A relaxing weekend in Chile

The golden run of weather continued into the weekend. It really is unseasonably warm at the moment. On Saturday I recharged the batteries with a nice long lie-in. I got up at around 10:30am, & it was a good couple of hours before there was any sign of life from anyone else in the house. Chileans seem to love to party all night, then recover by sleeping half the day! Saturday was very relaxed, I mostly spent it sitting outside in the sun either reading a book or doing a few bits & pieces on my laptop. That night we went for a meal out at a local restaurant. We picked up Lucy, & a couple of Consuelo's friends also joined us. Lucy & I had some very good empanadas, & instead of the ubiquitous pisco sours, we branched out & tried a mango sour. It was good, but I do still prefer the usual lemon version. Today Rosemary (who is the St Margaret's woman involved in overseeing the whole exchange) picked up Lucy & I & drove us to a beach resort about an hour north of Vina del Mar. It was a lovely spot, but very very windy. It was just like being on the beach in Wellington with sand ending up everywhere! As you can see below, this cultural exchange malarky is hard work...

We had lunch (more empanadas & a pisco sour) in a rustic little restaurant on the beach, shown in the pic below. The pelicans kept landing on the roof, & when we were eating we could just see the tips of their huge webbed feet overhanging from the roof!

After lunch we had bit of a siesta on the beach before Rosemary drove us a short distance back up the coast towards Vina to a private beach. This was a lovely spot & we went for a nice coastal walk for a bit. Rosemary is on the left with Lucy in the pic below. She really has been good to us, making sure everything runs smoothly at school & looking after Lucy & I exceptionally well.

This spot is where the super wealthy keep holiday homes & we saw some amazing houses with beautiful gardens. Apparently in summer the beach is a who's who of the rich & famous.

Once we were done here we drove a bit further to a place where there are some good markets selling Chilean handicrafts. Unfortunately, because it is the off-season, most of the places were closed. However there were lots of pelicans to keep us entertained. I am sure the novelty value of them will wear off before the end of my trip!

Tomorrow it is back to school, but a short week due to Easter. We break up at lunchtime on Thursday & have the Friday off. We also have a full-day excursion planned for Wednesday, so the week should pass by pretty fast. Hopefully some time this week I will be able to get a few reports written, we haven't actually had a lot of downtime during the school day yet, but it should be better this week as now the girls have more of an idea of what is going on & where they are supposed to be.