It's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when its so hot outside!

It's currently 28°C outside and I'm listening to Christmas songs. The lyrics 'let it snow let it snow let it snow' don't exactly relate to the situation...

Firstly I want to appologise for not updating my blog sooner. The reason being that I haven't had reliable internet access recently. But I guess it´s "better late than never." so here's a quick update of the last two months.

I guess I better begin where I left off last time. In my previous blog post I mentioned to you all that I was going to Mendoza for a long weekend at the end of October. So on the Wednesday evening, after a day of work, Caroline and I set off to the bus terminal in central Santiago where we met Kelly and Kirsty and boarded the night bus to Mendoza.

From experiencing the Argentinian night life, visiting the highest mountain in South America (Aconcagua) and being followed by two stray dogs for an entire day, I think it´s fair to say that our first venture out of Chile was a pretty memorable experience. (Here are some pictures to illustrate).

The dogs literally followed us for an entire day...

...even stopping to sit with us while we ate lunch.

Selfie with the bar tender that told us that he could not speak any English- In English...

Aconcagua
(From left to right: Kirsty, Caroline, Me, Kelly)

Another significant event that occurred since I last posted was my birthday. Yes I am officially an adult! As my birthday fell on a week day I spent the day at work  so the celebrations didn't begin till the evening. My host family sang "Cumpleaños Feliz" and presented me with a pineapple and cream birthday cake-it was delicious. On the Saturday following my birthday Livia- a teacher at the school- threw me a birthday party at her house. I celebrated in true Chilean style -with a BBQ- along with the other Santiago vols and some of the teachers from our school. Although it was strange having my birthday away from home, my project partner Caroline, the other PT vols and all my new Chilean friends made it the most amazing and most memorable birthday yet. After all not many people can say that they celebrated their 18th Birthday on the other side of the world. 

In other news, Caroline and I have moved host families. It's a long story but basically things were not working out with our previous host. On the 1st of  December we packed up all of our things and moved from Pudahuel- which is on the outskirts of the city- to an apartment nearer the city centre. We are now living with a teacher at the school called Elizabeth and her five year old daughter Maria-Elena. Although we have only been here for just over two weeks I already feel so much happier here and I can´t wait to celebrate Christmas with our new family.

Anyway I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas back home (can´t believe it's only two weeks away) and  I'll let you all know what its like to experience Christmas on the other side of the equator in my next post!

Chao.

Visiting Valpo

Since yet another month has gone by, I thought it was about time that updated my blog and filled everyone in on what I've been up to lately. 

Last weekend Caroline and I, along with all the other Santiago volunteers, headed to Valparaiso to celebrate Barney's birthday. Famous for its port, Valparaiso is a small city situated on the coast of Chile, just a two hour bus ride away from Santiago.  Renowned for its street art and lively atmosphere I was excited to see what Valparaiso had to offer! 

On arrival, once we had dropped off our bags, Barney and Kevin (the 'Valpo' volunteers) gave us a tour of the city. As the majority of Valparaiso is built on an incline the cities architecture is made up of dozens of intertwined hill top neighbourhoods. This maze-like structure along with brightly coloured street art plastered on every building in incredible to see. 

We had to climb A LOT of steps to get to the top...

...but the view was definitely worth it!
(although the weather could have been better)

From the left: Kirsty, Me, Caroline (my partner) and Kelly.

After we had explored the city we headed back to the boys house and celebrated Barney's birthday in the way that Chileans celebrate every special occasion- a plentiful supply of alcohol and a BBQ! Apparently its a Chilean tradition to buy two birthday cakes, one to eat and one to smash in the birthday boy/girl's face! I'm hoping this doesn't happen on my birthday...

I had such a good time in Valpo and can't wait to go back for New Years Eve, where they host the biggest firework display in South America-on the beach!

I'm heading to Argentina, Mendoza next week for Halloween so I'll let you all know how that goes...

 CHAO. <3 

Beaches, BBQs and yet more BREAD!

So it turns out that Chileans are the second biggest consumers of bread in the world. To be fair, seeing as it is the main component of two of their daily meals- breakfast and 'once'-this fact does not surprise me. But, as you can imagine I am getting slightly sick of it. haha.

Amasado- One of the different variations of bread on offer

I have now been living and volunteering in Chile for five weeks. That's four weeks longer than the longest time I have ever spent away from home, not to mention the fact that its about eleven thousand kilometres further away...It's crazy. However, I have been so busy that it honestly feels like no time at all. Although I do get the occasional bout of home sickness, over all the past few weeks have been pretty amazing.

In the run up to the Independence Day celebrations the school was brought to life by rehearsals for the annual concert. This meant that Caroline and I didn't have many classes but instead got to watch all the students (and some of the teachers) rehearse the traditional Chilean dance known as Cueca for a performance that was being held at the school on the last day of term.

Final rehearsals the morning before the concert

The way in which the whole school got involved- from kids as young as five to senior students of eighteen-really illustrated the fact that Independence Day is a big part of Chilean culture. It was also lovely to see the all their hard work pay off as we watched the students dance Cueca to traditional Chilean music (which was also performed live by the students) on the night.

Teachers Dancing Cueca in Traditional Chilean Dress

All the hard work paid off! 

Having made friends with a group of the teachers at the school. Caroline and I were lucky enough to be invited to stay at one of their beach houses the weekend before Independence Day. As we had been living in the city for almost a month, we thought that this would be a great opportunity to explore the countryside, and have a break from the Santiago smog. The morning after the school concert we set off on a two hour bus journey to El Quisco- a town situated on the central coast of Chile. The weekend consisted of walks on the beach, eating Chilean food (mainly empanadas* and BBQs), drinking beer, playing board games and just generally having a fun.

