Brian-
Sorry it has been so long since my last post. We have been very busy taking Spanish classes and exploring Santiago. I am slowly working on getting photos up on this site hopefully I will be able to post some more soon. The current photos are of our Summer Camp in Copiapo. Since we posted last Lindsay and I have gone to an interactive museum in Santiago with our host family. That was fun, it reminded me of the OMSI in Oregon. Last week we had a tour of a really old cementary that was built in the early 1800's. We also went to a small town close to Santiago named Pomeaire. The town's commerce centered around pottery. Almost everybody in the town is involved in making different pottery. There were a ton of small pottery stores with really cheap pottery. Lindsay and I also got to try and make some pottery both with and with out a pottery wheel. This last weekend we got to go to another little town outside Santiago called San Jose de Maipu. We stayed in a hostel up in the mountains and went hiking and swimming in a little river. It was very relaxing and a lot of fun.
We finish Spanish classes this week (Friday) and on Saturday we fly out to Arica, on the border of Chile and Peru, with a friend from English Opens Doors named Candice. We then are going to Arequipa (Peru) and then on to Cuzco (Peru). In Cuzco we are going to spend a couple of days looking at the city and Incan ruins around the city and then heading to Machu Picchu. After Machu Picchu we are going to Puna (Peru) which is close to Lake Titicaca. We will spend a few days there and then head to La Paz (Bolivia). We will then make our way down to Mendoza in Argentina stopping a couple of places yet to be determined on the way down. Finally back in Santiago on March 5th. It should be an interesting trip. We are going to take buses and trains through Peru, Bolivia and Argentina.
I will update again in a week if I have access to the internet.
Hope everybody is doing well.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Spanish Classes - Santiago
Brian-
We started Spanish classes on Monday. So far they have been really easy and mostly just a review but they are starting to pick up. We have gone to a couple of different places in Santiago. We went to a the Plaza Moneda which is where the Presidential Palace is. We also went to Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago. He was a famous Latin American poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. We also went to Cerro San Cristobal which is a hill with little church and a huge statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking Santiago. It was very beautiful.
Our host family is very nice. The mother, Vera, is from Russia and speaks Spanish, Russian and English. The rest of the family consists of Carlos, the father, who is really nice and Nick, 14, Victor, 10 and Olivia, 7. They are all very nice and work very hard trying to help us learn Spanish.
We started Spanish classes on Monday. So far they have been really easy and mostly just a review but they are starting to pick up. We have gone to a couple of different places in Santiago. We went to a the Plaza Moneda which is where the Presidential Palace is. We also went to Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago. He was a famous Latin American poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. We also went to Cerro San Cristobal which is a hill with little church and a huge statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking Santiago. It was very beautiful.
Our host family is very nice. The mother, Vera, is from Russia and speaks Spanish, Russian and English. The rest of the family consists of Carlos, the father, who is really nice and Nick, 14, Victor, 10 and Olivia, 7. They are all very nice and work very hard trying to help us learn Spanish.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
January 16, 2011
Lindsay-
Brian and I are back in Santiago, waiting to meet our host family. I really liked Copiapo and am hoping that that is where I will be teaching for 4 months. I t is hard to believe I have only been here 10 days; it seems like it has been much longer. It is hard to understand the spoken Chilean Spanish and I often only pick up bits and pieces. I hope that it gets better!
Brian and I are back in Santiago, waiting to meet our host family. I really liked Copiapo and am hoping that that is where I will be teaching for 4 months. I t is hard to believe I have only been here 10 days; it seems like it has been much longer. It is hard to understand the spoken Chilean Spanish and I often only pick up bits and pieces. I hope that it gets better!
Summer Camp Review
Brian-
The summer camp was awesome. We had about 30 kids about 4 boys and 26 girls. The camp was from 9:30am to 5:30pm. Here is a break down of what we did for the week. I have already discussed Monday so I will be skipping that day. Each day we would do a bunch of activities like scattergories, pictionary and the like to help the kids with their English as well as break the ice.
Tuesday:
Took the kids to this water park. It was rather unique in that it was also a zoo. When we arrived there were sheep and peacocks wandering around. They also had ostriches, parrots and a couple of types of deer. Anyway the kids loved the water slides and the pool and it helped us all bond.
