Happy New Year´s!

I have never been a big one for New Year´s Eve. Too much pressure and hype for my taste. But I do take time to think about how things were for me at this time last year. This time last year was not a good time for me. When I was home for Christmas last year I decided to take action on two things that would help me change my life: getting certified to teach English and yoga.

 

Here I am a year later living in a foreign country and doing both. And I am happy. I am proud of myself.

 

I celebrated last night at a friend of a friend´s house. There were six Cubans, three Chileans, and me. I love Cuban food, especially yucca.

After eating we danced to Cuban YouTube videos. They wanted me to choose a song, so I put on Clean Bandit - Rather Be with subtitles. We sang along and danced.

 

I have two goals for this year. One is to cause myself less suffering by accepting things as they are. The other is to live the present.

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.



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.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful I took a risk and changed my life dramatically. I am thankful for greater happiness and confidence. I am thankful for my family, especially Mom and Dad, for supporting me. I am thankful for the good friends I have met here, and for those I miss back home.

I am thankful for my friend Leti, who insisted we have a mini-Thanksgiving dinner. I waivered a bit wanting to celebrate--well, not so much in wanting to celebrate but in thinking that I had time. It truly was a busy day. I taught at 8 a.m. After that, I had my Spanish class and then a work training. During the afternoon I went on a Spanish student excursion to Barrio Italia, which was chic and lovely. There were students from Brazil, Germany, and the U.S. The German guy treated us to gourmet chocolate ice cream, which was swoon-worthy. (The ice cream, not the treating us part.)

I taught English from 6:30 to 8, and then hustle-walked back to my place where Leti was waiting, her bike loaded with a roast chicken, wine, and banana bread. She had really wanted to make a pumpkin pie but couldn´t find canned pumpkin.



We moved around my little kitchen with the ease of old friends to assemble this pretty little meal. We even found half-burnt tea lights and pulled out the plates with the gold trim.

I am thankful for such a day.

Tastes of Citrus with Hints of Chocolate

A friend and I took a day trip to a vineyard on Sunday. It made us smile to leave the city and see the countryside on the three-hour bus trip. The bus dropped us off on a country road, rather than taking us into the nearest city, Santa Cruz. We walked about a quarter mile to Viu Manent, a vineyard.

We turned onto the dirt lane that lead to the vineyard and reveled in the spring day and the breeze and the beauty.

We took a carriage-ride tour of the vineyard. They grow 26 varieties of grapes. We saw some vines that were 80 years old.

I love this picture of our driver.

We also saw the more scientific side of making wine. This is a wine laboratory. (In this case, I believe the more posh pronunciation of lah-BOR-a-tor-y is due.) On the right are different types of vats they use to ferment the wine. We tried some wine straight from the metal vat. It tasted raw.

We tasted six types of wine. The pencil was for jotting down notes, like "hints of lavender" and "pollinated by bees who also frequented clover." I stuck to check marks for the ones I like. The metal bucket is a spit bucket, which I did not use. High-brow or not, I don't look free wine in the face!

After the tasting we ate lunch on the patio of the vineyard's restaurant. This was our view. There happened to be an equestrian match going on. This is when we began to wonder if this was real life.

We began our meal with squash soup and a salmon and avocado salad. We continued with two bottles of wine. I had duck for my main, and we topped it off with a delightful little dessert that we ate so fast there wasn't a second for a photo.

I got on bus and couldn't physically hold my eyes open. I slept for two hours. A deep sleep.

American Brunch

Yester my friend Leti and I went to Cafe Melba in a neighborhood called Las Condes.

It was THAT amazing! The cream with the pancakes tasted like a heavenly cloud. I still can't get over it. The potatoes were just like those at the best American diner. The caramelized onions were sweet and so good I might ask for a side plate of just them next time. Under the sausages were mushrooms and beans. The only thing that would've made this a true American brunch would be if the pancakes were as big as the plate, instead of three medallion-sized ones. Alas, portion control.

On the walk from the metro to the cafe we remarked how different Las Condes is from Providencia, where we both live. Las Condes is newer and has a more industrial feel. In Providencia the buildings are unique and old. Everyone has balconies and many are covered in plants.

I love my neighborhood and couldn't imagine living anywhere else, but as my dad says, "Different strokes for different folks."

Making Empanadas

While I was in Talca this past weekend, my friend's mom taught me how to make empanadas. Well, half way. I don't know how to make the filling or the dough, but I sure can roll them out and stuff them. Empanadas are sort of like little individual meat or cheese pies. You can fry or bake them.

Rolling out the dough for fried empanadas.

 This reminded me of rolling out pie crust dough with Grandma Shea. I know my way around a rolling pin thanks to her.

 This filling is made of chicken and diced, fried onions.

Generally, you add a segment of hard boiled egg and an olive to the empanada.

