On our recent excursion to Torres del Paine, at one point towards the end of the trip one of the girls (can't remember which one) expressed the desire to "just get back home." I asked if she meant home in Santiago, or home in Pittsburgh. She looked surprised and then said that she had meant home in Santiago, but that she guessed it would be nice to get home to Pittsburgh, too.
Several people have asked if I'm homesick for HOME-home, meaning Pittsburgh. Of course there are people that we all miss. But the house? All our junk? The busy-ness of being there? Not one tiny iota. In fact, part of me is dreading going back to having a relatively enormous house to take care of, compared to our sweet little postage stamp apartment here. I predict my obsession with yurts and tiny houses to multiply considerably in the coming year. I just paid the bills which included both our Pittsburgh utilities (for an empty house) and our utilities here. Those for Pittsburgh--even though we aren't there running water, keeping our house up to a normal live-able temperature, or paying for an internet connection--were literally SIX times what we paid for our utilities here this month (and our bills here included our internet service). That sort of blew me away.
Of course, there are specific things I miss from the Pittsburgh house, such as my piano (I'm honestly running out of patience and motivation for practicing on my crappy digital piano with no pedal) and my pencil sharpener. I really miss my pencil sharpener. And ok, the iron skillet, and having a dishwasher, and a can-opener that works. And homemade applesauce. But seriously--if we lived here permanently, we'd have all those things. It's not like those things don't exist here.
So I was thinking about what I actually miss about home in Pittsburgh that we honestly wouldn't have if we lived here for real. I haven't taken a poll to see what the other family members would say, but here's my list, as of today:
- Good store-bought hummus
- Kale
That's pretty much it. I've been making my own hummus, which is not quite as good as the Mediterranean hummus I buy at Trader Joe's. But kale? I don't think people here are onto that yet, and maybe never will be. It doesn't seem to exist, which is sad for me because in my normal life I consume an ungodly amount of kale. That I miss. I suppose I would grow it myself, and maybe I could have done that in our little window box had I thought of it earlier. But I wouldn't have been able to find starts here, and we likely haven't been here long enough to have grown it from seed.
While I'm in love with the size of our apartment here, and the relative lack of clutter, there are things about it that I will not miss when we leave: first and foremost the awful carpet. I really hate carpet. If I owned this apartment, I wouldn't be writing this blog, I'd be busy ripping out the carpet and depositing it in the nearest dumpster. I have even made up a little song about how much I despise carpet, which I "cheerfully" sing whenever I'm trying to sweep it (yes, it's a testament to how awful the vacuum here in the apartment is, that it is actually more effective to sweep the carpet with a broom!) However, I would only despise the carpet *slightly* less if we had a good vacuum. I also won't miss the perpetual car alarms and dog fights, and the cigarette smoke that wafts in our window in the evening.
On the other side of the coin, I will desperately miss being able to walk out my door and hike up San Cristobal with breathtaking views of the mountains and the city. I'll miss the beautiful parks and fountains that I walk by every day just heading to do normal errands. I'll miss the custom of going out to get a juice (that's what people order here when they stop at a cafe or bar to get something to drink with a friend)--and it's GOOD juice, that actually tastes like the fruit it's made from. There are lots of little details I'll miss. Some of the customs we've picked up will undoubtedly make their way into our life back in Pittsburgh.
Having said all of this, after our five days in Buenos Aires, it will be so lovely to come home to our little place in Santiago. We only have one more short trip after that--to the Atacama Desert. Then it's a few more weeks at home... and then we come HOME.
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