January 11, 2011
Vina del Mar, Chile
Vina del Mar is a posh beach community that’s a bit like Punta del Este, Monaco, or the Hamptons… it’s where the wealthy and beautiful Chileans go to be seen during the summer holiday period. Even on a cloudy day, you’ll still see hundreds of thong-clad beach goers pretending to not notice the lack of sunshine.
I generally shun hotels when possible– I prefer to stay in serviced apartments, small boutiques, or B&Bs… and the bed & breakfast that I found was a beautiful, quaint mansion perched at the top of a hill overlooking the city and the bay.
Standing there admiring the view last Friday, a voice called out to me– “Why don’t you let me help you with your reservation.” It sounded like Iowa, or one of those non-accent areas of the US… a bit out of place here in coastal Chile.
“Uh, yeah, please,” I said. He must have read the expression on my face because he answered almost as if I had asked the question– “I’m from Ohio…” he said, “I run the house. Welcome.”
We got to talking– ‘Chris’ is a young, university-aged worker who had been recently laid off from his job in the US and got tired of filing for unemployment benefits. As he told me later:
“Basically, I was sitting around my house, sending out a bunch of applications, and checking in with the unemployment office from time to time. It got old… real quick. I could feel the life being sucked out of me– my energy, my motivation. I was pretty depressed, I hated it… so I decided to start looking overseas.”
Chris told me how his search opened up literally a world of possibilities, from Switzerland to Mongolia, Singapore to Tanzania, China to Chile. He ended up in Chile because he felt like staying in the western hemisphere, and he really wanted to learn Spanish.
With practically no prior language training, Chris achieved admirable fluency within 3 months, and he switched easily between our conversation in English, and giving directions to the maids in Spanish.
“So, now I’m down here… I run this B&B, I get to live and eat here for free, and they pay me a little bit on top of that, so I lack nothing. Most of all, I’m developing some unique experiences and language skills that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and it’s a hell of a lot more fun than sitting around the house in Ohio.”
I told him that I admired his courage to try something new and out of the box… and that, while he’s here at the B&B gaining work experience and developing his Spanish, he’ll more than likely come across some intriguing opportunity that will take him in a completely different direction.
“True,” he said, “I don’t expect to still be here two years from now, I’m basically just keeping myself open to whatever options come my way… and that’s something else that wouldn’t have happened if I’d stayed in Ohio.”
Chris said that he did a lot of research and made a lot of phone calls before he landed in Chile, but one of the websites that was useful to him was www.icemenlo.com.
The offerings on this site are generally focused towards those near university age… but as I have written numerous times before, there are multitudes of other possibilities out there for people of all ages and skill sets who simply have the will to act.
