A walking tour of Valparaíso!

Wow! What a day! We did a long walking tour of Cerro Florida, which is one of the Cerros right next to us. Along the tour is a Museum of Pablo Neruda's house, a famous Chilean poet. It was beautiful. From there we began our descent to El Plan, which is the flat area of land near the port.

On the way down, we walked through an outdoor museum called El Museo de Cielos Abiertos or the Museum of Open Skies! It is simply a walkway through buildings and homes with amazing murals painted on the sides and lots of lush plants and pretty flowers.

Settling in

We are getting close to a rhythm here. We wake up early and I make the hot chocolate. The mornings here are very cold and most buildings (including ours) do not have heating. They do have a lot of blankets. Each bed has three or four really thick blankets and it is hard to rouse our estudiantes out of their warm little cocoons. Hot chocolate, however, seems to do the trick :)

When the last braid is done, we walk to school. The ascensor has been, sadly, out of order but we battle on! The school is so fun! Vale la pena! (worth the pain!) Sean, Emily Jane, and Claire are really learning Spanish! Everyday they come out with smiles and more words and phrases. Such a treat to see! Elaine and I are truly having a blast. Our teacher is 26 years old and full of fun. We just talk and talk - in Spanish! Que divertido! We all have an hour and a half class followed by a one hour break and then another hour and a half class. For our break, we usually walk down to a little cafe and have caramelized croissants (medialunas) and glass bottles of coke. I have cafe con leche which is fantastic!!

Then, back up Cerro Alegre! Of course, from this vantage point it looks more like Cerro McKinley. At the top, right next to our apartment is a little store where we buy drinks. It is the carrot that gets us up the hill. What my kids won't do for a bottle of Coke!

Why I love walking my kids to school...

Because you never know when a man playing an accordion with his pet parrot, Pepe, might amble by!

Emily Jane and Claire walked up

and little Pepe jumped right on them!

More pictures!

Here are the students eagerly awaiting their classes!

Julia Grace has gone from mashed bananas to Chilean food with surprising alacrity! Pollo, pan, helado, maps, you name it!

Emily Jane enjoys the view!

This is the view looking up from an ascensor. It easy to appreciate how much hiking these ascensores save us!

This is Hogwarts or better known as Eric's university!!!

Jumbo

Each day brings new adventures. Even the most mundane things at home become major events for us here. Grocery shopping for 8 people in a big city with no car takes a little more planning than popping down to Albertson's in the ole Suburban. There are lots and lots of little stores where you can get enough food for perhaps a day or maybe two but it can be a bit pricey to shop that way and very tiring walking down to the little store every five minutes. I am a confirmed Costco shopper and daily shopping runs against the grain!

I was told shortly after our arrival that there was a store that would actually deliver your groceries to your house! What a miracle! How simple! We walked down two hills, across "El Plan" and took a bus to a huge grocery store called Jumbo (pronounced Joomboh). Perfect! It was a blast! They had almost everything we wanted. We even bought a jar of salsa that said it was made in (drum roll...) El Paso, Texas! Que divertido!

Making our way home was a little more complicated than we had anticipated but we are here now. And we certainly know Valparaiso better! This town is so clever in dealing with challenges. Hills too steep? Build an outdoor escalator/elevator/gondola. Most people don't drive cars? Incredible public transportation including trolleys, communal taxis and a million buses. Very inventive place. They seem to crave challenges!

Pictures to follow!

Escuela de idiomas

Wow! What a great morning! First of all, two of my life-long dreams have come true. I have always wanted to walk to church with bells ringing. We accomplished that yesterday. Another dream or sueño was to walk my kids to school. We have always lived too far from the kids' school to even think of riding a bicycle never mind walking! Well, this morning, with the birds chirping and seagulls calling, we walked down the hill, took an ascensor and went to Spanish school. Beautiful.

At the last minute, Eric decided to throw me in to school as well and how fun!! Elaine and I are in a class together with our teacher, Natalia. She is so funny and sweet. We love her. Julia Grace and Claudia were super well-behaved and Elaine was the star pupil, as always.

Sean, Emily Jane, and Claire were taught by Sebastián. They loved him. They came out with such sparkly eyes and contented faces. Perhaps they could learn this language after all!

I couldn't believe how fast the lesson was even though it was almost 2 hours long!

Eric returns tonight after his first day as a profesor de ingeniería. Vamos a ver!

A Sunday stroll

This morning, we, as Dad would say, woke up when we woke up! It was glorious! Walking out into the living room with all of the windows is still such a surprise. I hope it never becomes routine. It is too fabulous. We got ready and went to Mass at San Luis de Gonzaga. Apparently, the buildings here have neither heat nor air conditioning. The church was beautiful but very cold. We were all wrestling for Julia Grace's blankets.

Then we went for a walk or dimos una vuelta. The hills here are a challenge but there is so much to see that I barely notice the effort.

All of the walls here are covered in a mixture of beautifully crafted murals and grafitti.

Claire is modeling her new Andean hat.

Walking around here is so enjoyable. Around every corner is something new to see. Lots of little restaurants, art shops, and small hotels.

Starting tomorrow, we will be walking down the hill to the kid's language school. The Chileans have figured out a way to deal with all of the hills. They have these things called ascensores. For about 10 cents per person, you can get in one and it will take you half way up or down the hill. It is a cross between an escalator and a skiing gondola. The one we take, "el Peral", was built in 1900. So we will walk half way down the hill, take an ascensor and then walk around the corner for their school.

Sean appreciates the local art scene.

Up we go, up we go to the top of the hill.