Rain rain, go away!

"'Patagonia!' he cried. 'She is a hard mistress. She casts her spell. An enchantress! She folds you in her arms and never lets go.'"
-An excerpt from In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

I had every intention of taking more photos of Punta Arenas yesterday, I even brought my camera to school so I could take pictures on my walk home.....but the Patagonian winter won, as I'm told it always does. It hasn't stopped raining since! It briefly snowed around 10pm but quickly fell backing into freezing rain. There is a singular patch of opaque plastic roofing in my house that the rain used as a vessel for percussion to let us know that it hadn't let up. Between the soft roar of the gas heater, the roof, and reading In Patagonia, I was quickly able to fall asleep.

Today I woke up dreading the body evaluation I had at my gym. I put off going there until the last minute and had to run/walk in my long, brown coat in the freezing rain to make it there on time. My socks were wet by the time I had gotten there mainly due to the fact that I thought I could jump over this one big puddle on the sidewalk and fell about a foot short---why do I always think I am taller than I really am? I'm blaming my legs and the song "Walking on Sunshine," for that one for instilling in me a false sense of hope. My evaluation was everything I thought it would be--embarrassing, intrusive, and a huge wake-up call. The good news is that I guess when I bought my gym membership it came with a sort-of personal trainer. Paolo, my evaluator/instructor gave me a new regimen that I didn't even know I wanted! Instead of showing me the machines I should use in order to tone various muscles, Paolo gave me a series of 5 exercises that I have to do four times in a cycle (I have to do each exercise for a minute). This is preceded by a ten minute warm-up and followed with 40 minutes on either the treadmill or elliptical, making sure that I have my heart rate between 127-147 RPM in order to burn the most fat. According to Paolo, this will get me to where I need/want to be the fastest. In order to save face, I won't tell you the results of the body evaluation, but I will tell you that Paolo said 70% of my problem was changing my eating habits.......no kidding Paolo.

I was feeling a little lonely on the walk home from the gym when I decided two things:
1. Patagonia is my new mistress (I guess technically it would be 'mister') and
2. A crab empanada will never really love you back....

Anyhoo, I am looking forward to my first day of solo-teaching tomorrow. I'm sure I will have a full report on that this week...wish me luck!

Things to come:
-Papa José's return from Israel/meeting Papa José
-Carbs, I hate you.....but I really love you.../Hah! I'm hot!
-My students........

Pictures featured in this post:
-Welcome sign to Punta Arenas (located at the entrance to the center of town)
-Two things that have led me to buy a gym membership: Austral beer (brewed here in town) and a marisco empanada

¡Besos y abrazos!

KEEEEEE-LEEEEEEEEE