A Nomad I Will Remain for Life

Bringing in the New Year in 2011 was a blast. Of course, celebrating NYE  (New Years Eve) in another country is nothing new to me. Last year my best friend Kelly and I rang in the New Year in Amsterdam. Tons. Of. Fun. But I think that this NYE in Punta Arenas, Chile will have topped them all. Sorry Kelly.
I didn't spend NYE with my flatmates because Chelsea, Jenny, and Emily flew to Santiago for a week to ring in the New Year away from Punta Arenas, Lee and Ben (the cartographers for the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race) had to spend New Years coming back from a 5 day-long expedition trekking through the untouched wilderness of Patagonia, where they were making sure their maps they had created for the race were correct, and so it was just Will (the Frenchy) and me at Casa Amarilla. I befriended one of the local girls, Gabby, who also works with us, and she invited me to a NYE party with her and a few of her friends. So I went, but Frenchy stayed home. This is Gabby:
It turns out New Years is celebrated differently here at the end of the world. Everyone eats dinner with their family and rings in the New Year that way, but at 1 am, or later, everyone goes out to the biggest parties (sponsored with DJ's) and gets their drink and dance on. Which, Gabby, all of her friends, and I went to after a house party. We didn't start the night until 3 am. These Chileno's know how to party. I didn't get back home until 7 am... when I left the big NYE party, there were still hundreds and hundreds of people dancing and drinking. I don't know how they do it! I wanted to go home around 4 and that's even really late for me! Insane. It was a lot of fun! But the next day was spent wishing for greasy food and staying in bed. I have never longed for some kind of artery clogging meal from McDonald's so much in my life... or Chinese takeout. There are no fast food restaurants in Punta Arenas, nor was anything open (this includes the grocery store) on New Years day. I have to admit that I can't wait to go back to the states and eat fatty American food!!


I'm sick, again. This time it's a cold, hopefully just sinuses because of the insane weather we've been having here. But... what's new? The weather here is always unpredictable. By the way, it's summer, but we're still wearing beanies, scarves, and warm clothes. The other week we had some really great weather, in the low 70's I believe, but then it was back to being rainy and in the 50's. This is probably why I am sick. I hate being sick in a foreign country. It makes me realize that I can barely take care of myself and I highly respect all of my friends, who are married - and then, especially, the ones who are married with children in their 20's, taking care of their loved ones. More power to them! Please teach me your ways! I seem to stay sick here... I had 2 weeks of being completely fine, besides the fact that I was still having to put ear drops into my ears.
Work has picked up. We have a new Frenchy coming sometime tomorrow, who will move in with us. We just got a Chilean girl, who speaks NO English, that moved into Casa Amarilla on Sunday. So the house is officially full and we are now living with not 7 people in the house, but now 10. Although, Emily and Lee moved into Casa Rojo, but they still come over and use our kitchen, etc at Casa Amarilla. So technically we only have 8 people living in our small, two bedroom, one bath, one kitchen small living room shack. It's still too many people in a small house.

Almost forgot. We gave away Christmas Puppy... yes, it was a sad day. But we couldn't take care of her any more. We were never home and she needed someone to play with. It was mean to leave her all alone in the backyard everyday. So Ben and Lee took her on a walk without a leash and she got distracted and went to play with a group of kids. They ran away from her so she wouldn't follow them. Hopefully she found a good home. I know, that wouldn't have gone over well in the US at all... but this is Chile, things are different and there are dogs everywhere. Including, she was just too cute, we're pretty sure that someone had to have given her a home. We've never seen a puppy on the street besides her.