Hey Everyone!!

We're now 3 weeks into our Chilean adventure and its still all a bit overwhelming!

Our second week was spent much like the first - a lot of eating, confusion and some classes too. The major drama of the week was trying to sort out our Chilean ID cards, without which it is impossible to buy anything and which was very difficult with the zero spanish we had. We ended up travelling pretty much to every town around it seemed.. a lot of time was spent on buses! 

The bulk of the rest of the week was spent preparing our first couple of lessons (no joke - it took us about 3 days for each! guess we´re not so good at that yet :S) 

The weekend was a relaxed one. We ventured into Temuco for the first time by ourselves and miraculously managed to make it there and back in one piece without too many near-misses (we nearly got off at the wrong stop but other than that we managed fairly well :) ) 

The Sunday was spent with our adopted family. After Church (in which a number of new ministers were ordained which meant the service was even LONGER than usually - 3 hours to be precise!!!) we went for a family lunch and spent the afternoon playing basketball. In the evening they took us to Temuco - the journey was.. interesting to say the least. The 5 of us kids were bundled into the back of a van (literally!) where we sat on cushions on the floor and played Irish Snap - a bit bouncy but generally ok! We went to the arcade-type place and went bowling before having some of the most amazing icecream ever :D

This week has been much more busy. Our first two lessons were.. interesting to say the least. They didn´t quite go to plan, but from what I know about teaching, it never does - spose I better get used to that one! Other than that, I think the kids generally enjoyed them - we put a lot of time into trying to think of what to do so hopefully it was worth it! 

We also got to watch a parade put on by the school on Tuesday which included a number of bands and lots of Cueca dancing. We have started going to an aerobics class twice a week in an attempt to burn of all the bread (not sure its working, but hey - atleast we´re trying :) ) in which we get to learn the cueca. The footwork is very confusing but its fun to attempt! 

Other than that, we`ve spent some more time with the girls in the internado; watching films, teaching them some classic dances (well.. the macarena) and generally just spending more time with them :)

Food-wise its still pretty awesome. We tried Sopapiallas for the first time, which are a kind of fried, doughnutty savoury bread which you have with all kinds of sauces (ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard) and which are so unbelievably and unhealthily amazing! The bread is still as good as ever and after discovering manjar, a kind of caramel-type sauce we will definately need to keep going to those aerobic classes thats for sure!!

During the week we also got to go down to the river and explore. We managed to get to the beach and I can say without a doubt it is one of the prettiest places I`ve ever seen.. and thats in winter!! So though it`s definately getting gradually tougher here.. everyday brings something new and I`m still loving every moment!!

Hannah xxx