Blogs from Concepción, Biobío, Chile, South America

So I've been here for 2 months now more or less, when i first arrived i spoke next to no spanish..hola and por favor perhaps and now 2 months on...still only limited spanish perhaps stretched to cuanto vale and flaite - which is the chilean for chav! As i said in my profile i dont really know what possessed me to start this today, I've been meaning to for ages but today as i was trying my 3rd attempt at a lemon drizzle cake as a present for my boss at work (brown noser?), i was trying to switch oven shelves and the whole tin fell off and all the contens onto the floor - brilliant, i'm so pissed off i have refused to clean it up yet, with my housemate expected back imminently i should ... read more

This is for friday - i had a lot of hate for Chile on friday, I attempted to get a parcel - the chilean postal service makes the american health care system look good, anyway im standing in line for half an hour, i move 3 inches, i have people literally touching me they are so close, as chileans seem to have no concept of personal space and cheeky fuckers pushing in every chance they get - fuming, then was told i needed a number of the parcel, i tried to explain that the person who had sent me a parcel would not have had the number because funnily enough in the uk when you send a parcel crazy as it seems you expect it more often than not - to get there! was not impressed. ... read more

Concepcion was the largest city hit hard by the 8.8 earthquake which struck back in Feb 28th. I was fortunate enough to visit and tour Concepcion as well as the surrounding areas. I distinctly remember the night when the earthquake hit; I was home in bed, watching CNN(what are the chances of that?) A news ticker on the bottom of the TV read "Earthquake hits Southern Chile" I Immediately tried getting more information from Chilean websites but none worked. I tried calling my family, but the lines were down. At that moment, Chile did not exist. All modes of communication were down(except for facebook and twitter of course). Wednesday we toured a neighboring city called Dichato which was hit hard by the earthquake. Dichato, which was once a quaint, quiet, hiddem gem, turned into a bare ... read more

Sadly, today was the last day of our English winter camp. For the last two days we've been working on the camp project and talent show for the closing ceremony. Our project was to create a story in which a homeless dog in Chile travels everywhere looking for a home. The dog, Bigotes, met so many nice Chileans that he decided to keep travelling, his home was all of Chile. For the talent show we had kids sing, act and dance. They did a great job! I'm going to miss them so much. ... read more

As part of the 5 month program, we are supposed to work on a week long English winter camp for high school students. These camps are located in the central region closer to Santiago. Us being in Patagonia we had to catch a flight north. On Sunday, the day of our flight, Coyhaique was covered in fog. You couldn't see more than 10 feet ahead of you. We drove one hour to go to the airport, spent five hours in line only to find out that flights were being cancelled for a second day in a row and the airport was closing down. This was absolute chaos. A total of 16 flights were cancelled. The airline decided to rebook everyone in different flights throughout the week without considering that there was a snow storm on its ... read more

Esta es la playa más cercana a mi casa. A sólo un par de kilómetros hacia la costa de Coronel se encuentra esta mágica playa con grandes casas estilo antiguo. Estas casas pertenecían a los trabajadores de la empresa carbonífera que brindaba hermosos frutos a la zona en tiempos de antaño. Desde acá se puede llegar a Schwager, pueblo típico minero, poblaciones de coronel como Camilo Olavarría y Lagunillas, la caleta de pescadores de Maule donde la gente tiene sus pequeñas embarcaciones de pesca y una cancha de futbol, infaltable en todo sector habitado que ose ser llamado y considerado una verdadera pobla chilena, y el estadio Federico Schwager perteneciente al equipo de futbol de Coronel “Lota Schwager”. Esta playa es especial para hacer ejercicio o realizar largar caminatas. También se pueden practicar deportes acuáticos como ... read more

Last I left off it was Thanksgiving. It was a very long day. We had class all day from 9am until 2pm. After class I went to 30 Express (a restaurant) to get empanadas with Lindsey, Lucas, Catie and Christina. I got one with cheese and meat and one with cheese and corn. We waited quite awhile but they were delicious as always. After we ate we went to the grocery store to buy our food to make Thanksgiving dinner. Christina and I were helping with salad. We bought what we needed and walked to Profe´s house to get started making our salad. We arrived around 4pm and everyone was supposed to meet there at 5pm. I was under the impression that all the food would be ready by 5 but I should have known better. ... read more