You can´t bake cookies without a recipe, baking soda, and an oven.

We moved out to Niebla, an hour-ish bus ride from Valdivia, to live in a delightful ocean-view cabin that a new friend is letting us borrow until the end of August. Delightful and cold. It serves as more of a windbreak than a warm haven, but we are happy after piling every blanket in the house on the bed.

Our first night there, Brent set about to light the parafin heating unit and I set about to make cookies, which I´ve been dying to do ever since we realized we might never feel warm again. I improvised oatmeal cookies without butter (we had olive oil instead) and baking soda (substitute: more oatmeal!). I went to start the oven and, new to the process of the gas stove, I couldn´t get it to light.

By this time, Brent was also not getting the parafin stove to light. As our last hope of decent heat was dwindling away, this was not the time to be asking for help. Instead, I lit a burner and ''baked'' my cookies in a frying pan, which resulted in a pleasant granola-bar-like creation that managed to be both burnt and under-cooked.

I find myself here without my Pepperdine sweatshirt, fleece pajamas, or slippers. During the packing process, I thought, ''I haven´t worn these in ages, and I can fit three dresses, which I wear all the time, in the space it takes to pack one Pepperdine sweatshirt. I usually wear shorts to bed, anyway, and socks make perfectly fine slippers.'' 

I failed to consider, however, that there might not be another country on the planet that heats its homes the way America does. Furthermore, I do not wear dresses all the time in southern Chile in the winter, so I´ve been laying Brent´s sweatshirts on top of my thin (and easy-to-pack) gym-bound hoodies and cooking dinner in my coat.