A lot of people ask me what my typical day here is like. There's no straight answer. Most days start with school. Well, toast with jam, then a bus, then a metro, then school. The afternoons and evenings are the hours of small adventures, triumphs, boredom, and surprises.
Yesterday was an exceptionally normal day, if I were 22 and Chilean. After school, I met a nueva amiga for sushi and we only spoke in Spanish. While she swears she understood me, I'm skeptical. Still, it was the longest continuous time I've spoken in Spanish since being here, and I remembered that was the reason I came. Turns out this future psychologist dedicated her last five years as a Jewish youth group leader and six years ago, did a brief exchange program with Schecter in New Jersey. So, before meeting, we had ten Facebook mutual friends. Hopefully, we'll go out this weekend and I can aggregate some more Chileans into our mutual portfolio.
To evade boredom's creeping shadow, I had my friend Nicole over in the early evening. She studied journalism, has a Chilean husband, lives here and freelances: she's a vision of the life I didn't choose for now but easily could have dreamt up and at moments, covet.
After eating mangos in my backyard, we were picked up by some of her husband's high school friends in the neighborhood. They are all bilingual, successful, and still fun 25 year olds - aspirational role models for me. Admiring the moon's brightness through the lack of ozone layer, we sat in Nicole's in-laws' landscaped yard and drank piscolas - pisco, a South American plum brandy, and coke (which is a dangerous starting point after two dry weeks). Then I went home and ate a way-too-salty omelette, talked to five good friends at once, and went to bed.
Press repeat:
Now, I'm in class again. We're talking about the most popular drugs in our home countries. ¿En Italia, se prefieren mas la heroina ola cocaina? ¿En los Estados Unidos, se abusan drogas sintéticas, no? We generally just oscillate between talking about food and illegal things. Not quite the conversations from the Scarsdale High School Advanced Topics course. An adorably skinny with braces Brazilian guy in my class just called me Jennifer, probably because it's a generic American name that he saw in a Hollywood movie. He turned a little pink when the teacher told him my name was in fact, not Jennifer. Instead, they've all started calling me Esteffi because they can't pronounce 'st's nor consonant endings.
Who knows what the afternoon will bring. I think I'm going to go to an indigenous artisan market or an atelier furniture exhibit at the cultural center.
Despite un pequenito duele de cabeza, today is a good day. A very good day.
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