Valpo and Vina

Hello!
I'm writing from a hotel in Vina del Mar, Chile where, for the past few days all of the SIT students have been for orientation. We finally found the right adapters for laptops, after many horror stories of students frying their computers as soon as they plugged in. The hotel we are at has wireless internet, so here we go:


The most memorable parts of my long and tedious trip were those that involved my accordion. It all started when I walked through the security gates at Portland International Airport. I placed my accordion on the x-ray machine conveyor belt, worried it wouldn't fit under the itty-bitty metal tunnel. It did, but barely. While it was getting scanned, the security man at the station muttered, "Now, that's something I've never seen." Another, younger, security guard teased him saying, "and you've been here for a long time!" He took the bait, and responded, "I know, I've been here for ages, and still- I'm seeing something new!" Leave it accordions...

It fit perfectly in the overhead bins for the Portland to Denver flight.
While I entered the airplane leaving Denver, a flight attendant looked at the large and oddly-shaped bag on my body and asked, "What do you have there, an accordion?" When I responded positively his response was, "Wait, really?!"

Luckily, my luggage was checked all the way through to Santiago so once I arrived at the Miami airport I didn't have to worry about the 90 pounds of equipment on my back. We had a hotel room reserved for us, so I spent the night there before meeting the rest of the group at the check-in gates at 4 am the next morning.

And here's where it gets interesting:
I walked up to the woman at the counter, showed her my passport, my itinerary. Then she had me place my two carry-on bags (my purse and my accordion case) on the scale. Apparently, on international flights each carry-on can only be 10 kilos. My accordion was 17.
Since I already had two bags checked, it would be an extra one hundred dollars to check a third.
But no problem, no problem, she said, just take some of your things out of your bag and put them in a checked bag. This made a lot of sense, because I had taken advantage of the extra space in my accordion case to pack some of my clothes, on the argument of weight distribution.
Well, as my bags had been checked all the way through to Santiago, we had to call over the next girl in line, Ashley Taylor, who had been my roommate at the Miami Airport Hotel the night before, and ask if she had extra room in her luggage. We shoved in my pants, my toothbrush, some books (remember, this is in the middle of an airport in front of a long line). Finally, there was nothing in the case except for the accordion itself. We placed in on the scale one more time and crossed our fingers.
It was still 11 kilos - just one too many.
The woman was telling us, just take out some more, before she looked down and realized it was all one piece. "Oh dear." She scratched her head a bit, asked some of her coworkers, then picked it up and lugged it over to one of those metal size-testing racks for overhead bags. Apparently it fit just fine, because she came back, put a special "override" tag on it, and told me if I had any problems I should tell them that she said it was okay.

Then she leaned over and said, "You know, my grandfather had one of those."



Miami to Bogota: no problem. Bogota to Santiago...not as easy. The airplane was smaller, the aisles were thinner and the overhead bins were tiny; there was no way my accordion would fit. And so, after all the work we put in to be able to carry on my precious accordion, we had to have it tossed under the airplane with the rest of the baggage anyway. At least I didn't have to pay the 100 dollars.

At the baggage claim, I was nervous about my luggage, as they were checked one-heck of a long way from Portland to Santiago, but I was most nervous about my accordion. Realizing the emotional connection I have to the instrument made me remember this old man I met, an accordion repairman, when I went to buy my soft case. He said, "people don't realize how special accordions are. We [accordion players] really get attached to them; it's because, every time we sit down to play, we hold our accordion, embrace it."

Yeah.


Well, it came through just fine, along with all of my luggage (except my sleeping bag, which left PDX strapped to my pack, and got lost somewhere along the way. No importa- it's replaceable). When we arrived in Santiago, we were welcomed by a cold and rainy winter night- a big change from Miami that morning. We soon learned that Spring doesn't even start until September 21. Welcome to Winter!

We were met by the SIT staff, scooted onto a bus for another extension of our long journey- two more hours to Vina del Mar. Since arrival here, we've been stationed at this hotel, doing workshops and listening to presentations and doing activities, getting us oriented within this group, this educational program and this city.
Though group activities tend to be more draining than not, I'm having a pretty good time - there are amazing people on this trip.
There's a young woman from Alaska that grew up fishing commercially with her cousins and is studying bilingual theatre.
There's a young Chilean-American man who butts heads with his Chilean grandmother when he tries to clear his plate and she says "Leave it: there are too many women here for you to do that."
There's a slam poet from LA, an Amnesty International intern, a Colombian-American who loves latin dance, an activist coming straight from AIDS-work in Tanzania.

All in all, a great group of engaged, intelligent, kind people.

Tomorrow we have another day of orientation and then at dinner we will finally meet the "younger members" of our host family (meaning: brothers and sisters, cousins). Saturday morning we will pack up our stuff and move in to our new home.
None of us know anything about our host family except for one name and an address.
It will be great to finally meet them.



And this city is beautiful: we are right on the water, right next to the huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean. And there are plazas and mercados and hills and hills!



Oh, and just to validate the trouble I went through to get it here, I've made sure I've played my accordion every night so far.

Pre-Departure

Currently I'm lying on the floor of my room, surrounded by piles of clothes and bags in varying states of disarray. I'll leave my home in approximately 10 hours for a year South America!

More or less, I'd say I'm prepared: packing-wise I'm where I should be (considering how late I'll probably be awake, I'm sure I'm fine), and emotionally I'm getting excited (finally, the butterflies-in-the-belly excitement).

I just thought I'd lay some groundwork for what I'm going into:
The first semester I will be based in Valparaiso, Chile, in a program focused on "Culture, Development and Social Justice." I'm bringing my collapsible hand-balancing canes, as well as my accordion (in a new and amazingly convenient soft backpack-style carrying case!), so it should be clear I'm still planning on doing some circus. Of course my first priority will be my academics and soaking up the cultural experience, but I'm sure I will have some time for training and art-making (maybe even performing?) while I'm there.

One thing I'm VERY excited about, and probably the first item on my agenda for free time, is checking out a park in Valparaiso called the "Parque Cultural Ex-Carcel" (The Ex-Prison Cultural Park). I've heard rumors that this is where all the circus people hang out, and though there's not much of an internet trail I can hunt down, I have noticed whisperings of a circus community, a workshop advertisement posted here, some photos posted there. I would love to meet some other artists and start some sort of cross-cultural collaboration. (I'm telling you- the circus brings people together!) In fact, I found some photos from a trapeze workshop at this very park, and I recognized most of the moves. Even though the names are different, I could have learned that choreography in a heartbeat.


Here's a photo of the Parque Ex-Carcel



It looks so beautiful, I hope they are friendly!

And, here's a beautiful photo of Valparaiso, just for kicks:


But before I can even worry about any of this, I have a big trip in front of me. I'll be heading out with a few good books for company and my accordion strapped to my back.


I can't wait!