Wednesday:
A bit of a recovery day from the previous day's activities. We played scattergories and a guess who type game. We also gave the kids some artwork and had them interpret them in English and then create their own artwork. It was obvious that the kids were a lot more open and receptive than they were before we took them to the pool because they all worked really well together and created some pretty amazing stuff.
Thursday:
Today we played pictionary and had the kids create a brochure about an English speaking country. The kids were very creative and searched out English speaking countries that I had never heard of like Seychelles, and Tuvalu. We also made a sort scavenger hunt/ adventure race were the kids had to run around and find different marked locations where they would have to perform tasks in English. The kids had a lot of fun and they go pretty competitive. We later took them to the center square and had them present their artwork to people walking by. Overall I thought it was a really productive day.
Friday:
We went to the beach in Caldera. The first beach we went to had a lot of seaweed and jellyfish. We played around at that beach for awhile and went to Baia Inglesia. This beach was beautiful with really clear water. It was really cold however, a little colder than beaches in Southern California. Overall it was great and Caldera is a very cute little town.
Saturday:
We had a talent show for the kids. All the kids participated as well as the volunteers. The volunteers did a dance to start the talent show and made fools of our selves but it was fun. Then Lindsay danced to Grease with some of the kids. The kids were all very sad for the camp to end and made Lindsay and I write down our names so they could look us up on Facebook.
The camp was awesome and I really liked Copiapo. It is very quiet and small but is large enough that it has everything. The beach is only an hour bus ride away and costs about 5 dollars.
I hope everyone is doing well. We will be in Santiago for the next 3 weeks taking Spanish classes so I will try to post again in about a half a week.
The summer camp was awesome. We had about 30 kids about 4 boys and 26 girls. The camp was from 9:30am to 5:30pm. Here is a break down of what we did for the week. I have already discussed Monday so I will be skipping that day. Each day we would do a bunch of activities like scattergories, pictionary and the like to help the kids with their English as well as break the ice.
Tuesday:
Took the kids to this water park. It was rather unique in that it was also a zoo. When we arrived there were sheep and peacocks wandering around. They also had ostriches, parrots and a couple of types of deer. Anyway the kids loved the water slides and the pool and it helped us all bond.
Wednesday:
A bit of a recovery day from the previous day's activities. We played scattergories and a guess who type game. We also gave the kids some artwork and had them interpret them in English and then create their own artwork. It was obvious that the kids were a lot more open and receptive than they were before we took them to the pool because they all worked really well together and created some pretty amazing stuff.
Thursday:
Today we played pictionary and had the kids create a brochure about an English speaking country. The kids were very creative and searched out English speaking countries that I had never heard of like Seychelles, and Tuvalu. We also made a sort scavenger hunt/ adventure race were the kids had to run around and find different marked locations where they would have to perform tasks in English. The kids had a lot of fun and they go pretty competitive. We later took them to the center square and had them present their artwork to people walking by. Overall I thought it was a really productive day.
Friday:
We went to the beach in Caldera. The first beach we went to had a lot of seaweed and jellyfish. We played around at that beach for awhile and went to Baia Inglesia. This beach was beautiful with really clear water. It was really cold however, a little colder than beaches in Southern California. Overall it was great and Caldera is a very cute little town.
Saturday:
We had a talent show for the kids. All the kids participated as well as the volunteers. The volunteers did a dance to start the talent show and made fools of our selves but it was fun. Then Lindsay danced to Grease with some of the kids. The kids were all very sad for the camp to end and made Lindsay and I write down our names so they could look us up on Facebook.
The camp was awesome and I really liked Copiapo. It is very quiet and small but is large enough that it has everything. The beach is only an hour bus ride away and costs about 5 dollars.
I hope everyone is doing well. We will be in Santiago for the next 3 weeks taking Spanish classes so I will try to post again in about a half a week.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Copiapo - English Summer Camp
Brian -
We arrived in Copiapo on Saturday with Gia, and English teacher from Santiago. She will be the monitor for the summer camp. Copiapo is very small and we are able to walk just about anywhere we want to go. We have been walking around and exploring the town. There are several old Cathedrals and most of the buildings are made of clay and straw. However you cannot tell from the outside that the buildings are made of clay and straw, they look like they are made of concrete. There is a big off-road car race going on near Copiapo so there are a lot of people from different countries in our hotel.
