I feel a bit annoyed with myself that I havent kept these up, and that my posts have been rarer and rarer as our trip here has gone on. Part of this was COVID, as sh*t, what do you talk about when youre locked in the house (we dont talk about COVID no no). The other part of this is that generally when I have been inspired to write has been pointing out the little humourous differences in life between here and Canada. Like the travel experiences are great, but generally its like, we went here, and we did this. Like great, anyone can write that. The true gold is the ridiculous day to day situations that I find myself in here, based on different cultural lens or misunderstanding of the language. And I have been inspired to write about that...I had another one (Chilean customer service, hoo boy)...but then I started to get emotional about our time here, and wanted to write a bit about that. So that will have to wait.
be heading home sometime in 2022, probably in July. But I sort of put that in the back of my head as it seemed far off...all of sudden, its not so much. We started looking at dates for our official flights home and have since booked, and we also started looking at the list of things we need to do before we go. And boy, theres a lot. House leases, kids schooling, selling/buying cars, cleaning out the house, finding out what Im doing about work (Im a Chilean employee see and have no official work in Canada right now), booking flights, moving out...the list goes on and on. But it also makes me reflect on the experience, and think about where I am at mentally with it. Am I ready to leave? Will I miss it? Would I do it again if I had the chance? And I would say yes to all those things. It is time to get home. Its been almost four years, and the only trip to Canada I have had was five weeks during COVID when we went to Canmore. I havent even been to Vancouver since we left in 2018 even though technically that
is my where I technically live in Canada. And our girls will have been here for a greater part of both there lives than they have lived in Canada. We miss being close to family and are looking forward to connecting with old friends. There is a certain amount of exhaustion with the whole experience. Living in a different culture where you dont always feel at home means that even once you have adapted, you are never fully adapted. We have gotten close to many expats, only to watch them (and their kids) leave. There is a transient part of this that has been a huge challenge. The four years themselves have not been easy ones. Social unrest, and then two years of a pandemic in one of the most restricted jurisdictions in the world. On the other hand though, we will miss it. We live a very nice lifestyle here. Our trips (ex COVID times) are to exotic places that weve never seen before, and will never see again. There is a part of us where despite the challenges of adapting, you end up craving that challenge, it part of the fun. And we will leave behind a
number of great friends that we may not (although we hope) we will see again. Thats sad, but we are so lucky for having to have made those connections. So yeah, I would do it all again, despite the challenges, despite the point I am at now of feeling a bit of exhaustion with the last four years. It has been an incredible experience, we have grown as people, we have so tight as a family, and we have proven to ourselves how much we can It is a weird spot at this point. Mentally, youve started to move back to another place, but physically you are still here and you want to honour the time you have. We have really started to look forward.
And weve been incredibly fortunate that the end of our time here has coincided with a reduction of COVID restrictions, because we have been able to experience more of Chile in that time, and in some ways been able to complete this experience. At one point I was considering leaving last year, even looking at jobs in Vancouver and planning it out.
