Two cities; two universes

When I was 19, I proved myself and everybody else that I could live on my own, by my own rules with a little help of my parents: I decided to go to Valparaíso and study in some College there, in spite the fact that my parents told me to go to Concepción like all my friends and family. But the truth was that I wanted to prove to everybody that I was no longer a baby, but a woman who could make her own decisions.
The first thing I had to do was do the famous P.A.A. (or Prueba de aptitud Académica) and score as high as I can. The thing wasn’t that difficult, and I entered to German Translation in 2003. I remember how my mother cried when she left me at the bus stop, and I taking strength from I don’t know where, I told her that I was going to be fine, and if I ever needed something I would call her, or return to my house.
The things were fine up to that moment, but when I decided to return to the house where I was living in Valparaíso, I couldn’t remember which bus I had to ride to get there, I remember that I was living on a street called “something green” so, after reading many bus signs I could return to my new home. I have to say that it was hard to learn all the buses and where they would take me if I take them, I recognize that it took me like 2 weeks to get used to that, because in Los Angeles, where I used to live, I’d never took a bus, because I lived on downtown, so everything was near from my house, and if I wanted to go to a friend’s house, I walked. Los Angeles was so much smaller than Valparaíso and the distance of course were smaller; I had to learn how many buses did I have to take to get to the College, or how many blocks away were my friends’ houses. In Los Angeles was simpler; everywhere I walked, always was a friend of mine near.
When I got used to that, I realized that Valparaíso was so different from my hometown, because of the distances that I’ve mentioned, and for example, the people in Valparaíso were colder than in Los Angeles; nobody was looking how the person next to you was look like, or if the family next door had a daughter with pink hair and 8 piercings. In that case, people from Valparaíso were more open minded than in my hometown; I’ve got two theories for that: nobody looked around where they live or they were more tolerant with the others than people in Los Angeles. I hardly got used to that, it was difficult, at first, to see two men holding their hands; that is something that you will never see in Los Angeles. People in there are far more old fashioned than in Valparaíso, and is well-known for the people who live in Los Angeles that men go with women and no with other men. And if you decide to go for a walk with a person of your same sex, you have to assume that everyone will look in your direction as if you were some kind of freak.
Another thing that captured my intention in Valparaíso was the dirtiness of its streets; everyone throw their trash on the streets, even though when there was a trash can few steps ahead. That’s because Valparaíso has a big quantity of floating population; that is to say people that is not from the city, and they are there because of their studies (like me) or their jobs. So, they don’t feel as if they have to take care of a place which is their hometown, and they feel free to throw away the trash everywhere they can, even though there are some laws to forbid that. But they don’t realize that they are affecting the tourism in the city, because tourists prefer clean and nice cities, no a filthy and stinky city, because it may cause them viruses or infections. And that is less money in the public arcs, and of course less money to improve the public resources of the city like hospitals and colleges.
The time went through and I’m now living in Talca, but I can’t forget those times when I used to live by my own rules, and getting used to a new way of living was part of my everyday life, I can say that living in another city helped me to discover a new world, that I didn’t know that existed, but the truth is that out there is a world where you can experience everything you haven’t experienced yet, and learning from it and become a better person in life.