I have moved! On Friday during break the Headmistress of the school needed to talk to me. She informed me it was necessary for me to move. Senora Valentina’s niece was arriving unexpectedly this weekend and needed a place to stay. So, the school had arranged a new home for me. She assured me it was a very nice place in a good location with a very nice woman, and she was right! I moved on Sunday morning to an apartment on the sixth floor of a building located two blocks from the lake and four blocks from the very heart of downtown. I have a magnificent view looking west up the lake with the town cathedral squarely center in the view. The apartment is owned by a very nice woman who is taking care of her 95 year old grandmother. I can still walk to school if the weather is nice (it is only one kilometer further and the road along the lake is actually better for walking, wider shoulders.) I don’t have to deal with the killer hill going back up to the house from downtown, which is very good since I have to visit the bank each day to draw out enough money for my apartment rental in Buenos Aires on Sunday. (You can only withdraw up to 600 pesos per transaction in Argentina. This is a federal law passed a few years ago to prevent a run on the banks. I have not tried to make more than one withdrawal per day, partly because I worry about triggering a security hold on my Visa debit card. Which probably wouldn’t happen, but I don’t want to have any problems this far from home.) This will also be a very good place for me to spend more time in quiet reflection and in study. The view helps me with this, and the fact that I cannot get on-line in this apartment. There are only secure networks sending signals in this area which means I will need to do my Internet work on battery power in some local café/restaurant which has WI-FI availability. I can work with the situation.
One of the lessons this experience of living in a foreign land and culture for 5 weeks and with four different families has taught me is the importance of flexibility and adaptability for life. I have always prided myself on being very flexible and adaptable, not requiring a lot of creature comforts to be comfortable; willing to eat almost anything; able to make most any space I inhabit feel like home. I think my experiences camping in Boy Scouts helped me develop this attitude and skill. I am sure my leaving home for college in distant Salt Lake City, Utah, far from St. Louis, Missouri helped with this ability. I became very independent pretty early in life. I know my other travel experiences have shaped this as well.
But as I have aged I worry that I will become more rigid in my needs, likes and dislikes, so that I will be less flexible and adaptable. Either this trip has proven that fear baseless, or it has been a good booster shot to restore this ability. This is an important attitude and skill, not only for traveling, but for life in general. We like to think we can control our lives, but my experience is that we really control very little. Life always throws us a curve when we least expect it and how we react and deal with those bumps along the way can seriously affect our general enjoyment of life. When we are more rigid, we are less able to go with the flow. As a result, life becomes more of a burden and less enjoyable. When we can adapt with some flexibility to whatever situations arise in our lives, then we can find the good, even in the bad, and we can continue to see the beauty and blessings in life all around us. This is not why I came on this trip, but it is a lesson I am glad to have reinforced. It is a lesson I hope I have passed on to my children.
One of the lessons this experience of living in a foreign land and culture for 5 weeks and with four different families has taught me is the importance of flexibility and adaptability for life. I have always prided myself on being very flexible and adaptable, not requiring a lot of creature comforts to be comfortable; willing to eat almost anything; able to make most any space I inhabit feel like home. I think my experiences camping in Boy Scouts helped me develop this attitude and skill. I am sure my leaving home for college in distant Salt Lake City, Utah, far from St. Louis, Missouri helped with this ability. I became very independent pretty early in life. I know my other travel experiences have shaped this as well.
But as I have aged I worry that I will become more rigid in my needs, likes and dislikes, so that I will be less flexible and adaptable. Either this trip has proven that fear baseless, or it has been a good booster shot to restore this ability. This is an important attitude and skill, not only for traveling, but for life in general. We like to think we can control our lives, but my experience is that we really control very little. Life always throws us a curve when we least expect it and how we react and deal with those bumps along the way can seriously affect our general enjoyment of life. When we are more rigid, we are less able to go with the flow. As a result, life becomes more of a burden and less enjoyable. When we can adapt with some flexibility to whatever situations arise in our lives, then we can find the good, even in the bad, and we can continue to see the beauty and blessings in life all around us. This is not why I came on this trip, but it is a lesson I am glad to have reinforced. It is a lesson I hope I have passed on to my children.
If you wish to see more pictures of the view from my new home, follow this link to the Kodak Gallery Album: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.6rsukd7u&x=0&y=8ee63o&localeid=en_US
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