Manana con la lluvia/Chilena Training

It's morning/afternoon on the ocean, a grey looking day that edges towards evening even as I wake myself up. The hedonistic tendencies of the young and responsibility-free in Vina make for long nights and rather short days, thought it's a welcome change from the langor of little Hilo. Even with the rain softly blanketing Vina, the day seems full of possibility, infinite.

I've been here only a week and already I find myself slipping into the grooves of a well-worn life here, savoring the newness of experience but already feeling the familiar paths of routine. When I leave here, will it feel like I've spent my whole life here? What a terribly adaptive predicament, the wonderful transience of our lives making every new place feel like home, every journey a homecoming. Are there any lines between anything, or does it all blend and mix? Will I wake up one day at the sunset and remember everything like a dream, Spanish-speaking characters intermingling with my earliest history, the ocean connecting all my paths?

But enough musing. It's a good feeling to have the whole country spread out beneath your fingertips. No school Friday, no school Monday, nor Tuesday....and we're only limited by the depths of our pockets and the breadth of ingenuity. We're thinking about going up to La Serena (the second oldest city in the Chile!) or maybe Santiago, San Pedro de Atacama, or even just more Vina and Valaparaiso. It's exciting, it's new. But we're learning. The other people on the program are all lovely, and we discover more things about each other as we try to figure things out here, which micro to take and how much the colectivo really should cost. Alicia (my neighbor and fellow Chileno enthusiast) and I have developed a plan for fully experiencing Vina and the rest of the country: CHILENA TRAINING. The young people here are veritable South American hipsters, cool kids that sport outrageous haircuts (the infamous chocopanda: a sometimes in, sometimes out take on the classic mullet) and slick clothes. After some initial observation, Alicia and I decided that Chilenas:
a) Do not speak loudly on the street, especially not in English. Note #1: Speak softly in public places, in passable Spanish or even English with a Spanish accent.
b) Always know the best places to go out and migle with fellow Chilenas.
c) Have the most fashionable accesory: a Chileno boyfriend. This means an instant companion to walk you home when it's dark and scary at night, a personal bodyguard to keep the greasy, weird men at bay, and a trusty make-out partner.
d) Wear boots. Cool boots. Slouchy suede boots, with the pants tucked in. It's terribly cool.
While Chilena Training is still in the observatory phase, we'll likely be moving on to direct action within the next few weeks. Alicia already has boots. The Spanish needs to get better and I need to keep quieter in daily public settings. But we're trying, and plan on unveiling the Chilena versions of ourselves upon returning to Hawaii.

I've drank and danced more than I did during a whole summertime in Hawaii, which is a fun change for now but will probably get old fast. I'm trying to live as fully as I can without killing myself or getting sick. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I'm falling in love with this completely enchanting place.