*Empanada- Typical Chilean cuisine made from
 pastry with various fillings  

Chilean take on a BBQ

View from the beach house- The Sun Set

Yes, that is a Tsunami warning sign..

So the Chileans decided to combine all of their favourite things
 (beer, lemon and salt) into a drink
- lets just say it tasted intersting... 

Tired from our weekend at the beach, we spent the rest of the holiday relaxing at home. We celebrated Independence Day itself in true Chilean style- by getting together with all of the family and having yet another BBQ. 

The food was good and the sun even came out which was a bonus. 

Semana Uno

The one thing that you do not want to hear when you are about to fly to the other side of the world is that your bag-containing a years worth of your clothes- has gone missing. So when the man at the British Airways desk told me that my luggage was not going to make it to Santiago I wasn't best pleased. However with the help of my project partner Caroline I managed to track it down in Madrid. It was then delivered to the PT rep's house in Santiago and a few days later I was able to go and pick it up. Thankfully I had packed a few days worth of clothes in my hand luggage so it wasn't too much of a problem!

Reunited with my luggage at last! 

We arrived in Santiago on Saturday 24th of August feeling pretty exhausted after enduring the thirteen hour flight from Madrid.  However once stepping outside the cold winter air soon woke us all up. Even though we all knew it was going to be winter when we arrived I don't think any of us quite realised just how cold it would be. Oh and the fact that nowhere in Chile -not even the school- has central heating doesn't help matters... Having spent just over a week here I have adapted to the cold by imitating the locals-wearing jumpers and keeping my coat on all day- Since the Chilean culture is completely different to what I am used to there are a few other things that I have experienced in the past week that might take a bit longer to get adjust to... 

No.1 The Language 

It wasn't until I arrived in Chile that I realised just how little Spanish I knew. It often feels like I'm trapped in a game of The Sims and everyone around me is speaking 'Similish'... However I have been told that in a few weeks I will begin to understand more will hopefully be able to start putting sentences together! Also the fact that my host family can speak very little English means that I really have no option but to learn Spanish. I've already learnt a few Chilean phrases such as 'cachai' and 'weon' although both have pretty much no meaning so probably won't be that useful - but at least it's a start! 

No.2 The Food 

Similar to Spain Lunch is the main meal of the day in Chile and usually consists of some sort of meat with bread.   For breakfast we have some fruit and bread. Since school starts at 8am we usually have breakfast there. For tea we have bread. Incase you hadn't noticed they eat a lot of bread here in Chile.  Apart from the excessive bread the food has actually been pretty good so far and I've tried a few Chilean dishes such as bistec a lo pobre which is steak with fried onions, chips and a fried egg. Not exactly the most healthy meal but still pretty good! The most unusual thing that I have eaten so far is artichoke. I mean it's slightly awkward when you are presented with a big green flower on a plate and you have no idea what your supposed to do with it... 

Artichoke 

No. 3 School

As I mentioned before school starts at 8am. Last week we were staying with one of the teachers at the school called Livia who lives 40 mins away. This meant waking up at 6.30 every morning, which was pretty exhausting. Fortunately -although I do miss Livia- we are now living a 20 minute walk from the school which means we can sleep in till 7.

 It is a Chilean custom to kiss people once on the cheek when greeting them. This includes everyone: friends, family, colleagues etc. At my school some of the teachers even kiss the students on the cheek. I found this a bit strange at fist. However I have now discovered that a lot of the students that attend San Luis Beltran live in very poor conditions and a number of their parents abuse drugs. This causes them to seek the love and attention from their teachers that is missing from their home lives. I have also noticed a few behavioural problems-especially with the older kids- within the school which causes issues when it comes to classroom management. 

 On the whole, the majority of the students are extremely enthusiastic to learn English and are especially excited to get to know us- the 'new' volunteers. I have honestly never been this popular in my life. The students want to know EVERYTHING about us. The most popular questions we are asked are: 'Do you have a boyfriend' and 'Is it true that Scottish men wear skirts?'   I've even been given things, from drawings of Zayn Malik to a origami swans. 

Drawing from one of the students 

I think its fair to say that my first week in Chile has been pretty crazy- and it's only the beginning! I have a lot to look forward to within the next few weeks as Chilean independence day is coming up on the 18th of September and is apparently bigger than Christmas! I'll let you all know how it goes next time... 


Chao!  

Four more sleeps...

If someone asked me a year ago what I wanted to do after leaving school I would literally not been able to answer them. However, 12 months and £5400 worth of fundraising later I find myself packing a years worth of clothes into my -pretty large- suitcase four sleeps away from flying to the other side of the world... 

In October last year I took part in a four day selection course on the Isle of Coll. Following this I was selected by the Project Trust to spend a year teaching English to Children aged from 4-18 in a school called San Luis Beltran in Santiago, Chile. 

Colegio San Luis Beltran

From bag packing in Asda and Tesco to running the Edinburgh Rock N Roll half marathon- it's fair to say that since October my life has pretty much consisted of one fundraising event after another.

Bag packing in Tesco December 2012

Bake sale at Mums work December 2012 

Ceilidh April 2013 

Although raising £5400 was a daunting prospect at first, with the help of my friends and family -and some very generous donations- it wasn't too bad and I have now managed to successfully reach my target!

With only four sleeps to go until I leave I would just like to thank everyone who has donated towards my year in Chile. I will be posting updates about my trip on here  (as regularly as I can) so anyone who is interested can keep up to date with what I get up to. Hopefully if all goes to plan the next blog post will be from written from Santiago and on that note I suppose I'd better get back to packing...