Day 1: Going South

24 hours of travel! Chicago O’Hare to Boston Logan (meet An) to New York JFK (meet Ava) and then all together on a 10.5 hour overnight flight to Santiago. The flight definitely will feel worth it as we get to spend a whole month in South America. I was astounded to count how many flights I’ll be taking in the next month, and it clocks in at 11! We are definitely packing in a lot of trips into one busy, busy January.

The airports were rather uncrowded, and flights were all on time with good weather. We definitely got lucky with all of that. My flight from Chicago was pretty uneventful as I just read a book the whole time (“Savage Inequalities,” about the pervasive inequality in the US public school system) and next thing I knew we had landed. I was very excited that my backpack fit in the overhead compartment really easily, which I shouldn’t have been surprised by. After all, my Spokes teammate/adventure buddy/fellow backpack fanatic/friend Delia had passionately recommended it to me, and her claim that it fits well as a carry on was 100% correct! Thanks Delia :)

It’s a well known fact that I’m a bit obsessed with backpacks, and I must say that mine is far from disappointing! It’s pretty exciting to power walk through airports with everything you need for a month on your back, ready for anything from teaching and city living to desert travel and mountain/glacier hiking. I’m proud of us all for packing light enough to avoid checking any bags. That’s definitely one less thing to worry about as we go from place to place. In a funny coincidence, Ava and I actually ended up bringing almost the same backpack and are both pretty enthusiastic about it.

After I finished my book, I eagerly awaited An’s arrival. It was quite fun to meet up with An in the Boston airport as I hadn’t seen her for 2 weeks which feels like a long time since I’m used to seeing her multiple times each day. After discussing my backpack system (aka me over-enthusiastically showing her all of its features), we settled into talking about everything we’re excited for about this trip. I think that’ll be a never-ending conversation, as it has been before the trip and will be on and after it as well :)

We were quite amused by our plane from Boston to New York.

As I got in and had to duck my head, I said “wow, I had to duck!” to which the flight attendant said “don’t insult my ship!” I liked that.

A meager 48 minute flight, the plane was formatted with 1 seat, an aisle, and then 2 seats. I commended An on snagging both a window and an aisle seat.

My height might’ve been equal to the width of this vessel. The flight was very easy and fast to say the least. It was a beautiful plane ride as people kept the window shades open and we could pretty much see the water and the coast the whole time. Joking that we were going to add a person at each stop, we picked up Ava. Since she had been on an earlier flight out of Boston, she’d been at JFK for several hours. It was great to reunite after the short-but-feels-like-a-while two weeks. I’m so grateful to be traveling with these two inspirational ladies and good friends. We stationed ourselves at a table in the food court and took turns watching the bags and walking around. Suffice it to say I was glad to get some steps in on my Fitbit during the midst of a day full of sitting on planes. Planning ahead as we do tend to, Ava started making a grocery list as we dictated to her what we would need to buy upon arrival. In 12 hours we’d be in Santiago!

As expected, I was thinking about food. An promised they’d serve food on our overnight flight, and I trusted her international traveling experience but also wondered if I should bring a backup dinner just in case. In classic friendly An fashion, she talked to some people and got us all of the information we’d need. Dinner and breakfast on the plane, vegetarian options available!

This made me pretty content, and plus I still had the reserves of the awesome bag of homemade snacks that my mom sent me with. It looked a little silly having my high school lunch bag swinging around from a carabiner off of my backpack, but eating a PB&J and fresh blueberries and other snacks made me glad to have it. Thanks Mom! Speaking of food, I’m excited to try some local food in Chile as well as have the chance to cook for ourselves when we choose to in our apartment.

I’m writing this up on the plane to Santiago, excited and eager but also hoping I’ll be able to get some sleep so we can explore the city tomorrow when we get there. It’s funny to think that there will be four major changes when we get off of the plane:

1) Morning 2) Summer 3) Spanish 4) Culture

We’re all really looking forward to practicing and improving our Spanish, but it’ll definitely be nerve-wracking to use my clearly not-native-speaker Spanish in this new country. Even on our LATAM flight, the flight attendants are bilingual, talking with some people in flawless Spanish and conversing with others in English. I was so tempted to talk to them in Spanish, but then I chickened out. I’m going to have to get over that quickly! I want to push myself to trust my Spanish and not be embarrassed about my lack of a quality accent or flawless grammar. I hope that speaking Spanish in Chile will really open us up to meeting and learning from lots of new people. I’m excited to teach and meet our students as well as the people that we encounter in our city explorations and outdoor travels.

Parents, we made it safely so you don’t need to worry about my travels anymore! Or at least until this next weekend when we fly up to the Atacama :) We’ll keep updating the blog as frequently as possible (hopefully daily) to share about our teaching and traveling. Thanks for reading!