The Beach, Halloween and Margarita Island

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Hola!
Thought it was about time for another wee installment...not that I've got much to report here actually!

Life is good here, pretty much settled now and into routines and suchlike. School is still totally mental but we've just been on half term break which was LOVELY! A couple of weekends ago a big bunch of us went to the beach for the night and stayed in a lovely posada which is like a wee bed and breakfast on the beach! Delightful! There is literally nothing else out there - all just posada houses all the way along the beach, no shops for miles or anything...perfect actually! It was way hotter than in Caracas - we forget we're actually quite high above sea level here so it doesn't get too hot most of the time. So that was a nice break from the city - chilling by the pool with some beers and rum and books and chat. Fantastic to dip in the Carribean Sea as well! I didn't think I'd miss the beach quite as much as I do so it was really nice. Driving through the countryside to get there, however, was interesting shall we say!! Driving and drivers here remind me a lot of SE Asia...one particular journey from Mumbai to Goa in particular Ruthie Roo!

Then we've had "Pet Week" at school where the kids brought in some pets - we had birds, tortoises, cats and dogs...yes, including mine!! Bob was a total hit with the kids obviously because he is the bestest wee puppo in the world. It was great fun, if a little mad! Very small children, puppy/cat/tortoise running loose in the class...mentalness. But awesome. And if I thought that was crazy...enter Halloween Party. Holy goodness, this is like the biggest holiday here - like American stylee. The whole of the school was decorated, the cancha was full of inflatable things - slides, ball pools and the like (and NO, the nasty men wouldn't even let us have a go! Rage!) and small little people running around dressed as various scary things. There were food stalls everywhere, a big sound system, a haunted house (which I was too scared to go in...oops) and each class had to decorate a pumpkin for a competition. Thanks to my lovely learning assistant, ours was v cool...I had perhaps had a mishap with the first attempt...there may have been a sweeping of a bag and a knocking of the pumpkin on the floor...smashing pumpkins you might say! Oops! I never claimed to be anything but clumsy though so... Anyway then it was the "big ones" party where I was a judge for the Thriller dance competition. Obviously! Much fun, the kids were awesome and a good time was had by all. The longest day ever at school though!!

So this past week, a bunch of us went over to Margarita Island for our half term break. One of the teachers at school has an apartment over there so we went and stayed there and just went to a different beach every day. Perfect. The apartment was right on the beach - absolutely stunning view to wake up to every morning. Margarita is much bigger than I'd expected and there's loads to do. One of the beaches - I think El Yaque - was full of surfers, wind surfers, kite surfers...awesome to the max! I definitely want to go back and get on some of that action! SO much fun! This week, however, was mainly horizontal for me...3 books in 4 days...yeah! Really relaxing and chilled out which is exactly what we were all looking for after a mental first half term. Apparently there is some good diving there too so that will be on the list of things to do as well at some point. When to fit all the travelling in - SO many places to see in Venezuela alone never mind the rest of SA. 2 years might not be enough...

So most of us are still waiting on our visas as well...the joys...we have heard a rumour that they'll ship us over to Trinidad or something just for the night if they don't come through before the end of November - not cool. We are going to try and arrange it for a weekend instead so that we get a bit of time and it's not a total waste of a weekend! So that will be within the next month and then it's BRITNEY BABY! 28th November and I. CAN'T. WAIT! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And then Christmas shows etc and then home for 3 weeks. How is time just flying by so quickly? It's insane.

Right. That's about all from me for now. Hope all is well in all your various corners of the world...remember I have a spare room!!

Lots of love and pink sparkles
Maz xxxx

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