It's time...

Packed. Ready. And yes, I am bringing my towel.

...and I'm ready!

The goal over of the last few months was to get a DNA-level of understanding of this adventure, so that when I get south of the equator I can simply go with it and take in the opportunities.

I believe that people do the best they can with the tools they have.  The "tools" can include things like personal knowledge and skills, personality traits, money, access to information, support from family and friends, etc. 

And time.

I tend to take all the time I have when I work on anything - big or small.  I had two and a half months to get ready for this excursion, which was kind of short. I won't know for awhile if I could have done anything differently during the planning phase, but for now, I want to remember that the amount of time doesn't necessarily translate to being any more or less thoughtful about it.  Years are long -- there's more time to think of stuff, but there's more time to not think of stuff too.

The outstanding question is whether I can ever be ready for my brain to hurt in terms of hearing and speaking the Spanish. Because that's gonna happen!

Who wants a Chilean fishing rod?

Fishing rods beat out leather and wine in terms of
popular imports. For obvious reasons.

If packing for a four-month excursion proves to be too overwhelming, one might take a break from it all by a) shoveling after a snow storm (fun!), b) spending way too much time reading about customs and duty tax, (super fun!) and c) marathon-watching House of Cards (actually fun!)

I'll definitely be on the lookout for certain things to bring back/mail as gifts to my people. Chile is well known for copper, lapis lazuli, and wool. I'd love to bring back some pisco and wine, but that gets trickier, or at least, more expensive.

So much time

"Make yourself useful. Get those things in a row."
-Veronica Mars

and so little to do!

Four months isn't that long a time for a sabbatical, in the end, but long enough that I had to think differently about details on the home front than I typically do for a vacation. Most systems accommodate 90 days pretty easily, so the additional 25 days I'm taking created more steps to take.

A To-Do List

Husband: do a knowledge transfer. Dan was joking about doing an "exit interview" the other day as he was asking about where I keep our accounts and password information, where my excursion info will be, and the practical stuff I do about various things for our life together.

One practical thing I do is be his emergency contact, so I also asked him to update that information with his employer. (That came up like this: Amanda: Who is going to be Dan's emergency contact? Me: What do you mean? For what? Amanda: For emergencies. Me: Ooooohhhhhhhh, right.)

Household: get the financial ducks in a row. In addition to figuring out how to afford this adventure in the first place, I opened a separate checking account for travel and wiring emergency money purposes (not attached at all to my real-life checking account), put travel notices on the cards I'm taking (which is only good for 60 days, so have to call and extend the notice in April), put a seasonal vacation suspend on my cell phone (which is only good for 90 days, so have to call and extend the suspension in May), and set up automatic payments for the credit card I am taking.

Health Care: get an Rx refill in another country. I'm allowed a 90-day refill. The plan is to find a local doctor and get a local prescription (availability confirmed). Backup options include: refilling through an international pharmacy company, or having Dan fill the prescription here and mail it to me. (Substantial duty may apply).

Career: take a personal leave of absence.  The actual steps to take were surprisingly simple (I wrote a memo to my boss. She forwarded it to her boss, and filled out an online form for HR), but the process (on my end, at least) involved re-articulating my professional goals (mainly for myself, for this excursion and in general), understanding the HR rules/union contract (and assessing the risks), preparing to leave certain projects mid-stream, and getting comfortable with my feelings about leaving, and asking for help.

Also, I asked for the leave before I had anything lined up (like, you know, a country to go to) so the process also involved taking a leap of faith.

Awwww, good old Kat

Viaje means "trip" and vieja means "old woman"

I had many well wishes from my colleagues, and my boss brought in a cake (thank you!) for a send-off celebration.

Look at that map! Es increíble!

Look at those colors! Son bonitos!

Look at the message! ...Qué?

We laughed and laughed over the transposed letters, and it was exactly what I needed that day!

Plus, the cake was muy delicioso.

File under: Details, Random

For Skype, FaceTime, and general interest: standard time in Chile is UTC -4h, but the country observes daylight savings time (el horario de verano) from the second Saturday in October through the second Saturday in March. We're going into the southern hemisphere autumn (set the clocks back), and the northern hemisphere spring (set the clocks forward), so we will go from a three hour time difference to a one hour time difference.  (Currently, Chile is UTC-3h, and Minnesota is UTC-6h.  On March 8, the UTC offset will be -4h in Chile, and -5h in Minnesota). 

