silliness at the beach

LJ:Hey Theo, where did you take this goofy video?
TW:we took it at the beach in reñaca. it's too cold to swim, but it's still fun for playing.

LJ:what other things do you play?
TW: we play sports, and the water is fine for chasing the waves. plus, it's more fun to chase cold waves than warm.

LJ: Why is it more fun in the cold waves? And can you share what sports we played this weekend?
TW: because if the waves are cold, it makes you run faster intead of standing around in the waves. as for the sports, we usally play soccer or volleyball. sometimes grace and I wrestle but not too much.

LJ: I bet all that soccer and volleyball and chasing waves makes you hungry. Do you have anything to eat at the beach?

TW:Not at the beach, but usually we go and get some ice cream across the road.


-theo

Date night!!!

As my mom, Mary, prepares to leave today, we are all smiling about our date nights. Grandma and the kids went out for a night on the town on Monday night. Which meant that Dan and I went out for our first night out without kids since we arrived!

What was really fun was the kids being able to take Grandma to a restaurant and not only order the food and ask the for check, but also carry on a conversation with the hostess as to where we were that night and about how their grandmother was visiting, etc. all in Spanish! So cool!!!

Yesterday, Mary and I ran to Santiago for the day and wandered around the city, visited some art museums, and got some really good pistachio ice cream.

We'll miss her.
Laura

This week from Valparaiso

One update from each of us.

1) Grace is memorizing "To Dream the Impossible Dream" or rather "El Sueño Imposible" from Man of the Mancha. It has all of us singing from the musical. It's a 5 verse poem and she's really impressive to listen to reciting it all in Spanish. We'll try to video tape it soon and put it up.

2) Theo lost his soccer ball this week. We purchased a lightweight plastic ball (the school won't allow a regular soccer ball for fear of the windows breaking) so he could play soccer with his buddies at recess. Unlike last week when the 7th grade boys were trying to kick it over the roof, this time Theo let go a big goal kick and sent the ball flying to the roof and then it blew away... Caitlin suggested that we might want to think about budget for one soccer ball per month.

3) Dan is waiting for his new laptop from his company to reemerge from customs (it wasn't ready to travel with us in January). He tracked it to the UPS office here and then saw that someone had signed for it and picked it up. Not being him, it was somewhat worrisome, but upon inquiring in person at UPS he found out that customs has it. When it will reappear or when he will get notice of it remains to be seen.

4) (Laura) I have been spending some time playing tour guide and running around Valparaíso and Viña del Mar with Mary and Caitlin. We've had such a nice time. We said goodbye to Caitlin today and Mary leaves on Wednesday. We'll miss them and things will seem a lot quieter around here.

5) Mary - when she isn't climbing the endless stairs of this city - she has got the kids painting scenes of Valparaiso with her watercolors. Very cool. A good warm up for her as she prepares to head to Guatemala next on an art trip.

6) Caitlin - gathered new friends and old and checked out some nightlife while in Chile (although she was looking a little worse for the wear as she departed today). She also gave chase to a would-be pick pocket a couple of days ago until he finally threw her wallet down (he may have gotten about $2 for his efforts).

Huge piles of cash? Priceless...

Time to pay the rent...

The Chilean economy is very modern, and has China-like growth figures, so much so that they're trying to slow it down.  You can buy nearly anything here, though size 12 shoes are a bit hard to come by.  That's why it's been surprising to find out that credit cards are often not accepted here.  Every hostel and restaurant has the Visa and MasterCard sign in the window, but they make a distinction here between domestic cards issued by Chilean banks, and 'international' cards.  The latter are often not accepted, and the former are generally not available for foreigners.  Several hostel owners have told us that they don't accept international cards due to big transaction fees.

So, we almost always pay cash for everything, even for a week's rent in a hostel, which is hundreds of dollars.  And with an exchange rate hovering just below 500 pesos per US dollar, we are often carrying around hundreds of thousands of pesos.  It's a strange feeling, but like a lot of aspects of Chilean life, we're starting to get used to it.

Speaking of tough adjustments, the kids just finished their 3rd week of school.  Hopefully they'll write soon about their experiences.

- Dan

Our first visitors!

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My mom, Mary, and sister Caitlin have arrived for a couple weeks in March. We've enjoyed catching up and appreciated all the gifts from home; kids' vitamins, contact solution, Brita filters, slippers, etc.

Its been fun to show them around our haunts and introduce them to friends. Its also been great for the kids to have a bit of a distraction for what otherwise is a tough first couple of weeks of school - all in Spanish.

Mary and Caitlin are currently off taking in the sights in southern Chile and will be back on the weekend...we think.

-Laura

A quiet night

Valparaíso at night (photo from here)

Valparaíso was shut down last night due to tsunami warning.  All the ships left the harbor and a curfew was in effect for the Plano, the area near the water.  Our apartment is fairly high up the hill so we weren't at any risk.  We went for a walk around midnight, when the wave was due to arrive.  There was an erie quiet over this normally-bustling city -- no traffic, no ships, no one on the street, not even the dogs were barking.

The sea rose up to 3 meters in our region, and in some other regions of the country there was some minor flooding, but thankfully no casualties or major damage.

Tsunami alert

When we arrived at el colegio today the principal let us know about the earthquake in Japan. She wanted to reassure us that the tsunami that could be headed across the Pacific towards central Chile shouldn't reach here until midnight, but in any case she let me know about where the tsunami evacuation route would take the kids. Sobering, although both the kids' school and especially our apartment are relatively far and/or higher up from sea level.

Nonetheless, about half Theo's class didn't show up for school. While it doesn't sound like the authorities anticipate any real danger from a tsunami, the fear of tsunami's is palpable and seems greater than the fear of earthquakes here. Many communities didn't receive a tsunami warning following the February 27th earthquake last year, which created 9 foot waves.

I think everyone in Chile especially empathizes with the people of Japan today and for their difficult days ahead.
-Laura