As predicted,

craving something familiar among so much that isn't.

I'm at a restaurant, which someone inadvertantly reminded me that I use for warmth as much as food. Across from me, there's a wall with 4 horizontal photoraphs. They're black and white photos, enclosed in white mats within black frames. They remind me of Jerry's photos, photos which I left at home so I could come here. I'm skyping with Jerry tomorrow. But someone appearing for about an hour on my computer screen in a wretchedly unheated room isn't the same as that person being here as a balloon of familiarity against so much I don't get.

The alley of restaurants across the street looks cozy and inviting, though my inability to flutently speak with the serving staff without English digs a dirty pile beneath the surface of that picturesque image.

I remembered my equally nonsocially-inclined friend Kristina telling me before I left the US that I could do this, because I talked to people, whereas she did not.

Ha. It's true, that I force myself further out of my comfort zone, under time constraints. But there hasn't been this careless shrugging off the unknown when I have a whole year to explore. So instead of going out of my comfort zone everyday & making myself talk to other tourists every day, I shrink away from the prospect of getting lost in a country I feel I know even less than one I was only in for 2 weeks. 3/4 the time I put a restaurant's name into Google maps, and it only tells me I'm somewhere in Santiago. If I put in the street, sometimes it'll zero in on one area of town. But when I try to add a street number to the street, suddently google moves the area to a whole different part of town.

When I go out walking, I make 3 consecutive right turns, and I should end up back at the street I left. But every time I've tried that, I find myself at some major intersection I have never been to before, that angles off where the original street should have been, but isn't. I end up turning back around to retrace my steps so I can get back to my hostel. How am I supposed to go anywhere if there's no way to find out where it is?

I got lost on my 2nd or 3rd day here. That's to be expected, when you're abroad. But I decided this would be my new home. So, I have to have SOME idea where SOMEPLACE is in this city. But I don't. Every time I try a new route, a whole new part of the city opens, but I can't find any other connection to where I started unless I retrace my steps. There's no newly-discovered shortcut, no new angle of a place I already know. Everything is new, which means newly-discovered-point-C has no connection to this afternoon's newly-discovered-point-D. The points don't connect, so Santiago remains a collection of disjointed, unconnected points. Much like my foreign language attempts. EVERY. TIME. I think to ask what time it is, all I can think of is, "A qu'elle heure?" My waitress, doubtless hoping for more than the customary recommended tip amount, said my Spanish was very good. Ha. I used google translate tonight to order dessert because I COULD. Usually ordering in a restaurant means my knowing how to say, "Could I have ____," or "I want to have _____," randomly guessing and hoping whatever I just ordered won't suck or be completely inedible. Unhelpfully, no matter how well I pronounce the entree I want, 9 times out of 10, it would appear my blue eyes cause them to act like I just spoke Greek. This time, since I had my tablet, the wifi password, AND a female server, I put the entire dessert description into google translate, told her what i wanted, and magically, got what I ordered. More than anything else, I think the key is having a female server. Why aren't there so many more of them? Whereas the women will manage to bring you what you want, the men will bring you chicken (pollo) instead of what you ordered (pulpo).

Now I'm not saying my 4 years of Spanish, reading Spanish subtitles on netflix, and listening have signifincantly improved my pronunciation or memory of the language. But it's almost like this is Chinese, where there are 4 different words spelled the same way, it's only the subtle tone that distinguishes one word from the others, and when your unattuned ear hopes the Chinese can try to think of the 4 words that sound the same and figure what through context what you're trying to say, they act like there are no such sounds in their language. It's much the samw with the male Chileans. If I say LechuGA instead of leCHUga, the men here think you just choked on something, not at all registering that you just tried to pronounce "lettuce." All those jokes about women being the brains of any operation? They're proven true when men are the ones you have to communicate with. Today I ordered a ristretto at a coffee shop. The male waiter (who takes 5 minutes to even look at me) understood cappucchino. I mean... Maybe all the men hear need hearing aids?