School visit

Isaac and Max are going to Montessori school in the foothills when school starts in March. We applied last year in the spring to get them in. Our friends' children go here and highly recommend it. The school wanted to meet the boys and administer some "tests" in math and english. We drove there our first week and the English teacher met us to administer the exams and show them around the school. They sent Chris and I away for a couple hours, so we found a market nearby to buy frutas y verduras.

Drive to the school 

At the feria (market)

New school! 

New school Epullay! 

The next week we went back again for the "parent interview" with the director. Thankfully he speaks English well and it was a fairly informal meeting. He showed us around and connected us with the people who could tell us about uniforms, payment, and class selection.

Assembly space/theater 

Checking out the school fish

Fish watching with the director

More of the school 

Fotball pitch! 

Looking up to the mountains from the schoolyard

Play court 

Play space

After we visited the school we found a spot for lunch. We were looking for a stand for "completos" (hot dogs with everything on them), but didn't have any luck finding someplace and there wasn't any parking to be found to look around. We drove around awhile and food a spot to park near a cafeteria that was serving almuerzo, a set lunch. Looked like mostly workers came here for lunch. It was a big meal and cheap. Boys got lasagna and Chris and I got pork chops and salad.

Big lunch! Working man's lunch

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After lunch we found "Granjadventura", which was close by. It is an adventure farm with lots of goats (cabras), sheep (ovejos), un vaca, un cedro, and lots of climbing in  tree forts. It was pretty hot there and fortunately there was some water boys could play in to keep us cool.

random dog petting at the market

feeding cabras

feeding cabras

Finding some water

Cabras

Isaac milks a goat

Cedro grande

That night we got home and walked to Plaza Ñuñoa to get a drink and dinner. First Pisco Sours of the trip! And tried out a good sandwich place--unfortunately boys thought the hot sauce bottle was ketchup. Ooopss!

pisco sours

boys reading

menu

chris got the grande

yum!!!

fuente suiza

park workout machines

playground at plaza nunoa

magic show

Getting R.U.T numbers

Another big task was getting our government RUT #s (like a SS#). This number is needed for everything here in Chile, so it's important to get it! Fortunately we had assistance from the woman in Chris' department or we never would have made it through the system. We figured out how to get Metro cards and take the metro for the first time that day so we could meet her. Thankfully our friend told us children are free on the busses and Metro, I couldn't find information about that anywhere!  We got to our meeting place early and took a quick walk around central Santiago. We saw presidential palace and some marching military (sort of like changing of the guards!). We met Carina at 8:30 at a Metro stop and we got to the building for our RUT cards in downtown Santiago at about 8:45 am and the line was down the block. Carina knew that you could get preferential #s if you had children with you, so we fortunately were able to jump up in line. It was a confusing process of paying for one thing in one line, getting in another to have them do the initial processing,  take photos, give you official paperwork, and then walking about 30 minutes across town to another building and waiting in more lines to have them give you the official #'s IF you have all your paperwork in order. Thankfully she knew what we needed, stopped to get photo copies, and got our papers in order. Phew. So relieved to have that done. Felt awful for all of those that wait hours and hours to get through that system. 

 Boys and I successfully navigated taking the bus home from our location. Chris took Metro to the University. Busses here are fine, but more graffiti and more bare bones than the fancy red double decker busses in London. Thankful I have google maps on my phone to follow the journey because they don't have anything telling you what stops are coming up next. 

palace guards (with random street dogs)

Presidential palace

Palace

Chilean flag

Military marching band

Riding bus home

First days in Santiago

First off, we had to do the basic things like unpack all our bags and get our cell phones set up. The boys got used to their new rooms (have we said how thankful we are that we could just land at our friends apartment? Kids rooms all set up for kids). We walked to the closest place to get our phones set up the first day, the closest mall!  It was a bit of a hot and long walk but once we got to the mall there was air conditioning. It was a bit confusing figuring out who and which store would be able to help us. Chris did a good job figuring it out. The store that finally did help us was very Chilean...in that one guy helped us at the counter, we paid the woman at the other counter, then another guy packed up our stuff and gave it to us at another counter. A similar store in the U.S. would have had one person doing all of these tasks. Chris says it is a way to cut down on shoplifting. It reminds me of when I was in China, and I think it's more of a way to create more jobs. That night Chris followed suggestions from our friend Paulina and got roasted chicken from down the street and a few items from the small food shop.

