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Published: September 10th 2018
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Mountain biking Manquehue
The bike is great to ride, but does a poor job of tying the room together So Friday contained a bit of excitment, mostly because we are living in a bit of an empty house, with mostly rental furniture...but our air shipment arrived! Essentially with the expat assignment you get to take a few hundred pounds of your things, and throw them on an airplane which arrives much quicker than your ship shipment (shippy mcshiperson?), so that you have some ”crucial things” when you first get there - the ship shipment only arrives in a month. So it was nice to get a bunch or our things that we had said goodbye to about two weeks ago when the moving company had packed it up. And it’s amazing how much you forget what you threw on that airplane a few weeks back - I was cracking open boxes like it was Christmas! And like many Christmas’ you may have had as a kid, the elation of breaking open those boxes is somewhat outweighed by the empty pit in your stomach when you finally finish getting through your gifts...there’s...no...more...
...so not that I’m a spoiled child on Christmas morning (even though I probably often times WAS a spoiled child on Christmas morning), it’s just that it was a bit of a false start. It was great to get the random bunches of clothes, toys and books for the kids, certain supplies such as diapers for Maelle and toiletries (diapers are very expensive here, so we have sent as many as we can from Canada), and our mountain bikes and Thule stroller, buuut we are living in a bit of a large house with a minimal amount of rental furniture and as the homesickness sets in, I realized that the rest of our stuff won’t be here for another month and it’d be nice if it was here now. So look, first world problems and all, we have a great place here, but right about now it‘s feeling big, empty and a bit cold. So excited for when the next shipment gets here, and we can get our house set up...I did however get to take my mountain bike out for a ride on Manquehue, which is the mountain we live below...so I can do about a two hour ride from my door, pretty sweet...
Now on to a bit of this and that.
We have been trying to find cars to buy here, unsuccessful as of yet. I have to say small children are kinda a great negotiating tool, in that you can just walk away from anything by saying, well, the younger one needs a nap so we have to go. Still trying to figure out whether I can check my ego and get myself a Kia Morning...cheap as chips, only for three years, just as a city car I keep telling myself...wish I could just go buy a cruck though, since they don’t have them in North America - probably not a responsible family man thing to do though.
My Spanish continues to improve, and I’m even managing some lengthy conversations with people...not really understanding a lot, but hey, it’s a start. Will be nice when I know more than the present tense.
At this point I could probably just do an entire blog about my kids...it has certainly been up and down, especially with Zoe who can definitely articulate how she is feeling. She has been amazing thus far, but a week at a new school and Friday was a bit of a rough one. Drop offs have been difficult, but then at the end of the day the kids are in a great mood. So I wish I knew what the school’s secret was some days when I get them.
Having a nanny is great. My underwear drawer has never been so well organized...really, it’s incredible.
Zoe is speaking a LOT of gibberish. Obviously hearing a lot of Spanish and wants to join in.
Will maybe try and expand on this sometime in the future...but sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer out of people here...Chile is a bit of a “saving face” culture, so people won’t tell you “I don’t know”, they’ll actually tell you quite confidently the wrong answer...point in fact was a recent trip to Lider here (owned by Wal-Mart), and when we asked for children’s backpacks one employee said “aisle 13” which was not even close as it was the tools aisle, and the next employee said “oh we don’t carry them because it is not back to school season”...we did eventually find them in the children’s section...
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Tom
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Get a cruck....
....obviously