Week 2 in Chile

We turned up at school Monday morning to find union jacks strung up all over the place. It seems that 'St Margaret's British School for Girls' takes its British roots rather seriously, & is having a 2-week countdown to the royal wedding! I kid you not!!! At first break some of the middle school kicked off the countdown by dancing some Scottish reels... At other breaks during the week British pop music was played over loudspeakers, & students sold 'British' brownies, biscuits & cupcakes. It has all been a bit surreal...

Monday afternoon is sport for the senior school, & I was asked to teach the Chilean girls some rugby skills. It was very amusing& ended up being not much more than touch rugby, but they all seemed to enjoy it. It looks like I am going to have to do another session next Monday as well.

On Tuesday our golden run of weather came to an end & it was seriously COLD. The high was about 10 degrees cooler than the last few days. I went from t-shirts, back to a couple of layers of merino. Consuelo finishes at 2:30pm on a Tuesday, so I bunked off early & caught a ride home with her. School starts at 7:50am & finishes at 4:25pm so it is a long day.On Wednesday we had the last of our day trips. We spent the day exploring Valparaiso which is a historic port town about 25 minutes drive from Vina del Mar. It is well known for its colourful ramshackle houses that tumble down the hills towards the sea, & its many furnicular railways that take locals & tourists alike up (& down) said hills. We started off by having a tour of the 'dissidents cemetery' which was created so that the ever-increasing numbers of non-catholics would have a place they could be buried. We then went up one of the furniculars & walked around the cobbled streets. On one street an old guy had created a whole lot of 'art' out of junk & stones etc. Whilst we were admiring it he came out of his house & had a chat to the girls. He was rather proud of his wee little patch.

We then visited St Paul's, the Anglican church. This wasn't allowed to have anything on its exterior that could identify as a church from the sea below, but it was lovely inside with some amazing stained glass windows. Its pride & joy was an old organ, bought over from England to commemerate Queen Victoria's reign. The people organising our tour had arranged for the organist to be there & he gave us a recital of several numbers.

After more wandering we caught a furnicular down & headed for the port. The girls had about 45 minutes of free time to wander around the market stalls & souvenir shops.

It was then time for a tour of the 'Esmeralda' which is a navy training ship that all the cadets have to spend a 6-month tour on before they graduate. It is a beautiful old ship & the girls enjoyed the tour, given by one of the crew.

From the deck of the Esmeralda we had a great view of some seals which were frolicking around the hull of a huge big container ship moored next to the Esmeralda. The seals were trying to leap up out of the water & onto this hull, & it was pretty amusing as they kept failing & sliding back down into the water. Eventually they made it, & were pretty pleased with themselves...

Thursday was a nice short day, we broke up at lunchtime for the Easter long weekend. That night I went with Consuelo & her boyfriend to her boyfriend's parent's place for dinner. This turned out to be a great night. The parents were lovely & enjoyed practising their English with me. We had pisco sours to begin, then a very good reserva vino tinto ('in my honour') with homemade pizzas for dinner, then pisco-cola to finish. Chileans really are incredibly hospitable people, & they all LOVE pisco, & break it out on any occasion. They seemed to enjoy having us because we have been invited back to lunch on Sunday as well. They live about half an hours drive from Consuelo's house, in the Miraflores suburb up a big hill. Consuelo stopped at a viewing area giving a lovely view back over Vina del Mar.