1. The steady drone of reggae-ton: Every day I hear reggae-ton when I am walking down the streets. Sometimes it is blaring from someone's car, other times it is coming from someone's phone. But wherever it's coming from, it's always there. I was never really into reggae-ton. I listened to it, but it was never something I would regularly seek out. Since being here, I have accumulated a reasonable collection of this über-popular dance music to listen to as an audio reminder of Santiago. And besides the reggae-ton, the song "We No Speak Americano" will also hold a special place in my heart.
2. "¡Los ojos! ¡Qué lindos!": I get comments quite a bit about my eyes wherever I am in the world, but I get comments about thirty thousand times as much here. My light color eyes subject me to lots of stares and comments about what beautiful eyes I have. Of course some of these comments come from dudes at the club, but lots of old women also make comments. Honestly, it's a bit of a self-esteem booster when old women can't stop staring and tell me how beautiful my eyes are. I will be kind of sad when I go back to Iowa were nobody cares nearly as much about my eyes.
3. Street food: One thing I don't like about my job is that it never takes me to where the street food is, but even though I am not around it a lot, I will miss being able to grab a sopaipilla or empanada on the run. And having the ice cream man jump on the bus peddling his frozen goods to the hot bus riders. At times, the abundance of food readily available can be bad for your budget. It is very easy to grab food here and there, and you could easily spend more than you realize. Thankfully, I don't make it to the street food infested parts of town often enough to worry about breaking my budget with empanadas and sopaipillas.
4. My students: I think after spending so much time with a group of people, you are going to miss them a bit. They are all fantastic people. I have loved getting to know them and watch them learn English. And of course I love some of the mistakes they make along the way. Of course they say dirty things without meaning to, but one of my favorite mix-ups will always be switching kitchen and chicken. It happens a lot. And it is especially funny when they can't decide which one to use, so they just keep saying, "Chicken. Kitchen. Chicken. Kitchen." until they finally look at me for an answer.
5. Every day being 80-85 degrees and sunny: Very rarely is there a day in this city that it is not in the 80s and sunny out. It has rained only twice (maybe three times) since my arrival in mid-August, and there has not been a day where it was cloudy all day. I like that I never have to guess what the weather is going to be like here. I am sad that I missed out on fall in Iowa, and I really hope there will be snow back home when I get there in February. But overall, it's kind of cool living someplace with pretty mild weather. It means bad weather won't stop you from spending all of your afternoons like this:
6. Amazing free entertainment: At times, the free entertainment is not that great. Take for example the holiday parade put on by Paris. After Barney was stuck in front of us for about 15 minutes, we deicided to give up and leave. (We later found out that Popeye had deflated and the crowd had stormed the Sesame Street float, creating the hold up.) And then there are the changes to see the national ballet beautifully perform The Nutcracker. And let's not even start on the fantsticness of Santiago a Mil. (But if you do want to start on it, you can read my previous entry Santiago a Mil is a Win. There is even a video of part of the performance!) I got to go to the opening ceremony, and I am excited to get to go to more performances my last month here.
I could go on and make this list really long. But I figure I should be reasonable because nobody wants to read that much about things I will miss when I leave Santiago. I am also going to miss the people I have met while I have been here, but most of them are leaving or have already left. But that just means I will have to make plans to visit them wherever they may be in the future :)
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