5:30am and wide awake....

ahhhh.......5:30am. great time of day to be up. those of you that know me well should be laughing.... i can't even get out of bed until close to 8am most mornings! but this morning was a bit different. this morning i woke up and started thinking about the adventure coming my way and i couldn't get back to sleep. needless to say, i'm a bit excited. 22 days!!

i was thinking about riding a bike around town. the hostel has bikes we can borrow and i figure it'll be the best way to explore the town. i've seen pictures of the town - lots of colorful tin buildings and pretty small (population 20,000). it will be cool to be able to ride a bike around to see where everything is and to start getting to know the place.

am a bit concerned about the language (and the fact that i don't speak it). i haven't been keeping up on my rosetta stone since i moved outta my apartment a couple of weeks ago....still trying to find everything that i packed up and trying not to unpack all of the stuff that's going to patagonia with me. it's not working well. i have been making wonderful progress on watching Harry Potter en Espanol though and i'm sure that will help me a lot once i get down there!

realized yesterday that this is my last weekend in town - am out of town for the next 3 and that's it! big mix of emotions - i feel for the first time in a long time that i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing, but i'm also figuring out that i don't have enough time to do everything i want to do before i leave, and definitely won't have time to see all of the people i want to see. and i'm not really sure when i'm coming back so that makes me sad. i'm no stranger to moving, but this is the first time in my life i feel like i have a "hometown" and it's going to be tough to say goodbye to all of the people that i've come to know.

but it's going to be amazing to start life over as well. i guess you never really get to start over, but giving up everything i've worked on for the last several years and moving halfway across the world has got to be close. don't know the language, don't really know anyone, don't know what i'll be doing, and don't know when i'm coming back. it's a lot of don'ts but it adds up to one of the greatest opportunities and adventures in the world!! i'm looking forward to slowing life down, figuring out what is important, and what isn't. to getting to know people more than just on the surface, getting to know a culture so removed from what i know, and figuring out who i am and what i'm supposed to be doing with this crazy thing called life. i think i'm ready.