Plaza Creativa

Oh boy, oh boy! The trip is planned and we’re countin’ the days. I found, quite by accident, an apartment in our old neighborhood, just a few blocks away from Sarmiento. I can’t believe how lucky I was to come across the listing on VRBO. It’s just a short walk to our favorite plazita, our old supermercado, Montserrat, and close enough to walk to the metro or Plaza Nunoa. Abuela will join us there and we’ll spend two weeks doing all the things we used to love doing when we lived there. Walking to the panaderia for warm, fresh bread, to the pasteleria for bunuelos stuffed with moras and covered with powdered sugar, to the kiosk for chewy calugas. I can’t wait to buy my hubby an Escudo. I want to take Matilda to the Banos Turcos on Manuel Montt for some pampering. A bar-b-q at the Santuario de Naturaleza, a visit to TIPS to see old school friends, and the fondas. We’ll be there for Fiestas Patrias, three days of food, drink, music, dance, and artesania to celebrate Chilean independence. I can’t wait to share a pisco sour on the balcony with my mother-in-law and my husband, as the kids sleep soundly, and we absorb the amazing view of the Andes, which always have such a profound effect on my soul. The majesty of those mountains, and the way they make everything around seem so much grander and more marvelous is what I miss most about that country. If we could do nothing more than sit on that balcony with abuela, enjoying the view, and just being there, I would be completely satisfied. I wonder if I’ll want to go back after this trip. To live. Living between two countries is wonderful. But at the same time, it is so hard. Someone is always left behind. And there is always longing.