Santiago, February 24, 2020 The primo day we have anticipated. First day of school. Escuela Bella Vista. First things first. We arrived early at 9:15 a.m., in order to go through pre-class placement assessment. We were neither surprised nor offended with Beginner class (kindergarten). Actually we were pretty relieved we even made it to that level. We came to class ready, alert, attentive and open. We also came a little anxious. Our class consisted of only four...

Santiago - February 22-23, 2020 It is Washington's Birthday today. I remember celebrating this man of history, coloring clusters of cherries and cutting hatchets from construction paper in maybe 2nd or 3rd grade. I remember learning that little George said, "I cannot tell a lie." Since then what in the world has happened? Vacation day at last! No hard agenda! First things first, we took care of the week's laundry and tidying the apartment. It felt so goo...

Santiago (Lastarria neighborhood) February 20-21, 2020 Having walked and subway-ed all over the area of town to the east, we walked mostly west today. We love markets and visiting them is usually a major highlight on most of our trips. Most often we enjoy perusing their offers of beautiful, colorful locally grown fruits and vegetables and flowers. Sometimes the markets include handcrafts but they generally feature fresh fish, seafood, poultry and meats as well...

Santiago Chile, February 19, 2020 Nineteen days! How?? We left home on January 31 and now the calendar says it is February 19! We are truly getting settled in. We are learning our way around and feeling more and more comfortable. Stan is a little perturbed at me, though - to say the least - that I invite almost everyone who cheerfully introduces themselves to us to have dinner at our house! Now, to defend myself he, on the other hand, passes out our card showin...

February 18, 2020 - Santiago Another trial run to find the language school. Actually, we had truly found it yesterday. We just were not convinced we had the correct location since the name on the outside of the building was different - we thought, yes, this is a language school, just not ours. Well, it turns out that was the correct location. Seems the school we booked, closed their Santiago location and outsourced our classes to this location, Escuela Bellavist...