Day 16 - 29 Jan 2013 - How I Ran Away From Home During Rush Hour (or, Rage Against the Homework Machine)

by Will Hedges

(I've pulled this over from a personal blog I’m keeping and edited it some for this. Please forgive my poor attempts at humor.)

Not much happened today before/during class, and in a fit of general trip/school stress/hangry (that's hunger anger, for y'all outside of the know) angst, and knowing that I was long overdue taking my dad's advice, I grabbed my day pack, Googled "mejor café santiago" and bounced for Café Mosqueto in Bellas Artes. Why not? I saw the café when I walked through there just the other day. I'm gonna blow off Spanish homework tonight, read some Game of Thrones, and enjoy the city.

…which was a great idea, until I discovered that 7-8 PM is NEVER a good time to get on the metro. I sat there in the station for almost 45 minutes before I could even cram onto a train. Not even an understatement. I was quite literally pressed up onto the glass.

Just across the street from the station was the café. I plopped down, was disappointed when the slightly testy waitress told me that they were out of frutilla cheesecake, guessed at some kind of lemon/key lime pie and a capuccino, angrily scribbled in my journal about never getting on the metro at that time again, and resumed the most engrossing book I've read in years.

For TripAdvisor to list Café Mosqueto as the best cafe in Santiago may not have been a stretch, but Bellas Artes has got some... interesting people in it. I was a little thrown off by the people who walk through it selling stuff by putting it on your table and then asking if you want it. Odd and slightly unnerving, but the coffe was undeniably delicious, and although I’m not the biggest lime pie fan, hey, I'm in Santiago de Chile, eating pie and drinking coffee. Esta es la vida, mis amigos.

It was in that moment that I realized it would be a complete shame if I let school become my number one priority here rather than the experience of existing here. Therefore, I am stating that I will not completely disregard my studies here, but neither are they priority number one. They are not the reason I am here, and therefore they will not take up the majority of my time. The memories, experiences, friends, and the changes I make here are worth more than any number or a letter on my transcript. It was in that moment that I saw that things aren't always going to be sunny with a high of 82 here, that there are going to be times when I want to be home, that there are going to be times when I feel like I've made a huge mistake coming here, but twenty years from now I’ll look at a map and this journal and it will be one of the coolest feelings in the world.

I will not allow myself to end up saying, “Wow. Remember that time I did a bunch of homework in South America?”