Tabo, Quisco & Punta de Tralca!

This weekend (15th-17th) our host family went to Tabo, Quisco & Punta de Tralca, we were invited to go with them! It's basically a lovely place along the coast of Chile to chill out and relax, which was nicely timed after the crazy arrival of insane Santiago.
Had a bbq with enough meat to feed 300 hungry spartans, cheeky slice of karaoke, many a stroll across the beaches, swimming (more like flopping about in the sea) and good good times.

2 Weeks In!

This sunday will mean the survival of living in Santiago for two weeks. It's been a very eventful couple of weeks for sure! Teaching is super fun on the whole, although a lot of kids see very few career options for when they finish school so many pupils lack motivation and enthusiasm during it, they can be quite hard work. Only one pupil in the past years has made it into a university as I understand it. The pupils range from kindergarden to 18/19 year olds who are actually older than us, but we still get respect from everyone which is pretty cool! It's impossible to walk through the school to the next class without hearing multiple "HELLO MISTER JACK", "HOLA TIO" or a bunch of kids wanting a high 5's/hugs. In some classes the wee ones have tried to hug me to the ground so I can't leave for my next class! Me and James also regularly get called beautiful which is veerrrrryyyy weird. Two girls who we think are 15/16 wrote us notes in class and handed them to us with our names in love hearts, with the words "my much loved for you" and their number on the back. Surreal.
Our host family have been amazing! They've taken us ten pin bowling, to the cinema (Future Avenger) and a whole bunch of other stuff that I won't go into because I don't have much time!
Me and James have started in the teacher football team (which is actually in about 30 minutes so I'm in a bit of a rush), it's pretty good fun playing with all the Chileans, some have got proper skills! Also going to start the basketball team next week!
We've figured out how to get into central without help of the host family too, we're in one of the few projects that doesn't have a metro near by so bus it is, takes around 30/45minutes. We're going out later today to meet some other volunteers and have a good old explore around central, pictures to come! And then later later we're going out with some of the teachers to Bellavista! Super excited

London to Santiago!

Travelled down to London on the 16th (august) for the Chilean Embassy on the 17th before flying on the 18th, all went down smoothly without any problems! The hotel had an amazing view of Tower Bridge with all the olympic rings on and all that! This also gave me a chance to really get my tourist on.

When I arrived at Heathrow I said my last goodbye's to my mum then meandered around to find the other Chile volunteers! We had to wait around 3/4 hours before we could board the plane but time went past super quickly. Sat next to Sammy and Finlay on the plane to Madrid, which took about 3/4 hours, yet again time went super quickly! We had to wait at the airport in Madrid for about 2 more hours just lounging around departures. Then, finally, time had come. We were boarding the final plane to SANTIAGO! Our seats were all randomly allocated but I managed to negotiate with someone to sit next to Finlay right at the back of the plane. We watched half of the The Hunger Games then tiredness caught up with us before we gave up and had a good old snooze. We woke up for food and such things, also watched Shaun Of The Dead (Well good film eh) to try and waste some time cause' let me tell you, 13 HOUR FLIGHTS ARE REALLY REALLY LONG! After gandering about the plane and watching movies and stuff the plane beeped for us to strap in cause' it was time for landing.

When we landed I was verrrrry sleepy so all nearly all excitement was taken from me. Our rep, Claire, came and found us at the other side and got us into taxi's as we headed to the hostel where most volunteers were going to stay (apart from the Santiago volunteers who were getting picked up by their host family). We arrived at 7:50, got to the hostel at 10(ish, can't really remember) and picked up by our host family at 11:20(ish) very welcoming and lovely lovely people! Glad I have them as host's! 

We passed a very wide variety of Santiago as we headed to our new home, took about 30 minutes to get from the city centre to the house. We got shown around the neighbourhood and how to get into the city centre using bus & metro which is actually fairly easy!

..nice wee balcony

 Hovvering about.

 Little supermarket!

 A small arcade we strolled past and won 9X what we put in without having a clue how to play it!

Waiting in the hostel

 Our room! My bed!

 James bed!

 James playing piano guitar hero.

 Our street!

 View from our window!

We start teaching tomorrow in the school, incredibly excited! Not sure what we're going to do when we get asked loads of questions and can't answer in Spanish but I'm sure it'll be fine! And on Saturday night all the Santiago volunteers are going out for the night to celebrate James's (my partner) birthday! Hurrah!

CHAU!

On the 28th on July - 1st August I traveled to the island of Coll for training, the same island we had to go on for selection to be originally chosen! This means all the Chile volunteers finally met for the first time, along with all the India and Japan volunteers. Even though it was much more hard work, it felt more relaxed than selection, probably because this time round there wasn't any pressure to show Project Trust you're capable of being a good volunteer overseas. We had lesson after lesson that taught us pretty much everything we needed to know and they still kept it all very enjoyable. We all got the evenings to ourselves, usually spent at the beach, chilling in the Hebridean Centre or walking around the island! This free time also allowed us to get to know each other a bit more before flying half way around the world and spend a year together! 
It's only 9 days now until I get on a plane at heathrow and head for Chile, and only 7 days at home before I travel to London to the Chilean Embassy to sort out my Visa. Excited is an understatement.

View from the highest point on Coll, looking back at the Hebridean Centre!

 Some of the guys I met going to Chile! 
Ben's blog

My year out in Santiago starts by flying out from Heathrow Airport (London) on the 18th of August! Only 11 days from now! I start teaching practically the next day of arrival depending on what the School want's to do, so I can expect an intense first few weeks as I try to take in the new culture, but what better way to do it than by getting stuck right in! My Spanish right now is very poor but living with a host family and putting in much effort to learn should help me get to grips with Spanish quickly (I hope), this time next year I want to be speaking fluently! I'll try my best to update this blog at least once a week, hasta luego!