Moving to Argentina!

First off, thanks for all your comments and advice. I really appreciated your insight, and it helped me verbalize my thoughts. Yesterday was a monumental day! I started writing this post yesterday morning and was still wavering between staying in Santiago and leaving. By early afternoon, I was thinking about maybe/possibly moving to Argentina. And last night, I decided that's what I'm going to do! It's pretty wild to be able to say non-chalantly, "I think I'll move to Argentina." I have my sights set on Mendoza (Summer, I'll be emailing you!), which is 7 hours east of Santiago. It has about 130,000 people, a more manageable size than the 5 million of Santiago. Argentina will also be cheaper, thank heavens. I can tell this is the right decision for me because once I made it, I immediately starting feeling better about the situation. I am finally excited about my plans, which made me realize I had been trying to convince myself to like Santiago. But there's no reason to do that! I've also been thinking more about going back to Cuenca for a bit at the end of my trip, but I don't need to figure that out until much later.

From Monday until yesterday afternoon, I was feeling pretty down and discouraged. Being sick still hasn't helped. I went to the doctor this past week, who diagnosed me with a respiratory infection-not the kind of illness you want in a smog-ridden city. I started antibiotics (which should also get rid of my Ecuador stomach parasites) but can't say I feel any better yet, so hopefully time outside the city will be good for me. I had been trying hard to like Santiago and give it more of a chance, but you can't force these things. It's just not what I'm looking for-it's too big, too expensive, too westernized, etc. There a lot of great places and museums, but the city itself isn't that nice. It's most utilized as a city to come visit for a week and a base from which to travel the rest of Chile. And while I could have found an apartment and a job (I actually had an interview and job offer for the after-school program) and met people my age, I wouldn't necessarily like it any more after a few months, and then that's just a waste of time and money! I chose Santiago because of the Jewish community, but it's not enough of a reason to stay, and most of the Jewish community is far outside the city. I'd rather be in a place with warm people and have strong connections. So onward to Mendoza-I hope it's a better place for me!

Let's talk about fun things. I'm going to head to Valparaíso next week, which is on the coast but only 1 1/2 hours away. Along with deciding to move to Argentina, I also decided yesterday to go to Easter Island before I leave the country. In a moment of well thought out impulsivity, I purchased the ticket last night...for half the normal price!. So don't expect to hear from me between Oct 7-14 because I will be wandering around the most remote island in the world (it's that little speck on the map in the middle of the ocean)! It's halfway between Chile and Tahiti, the island's actual name is Rapa Nui (which is also the native language spoken there), and most of the islanders are of Polynesian descent. It's only called Easter Island because some white guy "found" the island on Easter Sunday, 1722. The island is famous for its large carved stone heads (moai), of which no one knows exactly how they were produced and transported throughout the island. Just now I realized that my first full day on Rapa Nui is Columbus Day, which luckily has been changed in many parts of the world to Native American Day, Día de la Raza, Day of Indigenous Resistance, and so on. It should be an amazing week!

In hostel news, my Dutch roommate Yvet has gone and in her place came Laura and Lynn from Ireland. Good folk. I had to switch rooms for last night and tonight because someone booked my whole room. Hey, that's my room! But I can return this weekend. There has been a complete turnover of people from when I first came except for my buddy Rupert from England. I've been here so long that today one of the hostel workers asked me to cover the front desk while she ran an errand. It's still a nice crowd but has a different vibe from the initial group. I'm missing Yvet and my friend Marc from Montreal and looking forward to eventually living in a non-hostel environment.

I'll probably write another update next week after Valparaíso and before Rapa Nui. I realized that the name of the blog won't be fitting anymore, but it's too late to change it! So instead of Shalom de Chile, you can just pretend it says Shalom de Argentina. Or something like that. Have a great weekend...