Game of Thrones Workbook

House of the Undying: Don't Stay

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I went for that beer in the fridge after all. I needed a little liquid courage to finally arrive at the decision I should have made a long time ago; long before Nick showed up at my door after so many years. I closed my eyes and sipped the beer, feeling the alcohol slowly working its way through my system. I had never had much of a tolerance for booze and it only took me that one last beer to get tipsy enough to consider my next actions a good idea.

Hauling my suitcase out of the hallway closet, I lugged it into the bedroom and started throwing things into it. This wasn’t the meticulous packing of someone with a particular destination and type of trip in mind; it was the chaotic packing of someone who needed to get the hell out of their own life without delaying a moment longer than was humanly possible (and preferably before my buzz wore off).

Once my bag was packed with the closest approximation I could manage to all the essentials, I went onto my computer and decided I would book a seat on the next flight out, regardless of where it was going. The gods of internet travel thus decided I would be visiting Santiago, Chile. I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and had never ventured farther south than a spring break trip to Tijuana, but I was committed to my plan. Or at least the impulsive, rash decision I was calling my plan.

I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there.

The plane trip took longer than I expected, although I’m not quite sure what made me think that flying halfway across two continents would be a brisk trip.

It had been so long since I’d taken an international trip, I had forgotten what a tedious process customs was. But after getting through the airport and out onto the curb, the view took my breath away. I had read up on Santiago during the flight and had heard that the Andes Mountains were visible from pretty much anywhere in the city, but their majesty truly took my breath away.

I hailed a cab and, after overcoming a bit of a language barrier between the driver’s poor English and my nonexistent Spanish, he agreed to take me to one of the nicer hotels in downtown Santiago. Not anything super luxe or astronomically expensive, but a decent place to spend the night and see the city. I figured I deserved an upscale stay during my first night in a new country and then I could spend some time really sitting down and figuring out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to stay for the rest of the trip. Plus I could probably enlist the help of the hotel’s concierge rather than relying on my own intuition to help me plan a few things.

The important thing was that I did it. I had actually made a proactive decision to change my circumstances, had gotten on the plane, and had arrived here ready for a new adventure.

Now I just had to figure out what that adventure would be.


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