Recuerdos?

Another older entry I found, from the first part of the trip. It's funny looking back on everything now, from this vantage point almost-at-the-end. Have we changed? That remains to be seen, I'm my money is on yes.

Taking a break from my mountain of homework for class tomorrow to indulge in English. Yes, ENGLISH. After three weeks of homework completely in my secondary language, English has been transformed into something of a luxury: in class, a forbidden but often necessary vice, our gringa indicating index and my somewhat ugly-sounding mother tongue. Ah, the ease of being able to write something in English! The constant flow from brain to fingertips, the electrodes snapping in synergetic harmony to the rhythm of fluent speech—I’m terribly jealous of the bilingual and trilingual, and the simplicity with which they dance between languages.
So much is happening all the time, yet upon reflection it seems like the de rigueur for life here: a constant adventure. My journal is filling up with random accounts of the more colorful aspects of life here, documenting my battle with the waves of nostalgia I feel after dreams of palm trees and Manhattan. In my room with the view of the ocean stretching forever forward, the same color as Chilean lapis lazuli (a sidenote: Chile and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world that can boast large deposits of this beautiful blue stone)—I just wish for home and for what I consider to be normality. Even ordering coffee here is a nightmare.
But despite all of my griping, I still love it here and I’m learning with much more fluidity than I thought I would. I went out to Valparaiso with El Colombiano, and we spent the night waxing poetic in a small jazz bar (where the median age was well over 60), and two old, drunk former merchant marines complimented me on my Spanish, even for being a gringa. It’s a marvelous thing to realize that you can express your ardent beliefs on leftist politics in another language, albeit haltingly (another sidenote: Mark would be proud).

It ends rather abruptly, probably as I realize how much homework I have to get done. But isn't that sort of a metaphor for life?