So week three of Spanish is done and dusted. Brain is mush. Lindsay is pretty confident she's starting to get it and understand what is going on, Fergus on the other hand is bashing his head against a wall and wondering why he ever thought this would be a good idea. We've been told to practice speaking with each other. Sure thing. Lindsay says, "Como estas?", Fergus thinks for a while, then replies with confidence "no entiendo." Practice is going well... Friday ...

Seems like a weird concept, having a weekend, seeing that we're on holiday. However because we're learning a language Monday to Friday, we're definitely hanging for the weekend. Though Saturday was a write off with study. So forgetting that we decided to blow the budget and take a trip up in to the Andes. Following Lindsay's first love we went up to the ski slopes, though a little keen as the snow doesn't fall for a couple of months. Even still we ventured up to...

Everyone in Santiago has the same car alarm. These alarms go off ALL THE TIME. They are either really sensitive, or lots of people are breaking into cars, especially in the wee hours of the morning directly outside our window. It sounds like this: ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow oooeee oooeee oooeee oooeee ooooooooooop ooooooooooop meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew repeat above We have been walkin...

Day 1 of our first ever lesson in Español. We decided to walk there for the exercise, a leisurely 50 minute walk. Is our class is an American, Nick, in his 50's. His daughter lives in Chile, so after retiring, he and his wife have moved here for 2 years. Nick has already completed 4 weeks of classes and decided to come back and start all over again. Comforting. Then there is Pierre-Jean, from Belgium. Also in his 50's he has moved to Chile to start a bus...

The weekend! Oh wait, every day is a weekend for us... but on the weekend for everyone else, we decided to have a late start on saturday, and have a "night out". We walked to Cerro San Cristóbal which is a hill that rises about 300m above the city. To reach the top, you can ride the Funicular (cable railway) or walk. We chose the former, purely for touristic value rather than laziness. Once at the top, other than a bunch of stalls selling cheap tourist cr...