The tourist visa is something I can only obtain at the Santiago airport.  It is a physical card, and -for real real- I cannot lose it. Or leave the country without it. (So if it's lost, the only people who can replace it are the International Police.)

I hope to get a +56 prepaid cell phone for the duration. It may or may not be necessary to dial 09 first to call a cell phone from a landline in Chile, but it will be necessary to dial from a landline if I need to call a toll-free number in the United States in order to avoid charges.

The emergency numbers in Chile are 3-digit numbers, and follow an ABC-123 pattern.  From any phone, one can dial 131 for medical (ambulancias), 132 for fire (bomberos), and 133 for police (carabineros).

Chileans have RUTs (equivalent to Social Security Numbers) for taxpaying and employment purposes, and -like SSNs- have come to be required for a number of purposes (including renting an apartment).

My World Travel Adapter Kit doesn't list South America! Electricity Around the World says I can use the Continental Europe adapter in Chile, and the Australian adapter in Argentina.  The USB power adapter that comes with iPhone and iPad supports 110-240v power. I'm bringing the whole kit, in any case.

Getting to Viña

Once we chose Chile, we narrowed in on Viña del Mar fairly quickly.  That was a challenge, in retrospect, give how enormous Chile is, and how extraordinarily different the regions are.  Alicia has a friend who lived in Chile for several years who recommended that we investigate San Antonio, Valparaíso, and Viña del Mar, and I met some friends of a friend who grew up in Viña pretty early on in this process.  The Viña/Valpo area has about the same population size as Minneapolis-Saint Paul (my comfort zone), its central location might make it easier to explore both the northern and southern parts of the country, and its proximity to Santiago hopefully means day- or weekend-trips to the big city. (Also, if we need to get to the Embassy, it's only an hour and a half away.)

Viña has been described to me as the working-class counterpart to neighboring bohemian Valpo. It has been described to me as a resort town (am I going to live in the Chilean Miami? Lahaina? The Chilean Cancun?) and a place that Chileans go for vacation. It's also a place that the president of the country relaxes, and where the legislative branch of the government houses.  I am looking forward to to exploring the city and the region, and am curious about how two economies - tourist and local - play out in Chile, especially as it is something I think about, but don't know much about, in the United States. 

Job searching and backup plans

Most people I've spoken with who lived abroad temporarily did so through a program (job exchange, missionary work, study abroad), or had moved abroad for a long-term or permanent opportunity. Exchange programs for librarians were either long-term, or in Africa or Europe. AuPair programs appealed to me for the opportunity to live with a Spanish-speaking family, but I read mixed reviews about what to expect in terms of freedom.  Teaching programs cost a bit to get into, but they would prepare you, include some Spanish teaching, and do job placement. Volunteer programs also cost quite a bit, and require skills that I don't have (medical, mainly) or require a longer time commitment than I was willing to give. 

For reasons, Alicia and I are creating this immersion experience from scratch, and a big part of that included finding ways to afford it.

Option #1: Find temporary employment. 

I created my first international CV (which included information that I would never share in the United States on a resume...date of birth? Nationality? Marital status? Eh. When in Rome.) with the focus of teaching English or putting my library experience to good use. (Although, the idea of learning to farm or working in a restaurant appealed to me, farming can be isolating, and working in a restaurant would either a) put us in contact with English-speaking patrons and coworkers, or b) would have a lot of Spanish coming at us really quickly). 

Forums (expats, teachers, reddit), the Internet, and chats with loose acquaintances made it sound like there were teaching jobs to be had, we just had to be there as teaching companies in Chile wouldn't consider hiring anyone until they are in the country.  We planned to arrive in mid- to late-February (school year starts in March) to deliver our CVs to schools and companies, and scour the internet and the local  papers for opportunities.  Going into something with a decent-sized unknown (not knowing whether these jobs were available to anyone with native English or native English speakers with language teaching experience/licenses) meant creating a back-up plans if we couldn't find employment.

Backup Option #1: Volunteer my way through the country in exchange for food and shelter. Sites such as Help Exchange and World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms match volunteers with hosts throughout South America (and the world). 

Backup Option #2: [still blank. come home? stay anyway? live on a beach somewhere?]

Toward the end of December, I responded to an ad we had seen on learn4good.com (Alicia had written in November), and in early January, we realized we had discovered positions that matched ideals of having Chilean coworkers, being situated in Viña del Mar, paying enough to make ends meet, and requiring skills that I have.  And that was the equivalent of what full-time means in the US (40 hours per week) as opposed to full-time in Chile (approx 48 hours per week).