5. Dia 1~ Mi Espanol Es Horrible!

since it was such a rushed whirlwind to get everything packed up in the US before argentina, it was a pretty big shock the fist day when i woke up there. when traveling, my go-to is always to put on my running shoes and explore. dasha had shown me a huge park nearby so my plan was to head there. i usually don't drink coffee but i was feeling the jet lag so went to the coffee maker...then to youtube to find how on earth i should work a coffee maker in argentina. to say the least, i am THE worst with technology. after many gopro fails, it is a joke with my friends how bad i am with all of that. so there i was with a foreign coffee maker. in the same half hour i realized i had totally forgotten an electricity adapter- my savy travel friends (char, especially you!) always thought of these techy things before our trips.

after my run i set out on a mission to find an adapter and immediately the language was completely overwhelming. i had lived in ecuador when i was 19, taken high school spanish and have traveled in many spanish speaking countries...i guess it was overwhelming this time because no one seemed to speak english and i knew i'd be needing to speak spanish for the next 2 months. i quickly realized how much worse my spanish was than i thought- i had last used it at taco bell at 2 am trying to help my friends in puerto rico- this had also been a big fail- see pic of us lined up as if we were in a car trying to go through drive through because we didn't understand them. hours and miles later i did find an adapter- it shows how a normal task can become a huge accomplishment in a foreign country. to say the least, my head definitely felt stressed that first day- by 3 pm it felt necessary to sit down and have a glass of wine ;)

that night, dasha, ale, amalia and marcelo took me to dinner. the cool cell thing to do down there is voice notes through whats up. i again felt like a dummy with technology and i'm sure dasha got the funniest voice notes with me trying to figure them out. she told me to wear heels- oh right, i forgot those too. AH- suitcase life was real. amalia was the skydiver friend of dasha's who had messaged me when i was still in the US. the warmth and calmness of the 4 of them made me feel at home after the day of roaming buenos aires as a total american. ale and marcelo treated us ladies to the fine dining- i was astonished at the generosity.

that first day it hit me how hard it is to let go- in general- and in traveling. while i thought i was so ready to take a big step away, i immediately found myself missing the people- my sister, my best girl friends, skydiving with my san diego friends, the guy, san diego routine, whole foods, green smoothies, my yoga. the immediate huge gap in comfort made me very aware of how hard it was to let go. i knew this was so good for me- in life it is very easy to get too attached to things, people, places when truly it is time to separate. i try to always practice letting go of what does not serve me any longer- so this was definitely the beginning to a good test in this practice.

it was also the first day in my entire life with no plan. no plan was the plan in all of this because i knew i needed that desperately- the freedom, the challenge and the learning of letting go. from high school, immediately to college, right to the PR internship, then into the marketing career- previously there was always a plan. that night i was so excited to tell dasha that i was going to sign up for spanish classes for the whole next week- because i was overwhelmed by the spanish - but more because i felt the immediate need to have a plan. her blue eyes got big and she said "WHYYY would you do that when you can explore this beautiful country?!" i realized in that moment that in addition to it being amazing, how truly challenging it was to drop everything and open up to letting life play out, to open life up to serendipity. the whole point of this big adventure was to have no plan, let go and be free. that first day showed me how much of a challenge is wrapped in the beauty of that goal.

that night ended with- "see you tomorrow for skydiving argentina!!!"

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