Perhaps romantic isn’t the right word but if 2010 was going to be *the* year in which I focused on me and G, I’ve started out on the right foot. We’ve spent the first evenings of 2010 at home, cooking, laughing, drinking wine and finally playing with our new Wii. (We’ve played before but NEVER alone. Always with guests.) Incidentally I’m convinced the Wii is sexist because I can’t FOR THE LIFE OF ME beat G in wakeboarding (Wii Resort). On the other hand, my golf game is amazing in the Wii world and G just ends up kicking things because he can’t score below +23. Silly rabbit.

Anyway, last night we were on our balcony, eating outside, enjoying his amazing just-off-the-grill bbq chicken, drinking wine from the winery where we’re getting married (Casas del Bosque) and I was loving the simple fact that there we were, cooking, eating and gazing out our balcony to the stardust of lights from the vast city of Santiago. At night it truly looks peaceful, and dare I say, beautiful … we even have a clear view of Cerro San Cristobal and the statue of the Virgin Mary which is perpetually illuminated.

And though I still can’t, for the life of me, find the list of goals I made for myself back in the day which listed what I wanted to accomplish at specific points in my life (i.e. “A month from now,” “Six months from now,” “five years from now.”) I was recalling a point in my life, about nine years ago when there was nothing I wanted more than to move to Chile. I would come three, four times a year and stay for two, three, four weeks at a time and all I wanted to make my life PERFECT, was to move here. I applied for job after job after job and even had an interview with the winery Concha y Toro, which I ultimately didn’t get (hrmph. See if I ever drink your less-than-mediocre wine again, C&T!) I was so depressed! I had this crazy, idealistic view of Chile as a place where the food was better, the people were more carefree and loving, and that life was in essence, more wholesome here. People had the right values and it wasn’t a work-obsessed country like, say, the U.S. Very idealistic but then again, I always came here on vacation and of course it was ideal! I ate food I never had a chance to eat back home (ceviche, meat, empanadas, manjar, pan amasado, mote con huesillo, and the list goes on and on), I spent days upon days at the beach when I wasn’t running around Santiago dancing or eating out!

The reality of Chile is slightly less whimsical, as you all know by now if you’ve kept up with your blog reading, but that’s the case with ANY place that ceases to be your vacation spot and all of a sudden becomes your home. (I loved St. Thomas but if I had to live there, I think I’d choke half the people for moving as slow as molasses. I’m just sayin’,)

But one thing remains ideal: nights on a balcony, looking over the city of Santiago, while drinking amazing wine and eating amazing food. At least where I’m from in the U.S. most apt buildings don’t have balconies, or I just didn’t know of many. And even though we lived in one of those ever-elusive apartments with a balcony, NEVER did we just decided to take the evening outside to sit and talk. And one thing I can say GENERALLY about Chileans and their ways of doing things is that they truly like to take it outside and just chill, whenever the opportunity presents itself. It’s so simple but seriously, one of the most ideal things about living here.

Maybe it’s because I was from a pretty hectic place back home (Silicon Valley) … or maybe it’s because the taking-it-outside bit was done by those who owned homes and not by young 30-something couples who lived in balcony-less apartments … but it’s the simplest of things I treasure about Chile and one of my favorite summertime activities with G.