Small World…

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This weekend I went skiing in the Andes with a few people from the Stanford program. Judging by the winding roads and sharp increase in altitude required to get to this place, I’m pretty sure we were in the middle of nowhere. We showed up at 7:30 am on Sunday morning (an accomplishment in and of itself), and rented everything we needed. The outfitter even had waterproof pants– they were well prepared for disorganized people like us who didn’t have snow gear. Once we were bundled up in our rented pants and gloves, we piled into a van with twenty other people and wound through some dicey dirt roads to Valle Nevado. It wasn’t crowded since the ski season is about to end down here. The snow wasn’t ideal– icy in some places and very slushy in others. But the views were incredible:

My two friends and I were literally the only people skiing the back of the mountain, completely isolated except for the operator at the base of the poma lift. When you’re alone on a mountain and staring at a view like that, it should really feel like the end of the universe. One of my friends thought the opposite though– the rugged mountains reminded him of Colorado. “The world is more similar than you might think,” he decided.

It was an odd point to make under the circumstances, but annoyingly true. The unlikely small world moments on this trip alone have been incredible. After I went to Machu Picchu in high school, I was completely convinced I would never make it back to South America. Then I decided to come to Santiago, which still seemed completely foreign at the time. Despite that feeling, connections to Chile began cropping up the moment I told friends I was studying here. Friends from Stanford and high school teachers have lived here. When I was 6 months old I had a nanny from Santiago. Go figure– it’s 6 degrees right?

Surprising connections like this are, actually, a lot of fun. Last week I got an email from Dan, who lived with me in Phi Sig last year. He is living in Buenos Aires for a few months before starting work, was coming to Santiago for a weekend, and wanted to meet for dinner. It was completely unexpected. Who would have thought Stanford kids would randomly show up in South America? But it was awesome to see him; I even managed to drag him to a salsateque with most of our group. Even though Dan was older and wiser and probably too cool for us, this place had great live music and all of us enjoyed it. If nothing else, my awesomely pathetic attempt at salsa must have been quality entertainment.

Salsa aside, I like that the world is small. Starbucks may be scarily close to world domination, but the quirky connections I have to different people and parts of the world are expanding just as fast. I love it. Just watch, I’ll run into my best friend from kindergarten in 20 years in an unlikely corner of the world like Valle Nevado. Or I’ll walk into a bar in Casablanca and see Humphrey Bogart. You just never know.

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