Sydney Life

Under the shadow of the giant statue of the Virgin mother I sat tranquilly looking out over the city. Suddenly a small card was pressed into my hand – a prayer. That and a swift kiss on the cheek and he was gone…

I have arrived safely in Santiago, Chile, much to my surprise! I had a major freak out on the plane, this being the first real stop on my journey around the world (in 221 days). I did stop off in NZ briefly. Although I was staying in a luxury four-poster bed overlooking the sparkling waters of the Bay of Islands, by far the best part of being there was the bananas! Unable to justify the rare and pricey offerings back home I was finally able to feed my cravings… and promptly overdose! Mmmm bananas…

But I digress. Where were we? Ahh that’s right, 33000 ft in the air and reality hits. I've had the numerous farewells, a sleepless night packing and am about to embark on an adventure through 5 continents armed only with a backpack. But it's not reading the delightfully soppy letters from friends that makes it real… it’s the fact that I cannot for the life of me operate the television. I spend ten minutes subtly poking the remote and screen in a desperate attempt not to appear stupid to my fellow passengers, whose laughter at their already running movies mocks me. Then it suddenly dawns on me. I am completely ill-equipped for the trip I'm about to begin. For starters my first stop is South America and I don´t speak any Spanish! Panic pushes out all that naïve optimism from my system. It only subsides when I work up the courage to call the gorgeous steward. I was hoping my first acquaintance with Carlos would not be one in which I admitted my technological disability. Turns out the TV was broken all along. Sigh.

The plane landed and I charmed my way into town with not a single word of Spanish. (It's terrible how us foreigners expect everyone to understand OUR native language!) Thankfully I now have a tour guide who came a little more prepared – my mate Jehan from Usyd who is here on exchange for a year. It is already clear his experience is going to be totally different from mine, for a start all his classes will be in Spanish. But he is doing brilliantly, already picking up Chilean slang after ten days, and friends along the way. I think he's definitely taking a bigger risk than me but it is certain to pay off.

After we got over the craziness of meeting half way across the world he dragged me up the hill overlooking the city for a pink sunset under the protective gaze of the Virgin mother. And there, with a simple gesture, a small Chilean kid taught me that language isn't always that important.