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Published: September 13th 2011
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The "gym"
At our membership club..hahahah Hello all...
So I thought this was a more efficient way of keeping in touch and gives you a choice as to whether you want to hear my ramblings...or not...heehee.
Firstly a big, huge hello and sorry to those of you who have emailed me and who I have very rudely not replied to yet! It's been a BUSY time since arriving here. I promise I'll get on top of it in the next few weeks.
So. After a NIGHTMARE journey to get here (do NOT fly Air France! Organise, piss up and brewery spring to mind..) we - 7 of us travelling together - arrived in Caracas airport relatively unscathed to begin the nightmare that we expected immigration and customs to be. Everyone else seemed to get on fine. Obviously I got pulled up straight away. Luckily, one of the teachers travelling with us speaks excellent Spanish so he had to come over and pretend to be with me travelling around together to avoid any wee sityeayshun! Fun and games! Made it through customs without any charges though which was nice. Then we found our headteacher waiting for...Emma only. He had confirmation that we had all been
delayed to the next day so had cancelled all the taxis...so we were in for a wait to get the school drivers back to pick us and our luggage up! Driving from the airport to the city was...interesting! I thought SE Asia were crazy drivers. Anyway. We passed by the barrios on the way in -. like shanty towns - all piled up high on the hills. They literally defy gravity! Apparently a lot of them collapsed in the floods last year but they just pile them right back up again. It's another world from where I'm living.
Then began the task of dropping everyone at their new apartments. By the time I got to mine, we'd been on the go for well over 30 hours due to no sleep the night before we flew. However we were supposed to be ready to go to dinner within an hour of arriving! My apartment is very 70´s. In fact, it's so 70´s it should be on That 70´s Show complete with avocado bathroom and the most garish looking floor I have ever seen! Photos to follow, I promise. It´s huge though which is brilliant for the pets and has a
spare room and a brand new sofa bed in the living room so I'll be taking bookings any time soon! It's noisy - ridiculously so compared to Samui - so it is taking a bit of getting used to but it´'s fine and I'll have it pinked out in no time.
So I didn't make it to dinner because my phone didn't work, or my intercom so no one picked me up! i went to the nearest supermarket and made a new friend Jorje who helped me call one of the admin team from school. Good friend to have I say!
For the rest of that first week, we were meeting early in the morning for coffee with our Deputy Head and Spanish teacher to get us sorted on admin stuff for school and taking us around the city, getting us phones and the like. It was literally non stop! We were taken into the centre of the city on the Metro last week as well and taken round Simon Bolivars house...not a chance I can remember anything they told us about it but sure it was interesting! We also went out for lunch and dinner and drinks
and man, it's a hard life. Heehee. All in all, a great and massively helpful reception from the school who are literally bending over backwards to make sure our apartments are ok and we are ok and generally just being fantastic. Anything that wasn´t in our apartments, they have bought for us - it's magic!
The school was like an actual building site when we arrived - they are extending into IGSCE this year so had a lot of renovation to do to account for this. The classrooms were dirty and jam packed with boxes and boxes of stuff. A task it was to whip it into shape but it paid off and looks great now! AMAZING to be in a school with so many resources, a stage partner to plan with, a smartboard and other things I had forgotten even existed. It's been full on trying to get to grips with yet another curriculum but I think this is going to be a fun (if challenging!) year. My little ones are absolutely tiny. Most only turned 4 in the summertime so they are really young and at the moment it is like herding sheep (or what I imagine
this to be like since I haven't actually ever done said herding of sheep). They are hard work, some with no English at all, but I have a WONDERFUL classroom assistant named Lola and a 2nd "floating" assistant who works with the 2 Kinder classes. Great, great, great. As I say, challenging it will be but a great learning experience I'm sure!
Apart from school, we have just been exploring the local area and getting to know each other. The other teachers are brilliant, get on really well together and all know each other's innermost secrets already! Haha. It's lovely to have lots of people to hang out with and still have our own space. I'm hoping to get my gym membership sorted in the next couple of weeks and am going to purchase BRITNEY TICKETS TONIGHT! I know you all understand the level of excitement that I'm experiencing just now....
And the next thing will be getting Bob and Bee. It has proven to be an actual freaking nightmare but (FINGERS CROSSED), they should be with me on Friday. I can't wait. Missed them so much.
Right. Until the next episode which is likely to be
a trip to Trinidad for my visa...
Hasta Luego xxxx
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Moray
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I Wanna Go...
... as Brit would say. So glad you;ve made it safe & sound. Well, safe. :) Will look forward to your blogs - never a dull moment, eh? School sounds a-mazing! What a difference a continent makes. There's a wee bit about Altamira district on wikipedia - says the highlights are a big street and a congested highway exit! Classy! Love to Bob and Bee when they arrive. Happy end to a looong story. We could all do with more of those. Chat soon Moz x