The second day we braved driving the car for the first time and finding the big grocery store. The streets around here are mostly one way. We figured out that the small arrows on the street signs tell us if it's one way or two way. And the line between traffic is double white if two way and just one white line if one way. Takes some getting used to. Also, they have a lot of speed bumps, even on bigger roads. You have to see the yellow BUMP sign and hope the bump still has yellow paint on it so you will see it! The big grocery store close to the apartment is about 1.5 miles away and is called Jumbo. It most certainly IS Jumbo! Not at all like our little Tesco in London. This store reminds me of a Meijer/Costco mix. We made our way through the store noting that the food items were not that different than home--except the eggs are not refrigerated and neither is the milk. It is hard to find good quality yogurt here, as it mostly has lots of sugar and gelatin in it. To buy bread from the bakery or fruit, you have to bag it and bring it to the spot in the store that labels it and puts a price on it. We made it through check out somehow, a few things were confusing, such as asking us if we wanted to give to your "quota" (? something like paying part of the bill today and putting the rest on the grocery credit, with interest).

Isaac (Marat's room)

Max's room (Umi's!) 

Boys read on Max's loft together. HOT, hot, hot! 

nuts and such at market

queso aisle--even cheese from Wisconsin here!

Where to find Chris? Ah... in the cerveza aisle! 

Wow! Carne aisle

These are quail eggs! Egg aisle here, not in the refrigerator

Enjoying almuerzo on the patio

South Bend to Santiago, Chile!

Hola,
We've been here nearly 3 weeks and it's been HOT everyday! We have slowly been getting used to the city, practicing our Spanish, and looking for things to do. It is summer here and many are away from the city on vacation.  Here are some photos of us leaving South Bend and arriving in Santiago. We had a couple hour lay-over in Atlanta where we ate some not-so-good expensive Chinese food. Dinner fail! Then we got dinner on the flight at 11pm!   The boys slept ok on the overnight flight, but I don't think Chris nor I did. We were not nearly as tired as we were when we landed in London! Fortunately, the process of customs was easy and the wait was not too bad. And this time we hired a taxi van to take us to the apartment! It was very easy.  Max's first memory of Santiago was the view of the Andes out of the airplane window. Isaac's was the security dogs in the airport. Amy's: standing in line at customs and hoping all would go smoothly and the ride to the apartment, being so relieved we didn't need to take a subway with all that luggage, and seeing the shacks (poor housing) near the airport. Chris: first trip to the feria (market) and the first drive to the school.

At the South Bend Airport

On flight!

Views out the airplane window

Arriving at the departomento

View off the patio

More views from the patio. Andes foothills out there!

Hola

Hola from Chile!
Thinking about starting the blog again. What do you think?

One week in Chile. Sun everyday! Hot. Español.

Here is a website I just found that I will be checking out. https://www.thisischile.cl/?lang=en

Continue or not?

Wonder if I have anything interesting to say anymore and if I have any fans left over here at SDMOOSE?

Garden update

We've added a bed on the side of the house. Added some plants this weekend. Not much grows here because it's so shady. I have a good bed of spring shade plants (some nice natives including wild geranium, jack-in-the-pulpit, ginger) going on one side of the house. I admit (sigh) that I've planted some hostas. Dang. Not easy to grow stuff in this yard!!!! SORRY!

New Post

Liz has been bothering me to post something. So here are a few pictures. Caught some funny ones of Maggie using my new lens. Fun with photos!

Don't touch the clicker!

Snow!!!!!

Literary quiz!

I know you've all been waiting for another quiz!

1. Which children's book has a character named "Mr. Carp"?
2. Which book has characters Gus and Sam?
3. What is Harold's favorite color?
4. In Go, Dog Go...where are they all going?
5. What is YOUR favorite color?

It's birdwatching time again!!!

Can you see the camera person? Can you i.d. any of the birds? Better pictures to come...I was too lazy to put on telephoto lens...

Reading to the pumpkins

Who remembers....

.....Real Rosie from Sesame Street singing Chicken Soup with Rice!

Found it while searching around You Tube with the boy for songs.

We also listen to an Gene Kelly singing "Singing in the Rain".

We also like this kid version!

I-man was doing his version the other day with his new black umbrella, rain boots, rain puddles, He was singing Twinkle Twinkle and Baa Baa Blacksheep. It was quite hilarious. Wish I'd had a video of it.