Trip, Loss, Apartment

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We are back from our trip, which you see above.   It was lovely and sunny and absolutely beautiful along the coast!   We took a bus from Santiago straight to Valparaiso, which is a very old, very picturesque city right on the water.  It's hills, colors, architecture and weather make it very like San Francisco.  Then we headed up to Vina del Mar, which is the beach hang out for all the city folk from Santiago.  It was a huge, gorgeous beach.  When Jesse was on the beach he felt an earthquake!  We had felt a small one in Valpo as well.  I was sleeping and didn't feel it.  Two earthquakes in one week!  
Then we headed up the coast to a very sleepy town called Quintero.   We found a rugged hotel right on the cliff overlooking the water for $25 a night.  The scenery was unbelievably gorgeous and accessible.   We kept thinking how much more expensive everything would be on the California coast.
Then we headed up to a little town on a small peninsula called Horcon.  It was the first hippie town of Chile and still has that feel.  We loved it!  We found an adorable little hotel and hung out on the beach.  There are tons of big rock formations on the beaches, which makes for some awesome tide pools and shell hunting.  I had forgotten how much I love shell hunting.  Memories of scouring the beaches in the Isle of Man flooded back.  I found some cool shells and brought them home.  As well as lots of pieces of smoothed glass.  

We took a day trip from Horcon up north a bit to the fancy beach town of Zapallar.  It was like being in another country.  It was so fancy and clean and the town was completely clean and manicured and didn't really look like a town, more of an extended subdivision.  

We headed back to Horcon for our last night.  Jesse tried to talk me into going back up north a bit  to some beaches we had passed in the bus on the way to Zapallar for one more night on the coast.  But I was anxious to get back to Santiago and start looking for an apartment and a job.

About half an hour before we left for our trip our laptop was stolen out of our apartment.  Jesse had gone out to go next door to the landlady's house for 2 seconds and had not slid the padlock shut and someone slid in and nabbed the computer.  It was so devastating for us, as we use it and rely on it so much.   When we got back to Santiago we immediately went out to buy another one.

We also found an apartment and signed a lease!  It was only the second one we looked at, but Jesse loved it and convinced me we had to jump on it.  It is on the 20th floor of a building which is in the center of town.  It's close to our classmates from the TEFL course, Chelsea and Walt, and we found out today that a couple in the February TEFL course just signed a lease for an apartment across the hall from us!  So weird!

So now all we need are jobs.  We got our resume's printed up today and hit up three language schools.  Tomorrow we have an interview and then will go to some more schools.  Fingers crossed!

I am currently trying to figure out how to get Picasa albums up here on the blog and will post pics as soon as I can!

 

End of School!

Sorry it's been a while since I've written. It's been hectic. School all day, then nap after school because I'm so exhausted, then between checking emails and uploading photos and calling the parents, and only having one little computer between the two of us to do it, blogging got ignored.

So we've been here five weeks now! It feels like a long time and it feels like it's flown by. School has been hard. In the mornings we would have lecture and in the afternoon we'd take turns teaching. We had to create our lesson plans on our own. There as an observer, Lillian, who would then critique our teaching after each class. I found her to be a bit too critical, and rather inconsistent. She made me feel a bit doubtful about my abilities sometimes. But! It's all over, I have become certified to teach English as a foreign language, and will hopefully be getting a job in a couple weeks.

We have, as a result of school, not done much sight-seeing or touristing. Last Saturday we went to Los Dominicos, which was very cool. There were tons of handmade crafts for sale. Sunday is the Superbowl, which the Packers are in, so Jesse is very excited. Our teacher booked a table at the gringo bar next door to our school, where we have been teaching our classes. It's called the California Cantina. Since we are ahead of US time, the Superbowl starts at about 8:30pm here!

The next day we are going to head to the coast to relax for a week or two. We will probably try to head north along the coast for a few days as well. I have found a wonderful island called Isla Robinson Crusoe off the coast about 400 miles. It's a small island that has a lot of camping facilities. There are about 500-600 people living there. The book was based on a true story about a sailor who lived on the island alone for over 4 years. The island was thus renamed in 1966. I'd love to go, but it's about $800 US for a flight! But hopefully we'll find some places to camp along the coast. I'm excited to see the Pacific again! We'll take a bus or train from Santiago to the town of Valparaiso and hopefully get lots of eating and lying on the beach done. I hope the water will be warm enough to at least dip in! I have been in San Francisco ocean, so I hope I can handle Chilean ocean!