Where Has the Time Gone?

It’s been approximately eighteen days since I’ve arrived here in Santiago, Chile. This is the first leg in a four month stint with remote year (follow my group’s tag #ryuroboros) and my plan was to look for adventure and not to give away too many spoilers, but be careful what you wish for. Ok, so how shall we start this orchestra? It’s probably good to start in the beginning so here we go.

I arrive in Santiago full charged with emotions ready to take on the work and anything that may get in my way. I meet some of my fellow Uroboros crew (the name of our group) and can see early on that this is a great group of people. Everyone has a story as to what led them to be here and this further confirms my thoughts/bias (tangent coming) that we as people need to do a better job of being open and welcoming to people we don’t know. Everyone has some insight, some experience, something to offer to the collective and it’s a beautiful thing. Not a long tangent, but I digress. As I was saying I meet the crew and all is peachy (this isn’t a story of trouble brewing, just shouting out the crew). Week one starts off amazing, I’m in kind of full tourist mode taking pictures of just about everything in sight. The walk from the place I’m staying to the co-working space is about a 10 minute walk, so I find myself taking long walks through the park admiring the street art and randomly Abraham Lincoln. I honestly still do not have the slightest clue why he’s here. So I finish my walk through beautiful downtown and reach the co-working space. Co-Work Latam is a co-working space that serves Latin America, hence Latam. The cool thing about this specific Co-Work Latam is Start-Up Chile. The Chilean government is big on innovation and would like to help entrepreneurs get their start-ups off the ground. Week one conclusion: this is awesome and I’m happy as hell that I did this.

Week two starts the way week one ended, I’m on cloud nine excited that that I’m starting to make my way around downtown Santiago a lot better, and I’ve taken some salsa classes so I’m feeling myself when the instructor tells me “perfecto.” Work is going well, I’m prepping for my trip to the Chilean Patagonia just weeks ahead and then Thursday comes. It was a hype Thursday for me, I had just finished playing futbol (I’m in a different land so I’ll show respect and use the lingo) the night before and this evening was scheduled for some basketball. Without having a gym membership here I’ve had to resort to cardio, I’m not into running just to run, or try to find a park and hop in a pickup game of futbol or basketball. I might have been a little too eager, I got to the facility with the courts an hour before it actually opened (I definitely didn’t check about the reservation of the courts). Due to the combination of my eagerness and impatience I decided to head back to my place and wait a little bit. I was about two minutes away from my place when it happened. I’m going to embellish a little bit to give a movie feel. The light turned green and I made a mad dash to get across the street. About 10 seconds after making it across I realized that I didn’t feel a weight in my pocket, my phone. My spider senses begin to tingle and I decide to retrace my steps looking for my phone but without luck. I rush home to my computer to check find my iPhone. By the looks of things it seems like it’s by the river, I crossed a bridge. I think to myself great I’ll just find someone else with an iPhone and try to find it, then I hit the refresh button. My phone is making a mad dash away from my place. So I do the only thing that makes sense for me to do, I send a text message to myself saying “I see you!!!” My phone is immediately turned off (smart move). Fearing someone has made a mold of my face and that they would be able to unlock my phone and use all of my apps (the ones where they could pay for things) I decide to send that request to reset my iPhone.

That definitely sucked, knowing I wasn’t going to get my phone back. It was around 5:30 PM at this point and I figured I could be upset in a pissy mood, but that wouldn’t get my phone back. So I found a store where that closed at 8 PM and they had phones which I would need because, well what does one do without a phone. Luckily one of my flat mates speaks Spanish because yeah, there’s no way I would’ve been able to talk with the folks at the phone store (Google Translate is on the phone that I no longer had). The store clerk says she has only one phone that I’m looking for, but it’s pink. First off it’s not pink it’s rose gold and having a phone is better than not having a phone so I got it. After my new phone was secured I started to think about the stories I could tell about how I lost my phone. One of the stories I came up with was… “I was just on a job and these little kids came out of nowhere, they surrounded me and told me they would give me coodies if I didn’t give up my phone. Of all the shots that I got preparing for my trip, the coodies shot was the one that I forgot to get so of course I complied.” Obviously that’s not what happened, but I figure I can still keep that story for when I have kids one day and I need to coax them to eat their vegetables or something. I’m really not sure how I just related that story to kids eating vegetables, but hey.

That was a rough few hours, but I managed. A few books ago (The Obstacle is the Way) made me realize that obstacles/problems/hurdles are nothing more than opportunities for growth and show yourself what you can accomplish. With that “situation” handled I enjoyed the rest of my weekend on a wine tour at Undurraga enjoying a ton of wine and feeling nice with my fellow travelers. The good times continue have continued. I have my sim card coming today (thanks mom) and I’m prepping to head to the Chilean Patagonia next week and just like that next Saturday I’ll be flying out to my second leg Lima, Peru. It’s crazy, I feel like I just got here and started to build relationships with some of the folks at Start-Up Chile (I’ve exchanged contact information with some already) and now I’m getting ready to move on to the next. I guess it’s true that time flies when you’re having fun. If the fun continues as it has, even with my phone situation, these next three months will fly by.

To infinity and beyond, godspeed, may the force be with you, etc, etc…