Life in the Baby Garden

Trip Start Sep 05, 2006
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25
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Trip End Sep 04, 2007


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Flag of Chile  ,
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

So I´ve settled down for a few months in the seaside city of Viña del Mar, Chile.  There are nice beaches here but it´s a bit of a ritzy place really, they´ve got high rises and overpriced shoes a plenty.  It´s next door neighbor Valparaíso (that I´ve mentioned in earlier blogs)  is fantastic and I visit often as I can arrive there after an exceptionally curvy and nauseating 15 minute bus ride (I usually only last 10 though because I get out and walk early...).

I´m volunteering in a nursery school for some of the cutest kids on the planet.  We teach them English, among other things, and it is so fun to watch the little ones learn a new language.  It´s amazing really, how fast they pick it up.  They understand a lot faster than they start talking but when they finally do it is so fun.  We´ve had one little girl, Agustina, for 4 months and understands EVERYTHING that we say to her but refuses to speak back in English.  She simply answers all of our questions back in Spanish.  It´s too funny.

I teach the gym and music classes three days a week.  I´ve decided that as part of the curriculum that we are going to learn rock and roll as well so I made a bunch of CDs from my laptop computer that we listen to in class.  So in addition to stretching, somersaults and the importance of warming up our muscles, we are also learning Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Frank Sinatra and BB King.  They really go nuts when the Ramones and Gnarls Barkely come on though.  It´s great.

I´ve also been teaching private English lessons which have been relatively profitable and really fun.  One of my classes is in this fancy office building in Valparaíso and I love going in there in my jeans and goofy jewelry while I get my visitors pass from a bunch of stiff looking men in suits.  The two men that I teach there are preparing for a trip to India and have set up what could be described as a ¨crash course¨ in English.

That´s pretty much all I´ve been up to for the past month.  That and a whirlwind trip to Argentina to renew my visa.  Sorry for the lapse in communication.  Sometimes I forget that when I´m not traveling that I still have a blog...

Hope everyone is well! 
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