We had a fun but exhausting day today (Monday). We left for the camp at 8:30am and got the camp ready for the kids. There are four volunteers, Lindsay, Luis, Sandra and me, and 1 monitor, Gia, and the camp supervisor, Gabriel. Luis, Gia and Sandra are all Chilean English Teachers and speak English fairly well. They kids are very excited and range from 14-17 years old. There are about 20-25 girls and 4 boys. We played a few games as icebreakers then divided them up into 4 groups and did various activities with them. We made a name for our group and had them come up with a song and dance for their group as well as a poster. All in English. It is hard to get them to speak English all the time but they like to learn about where Lindsay and I are from and what we like to do. Overall it has been a lot of fun but very tiring. Tomorrow we are taking them to a pool/water park. We are going to let them play in the pool and then have the to a scavenger hunt with all the directions in English. It should be a lot of fun.
I hope everyone is doing well I will try to post again in a couple of days.
P.S. I am going to try and convince Lindsay to post as well. We will be putting our names at the top of the post so that you know who is writing.
We arrived in Copiapo on Saturday with Gia, and English teacher from Santiago. She will be the monitor for the summer camp. Copiapo is very small and we are able to walk just about anywhere we want to go. We have been walking around and exploring the town. There are several old Cathedrals and most of the buildings are made of clay and straw. However you cannot tell from the outside that the buildings are made of clay and straw, they look like they are made of concrete. There is a big off-road car race going on near Copiapo so there are a lot of people from different countries in our hotel.
We had a fun but exhausting day today (Monday). We left for the camp at 8:30am and got the camp ready for the kids. There are four volunteers, Lindsay, Luis, Sandra and me, and 1 monitor, Gia, and the camp supervisor, Gabriel. Luis, Gia and Sandra are all Chilean English Teachers and speak English fairly well. They kids are very excited and range from 14-17 years old. There are about 20-25 girls and 4 boys. We played a few games as icebreakers then divided them up into 4 groups and did various activities with them. We made a name for our group and had them come up with a song and dance for their group as well as a poster. All in English. It is hard to get them to speak English all the time but they like to learn about where Lindsay and I are from and what we like to do. Overall it has been a lot of fun but very tiring. Tomorrow we are taking them to a pool/water park. We are going to let them play in the pool and then have the to a scavenger hunt with all the directions in English. It should be a lot of fun.
I hope everyone is doing well I will try to post again in a couple of days.
P.S. I am going to try and convince Lindsay to post as well. We will be putting our names at the top of the post so that you know who is writing.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Plans for Next Week
We found out today that we leave tomorrow for Copiapo. It is a small mining town in the Atacama Desert. Today we had an orientation with the other volunteers. It has been a lot of fun, all the volunteers are staying in the same hostel as us so we have plenty of people to hang out with and go exploring. The buildings in Santiago are pretty neat a mix of old buildings with new ones. I will try to take some photos and post them soon. The camps look like a lot of fun. They mostly consist of games that will help with English development. It should be a fun experience and I hope I will be able to post and explain what we are doing.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Santiago, Chile
We finally made it. The flights went well and we made it to the hostel where we will be staying. Sometime during the next couple of days we will be heading off to help with a summer camp. We are not sure where we will be going yet but we will find out tomorrow. The hostel, Hostel International, is very nice I am sharing a room with a few other guys who are in the program and Lindsay is sharing a room with some other girls who are in the program. We are very tired so I think I am going to go take a nap. I will try to post again in the next few days. I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you all.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Predeparture and Hello
Well I am not sure exactly how this works so this is a test case. This blog will hopefully communicate Lindsay and my experiences teaching English in Chile and exploring South America. We leave on Wednesday, January 5th. We will participate in a summer camp from Jan. 10 through Jan. 16 in the Atacama desert. We will then participate in a Spanish language class until Feb. 7. We will be traveling around South America for a month until March at which time we will be sent to our teaching posts to begin the School year. We will teach English from March through July and we will return to the states in early August. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years.
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