I am feeling far away from friends and family tonight. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is the first time I have stopped running around like a chicken with my head cut off as I settle in to Sucre and attempt to get my new position and my residence permit sorted out.

I have spoken to friends both yesterday and today as well as chatted/messaged with others so it isn’t really a feeling of being cut off completely.

This time zone has made it easier to contact people in North America. The difference between here and Switzerland is tricky – when I get up in the morning, it is the middle of their day and then by my late afternoon they have gone to bed. I will need to more effort to connect with those friends on weekends.

Spending an extended time in Calgary in August was great for reconnecting with people but it has left me missing them more acutely.

There is a woman from Malaysia staying in the same house as I am. She has been traveling around South America for a few months and has decided to stay in Sucre for a bit. She has been here already for one month and plans to stay for one more. We share a kitchen so it gives me someone to talk to and we spent some time checking out the parade together on Saturday. She is working on learning Spanish and asks me questions which is great for my own Spanish.

I am thankfully that in this day and age it is actually fairly simple to keep in contact with people all over the world – maybe not always synchronously – I can’t imagine what it would have been like back in the day when phone calls were prohibitively expensive and you had to rely on the post. That being said, spending time with someone online is never the same as spending time with someone in person.

In any case, tomorrow it’s back to the office and to chasing documents around the city which should keep me good and distracted. (Plus in the course of writing this post I have managed to chat with friends in Canada, the US and S. Korea.)