We had both fried and baked empanadas. I love them both, but maybe the fried a little more!

Dawn

This morning, while drinking a cup of mint tea, I saw the sun rise over the Andes. This was pretty easy to do since the sun doesn't rise here until almost 8. When I leave for my Tues/Thurs morning class, it is pitch dark. It's an odd sensation to go to work in the dark. But then again it is light until about 8 p.m. so I guess that is the trade off. I remember in the depths of December last year leaving work in the dark at 5:30 p.m.

This year Chile opted out of daylight savings. A couple of Chileans have told me they think the government chose the wrong time to stick to and they think they will change it next year.

I just finished dinner at the very Chilean time of 9 p.m. I made a picnic-size potato salad, my first ever. It's pretty good, but I still miss Mom's.

100 Little Sandwiches

Today I met up with a friend at the Museum of Human Rights. It documents the Chilean military coup of Sept 11, 1973 and the political kidnappings, torture, and murders that occurred during the Pinochet dictatorship. It was sobering. We had to leave after seeing only about half because there is only so much one can take in of a subject like that.

Then we went to a neighborhood called Bellas Artes to eat at . . .

I lovey love love this is a Spanish chain. Montaditos are little baguettes the length of your finger. They come topped with a 100 different things, like Spanish dried ham, chicken and cheese, potato omlette with ali-oli sauce. My friend was also an au pair in Spain for a summer and when we tasted the tinto de verano drink it brought us right back. I've met a lot people that have studied in Spain, and they all go nuts when I mention 100 Montaditos: "The food! The drinks! It's so cheap! It's SO delicious!" We also had fries with ali-oli sauce, which is like garlic mayo. I told my friend that I could bath in ali-oli sauce. I'm so dramatic when it comes to food!

After all the goodness you see above, I had a chocolate bread montadito filled with nutella and toasted almonds.

We took a long, long walk home, skirting the Bellas Artes neighborhood, which is, well, artsy.

It reminded me more of the Latin America that I've experienced in other countries. On the other side of the river is my neighborhood, Providencia, which feels more European.

Juicy

I love eating and drinking normal things in unexpected flavors.

I bought these juices at Lider, a grocery store near where I live. The pear one tastes like Bartlett in a bottle. And the raspberry is sweet, sweet nectary ambrosia. Today after my second class I was suddenly desperately hungry. I stopped by a little shop and had a spinach and cheese empanada and fresh kiwi juice.

Today one of my students had to leave class a few minutes early. As he was leaving, he said, "Good-bye, classmother." I said, "Mother?" The other students and I looked at each other and one said, "What happened?" And we all burst out laughing. I think he meant classmates, but there's no way for me to tell.

Ahem, a Toast

Literally. And this is how I make it:

I'm not sure why toasters aren't a thing here. This pan works but it takes longer. After I flip it, I melt the butter on the already toasted side. When it's done I spread honey on it.

This morning I had honey-butter toast with tea. The tea I like in a large part because it warms my hands, which are perpetually icy. I woke up late today. Last night I met up with coworkers at a bar where they brew their own beer. A pint was about $3. I had a blonde ale that tasted like a summer shandy. The bar closed at midnight on a Thursday. Crazy.

After breakfast this morning I did yoga to the Garden State soundtrack. The soundtrack is amazing, dynamic, and compelling. All the lyrics speak to me.

In the afternoon I went to work for our last day of training. We did visa paperwork. Oye. It was as painful as it sounds. When my British supervisor heard I'm American he said, "It's not your fault." Huh. Okaaaay.

I got my first class! It's on Mondays and Wednesday from 12:30 to 2. I have three students; they work for LG.

Good Food, Good Meat

Last week when I was looking at apartments I saw one near a university. I figured there'd be something cheap and yummy for lunch in the area. I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall type place with tables out front on the sidewalk. I ordered a cheese empanada. Now, if you think an empanada is like a Hot Pocket you're WRONG! Imagine the butteriest, flakiest, bestest croissant you've had, and then put cheese in the middle. Well, here's a picture but it doesn't do it justice, I promise.

Yesterday I went to happy hour with the other people in my work training. I had my first pisco sour, which is the Chilean national drink. It's delicious and strong, like a mojito. We had meat and cheese plates. The butter had herbs in it--so delicious I wanted to eat the whole pad of it, like a piece of thick cheese on bread. 

Today after training I went to the mall in the tallest building in South America. I was with a Chilean and an American. We went to a crepe restaurant. Remembering when my Spanish host dad called me out for it, I asked my Chilean friend if it's considered poor manners to cut your food with the edge of your fork. She said it's not, but like it Spain you shouldn't eat with one hand in your lap. My raspberry and caramel crepe was so good that I asked, joking but with a little hope, if it was socially acceptable to like your plate clean. It's not.