Good News for the start of 2011

Hello all, sorry I have been off line for a while. What does that mean? Well it may be that I am getting into a routine. .... : On Monday's at lunchtime I teach English, on Tuesday night's I go to the English-Spanish Language group, on Wednesday's I generally do lesson prep and on Thursday's I again have English classes. On Friday's I relax , do some washing and ironing and other household chores. The other half now works Mondays to Fridays so I only see her in the evenings. Every other Saturday we go trekking and on Sundays we head to the California Cantina to watch American football ( boo hoo only three more weeks to go to the end of the season). Does that sound like routine?

But that is all going to change now that I have got my temporary residents visa.. yes it has finally arrived. I am legal and I can work now. Yesterday I went to the office of the International Police to register and then off to another office to get my identity card. In two weeks I will have a rut number and my cedula de identidad.. wooo hoooo.

About Santiago Trekking, we were invited to join the club which goes trekking every other Saturday. We went on our first trek up El Cerro Conchali,(Conchali Hill) on (8/1/2011) just outside Santiago. It was a very hard trek as the temperature was about 30C and there was very little shade. But it was great exercise and we climbed to about 1800m from just over 700m. From the top we had a great view of Santiago and surrounding countryside. There were some amazing hugh cacti on the way... you wouldn't think that cactus would be so beautiful, but they were. Both of us were absolutely exhausted after the trek but were are looking forward to the next trek. We also met some really nice people.

On the Sunday, we had a, what was a traditional chilean picnic. We got together with a a few of our neighbours and hired a picnic area, it had a barbecue, a swimming pool, changing area and etc,  needed all we needed to bring was the food and drink. It was great fun. It was a hot day, the barbecue was going, there was plenty of beer and we were there from 1100am to 8pm.

Eli's graduation (Ester's in the middle)

Eli graduated with a Diploma in Human Resources last week, it is the first part of the study leading to her Masters in HR. It was at the University of Chile. The graduation was like graduations everywhere else but I met some interesting people there.
One person in particular was Maria Ester Feres, a famous Chilean human rights and labour rights lawyer. Her family and her fled to Germany during Pinocet's regime. What a smart, happy and intelligent lady and what a history! She was one of Eli's lecturer. She was full of praise for Eli's energy and leadership abilities. I am very proud of her.

On a sad note, Eli finally received her Christmas gift, which was posted in the UK on the 3rd December.  Not only did it take a month and a half to get here but somebody had taken the giftvout of the box and repacked it. It was sent by registered mail, so it must be a postman who's taken it. Fucking assholes! She was so upset. Well what can one do! I think cut thier hands off if they ever get caught.