in Chile.



Last Class

I had my last class with one of groups of students. We played Taboo, which is always a good time. They were befuddled by words like ´´broom´´ and ´´penguin,´´ but ´´Micheal Jackson´´ they got right away. At the end of class, they gave me this box of chocolate and thanked me. I love teaching.

Animal Whisperer

Yesterday evening I taught a private English class at one of my student´s homes. He was late, so I sat out front on a patch of nice-looking grass and made friends with a black-and-white, slightly macho dog. When I say made friends, I talked to the dog (in English so I don´t know if he understood) and he sniffed me. I didn´t pet him because I couldn´t tell if he was a street dog or a neighbor´s. When my student arrived, he told me he hates that dog because it always barks at him.

After class I walked home and saw this . . .

This cutie was rolling back and forth, so happily, on the sidewalk.

I can resist petting street dogs but not cats, nuh-uh. She was just so content. And fluffy.

A few blocks away, I saw another long-haired cat. I said hello and it meowed a reply and trotted over. I knelt down and it circled me, rubbing on my legs.

Last night I dreamt about cats--our orange cat Clemintine and a big black cat we had when I was a kid, Purrs-a-lot. It was sweet to think of him again. I remember he would sleep with me, on my pillow actually, and slowly push my head off, purring the whole time. Pillow hogger.

I miss having cats.

Sunset

This is the sun setting over the park by my apartment. I go to this park almost every day to do yoga. I love the way children and dogs alike run free and eldery people gather on park benches to chat. yesterday there was a huge slackline. It must have been 40 feet long. I can´t imagine the balance it takes to walk across it.

The sun sets late here now. Around 9 o´clock. I can´t believe it was winter when I arrived it was dark by 6.

Friendsgiving

On Saturday my friend Magda and her boyfriend picked me up to go to a Friendsgiving. Our friends Matthew and Antone have a little house away from the city center. Magda´s boyfriend remarked a couple times that we were driving to the end of the world, but it really wasn´t that bad. The GPS told us we had ´´reached our destination´´ but we weren´t sure which in the row of little houses was our friends´. We weren´t sure, that is, until we saw this beautiful spread through the window.

We had an eclectic and international meal that lasted, literally the eating part, for hours. There were people from France, Poland, the UK, South Africa, the US, and Chile. I loved how people flowed freely from speaking English to Spanish. The food ranged from tabouleh to gazpacho to midwestern potato casserole with cornflakes on top. Antone, from France, made these open-face pies that were as delicious as they were beautiful. The crust was as close to my grandma Shea´s as I´ve had.