if I could ride my bicycle all day everyday i'd be very happy

Firstly. Id like to apologise to my fans for my lack of blog updates So in summary I shall attempt to remember the events of the past two weeks..

We shall begin with ella's birthday, Friday 16th October. We spent a busy day planning nursery school changes followed by a trip to the beach for an hour or so to lay in the sun with an ice cream. Lovvvvvvely.

Back on the bus to get back to create fireworks in the kitchen. We were attempting to cook up a storm for the hoards of Durans. We made fajitas, various salsas and three delightful puddings of; banoffie pie, apple crumble and eton mess for 18 people. Challenge accepted. And we can safely say noone was ill after and there was barely anything left (much to my dissapointment on the apple crumble front.
Ah then the birthday cake appears. Ella blows out her candles followed by a lot of nudging, winking and giggling around the table and various people strategically placing themselves around ella and her cake as maria informs ella its customary to take a bite out of your cake in Chile. Maria proceeds to take the candles out of the cake, with my realisation that this cake is probably going to end up on her face soon. Ella has no realisation and is happy to follow "traditions." Take a bite then... SMASH maria pushes the cake up, Chinga pushes her head forward and manuel was ready and waiting with the camera.. Brilliant.. one cakedy facedy. This then starts a bit of a food..face war whereby Ella thinks its accpetable to attack people with cream who had little involvement in her cake attack, Manuel takes a plate of eton mess to the face who then throws it back at Ella and then for no reason whatsoever Im attacked with cream. All the while the true culprits Maria and Chinga get away with clean faces. Ruddy brilliant. Abolita looks on the scene in confusion, why waste good pudding? A short shower later and the cream beginning to smell faintly like sick in our hair and faces we settle down to watch a film on the big screen and promises of Fantasialandia in the morning. The next morning we slowly rise to the bombsite downstairs... cream up the walls, salsa on the ceiling..(only joking) but it is cleanup time, conveniantly Ella stays in bed until its done and Manuel distracts himself by cleaning his car.

The creepy man described below

Naya and Sole arrive so we jump on a bus with Manual and male and all hit up Santiago. Here we learnt how to use the slightly overcrowded metro, Well incredibly overcrowded in fact but for the small price of 40p no matter where you want to go why wouldnt it be? Not sure how we got on or off for that matter. Think London, rush hour, and times it by 10. So we arrive at our destination and Manuel is pretty excited to take the snazzy bus. £7 entry to the theme park, what a bargain, we can come here more often. So we spent the the day checking out the crazy rides. Us definately being more dare-devil. Until we went to leave, where we were attack by halloween people, which I have no shame in saying was terrified of one guy. He followed me around for ages getting really close to my face.. I didnt like it. Painfully Manuel made us stay in the presence of these horrible people for ages. We then took a trip back on the metro which if possible was even more busier. We were entertained by a girl attempting to get on the metro with a big balloon ball. This was incredibly funny for us but I fear this may be something you just had to see. She attempted several times to get on the metro with her ball in front of her, repeatedly looking confused as to why only the ball fit and not her, but she persisted in trying over and over until she finally realised as the doors were closing on her that if she lifted the ball above her head that she could infact get on the metro with her stupid balloon.

The next week is a bit of a haze, I seem to recall a surf trip but not very good conditions where we gave it a go anyway.. me not for so long and Ella perfecting her duck dive and Andres just dissapearing out into the ocean. And probably various trips to the ice cream shop.

Our following weekend was taken over by rearranging the nursery and bringing in a new system. This was actually quite satisfying to create a huge mess, which is what we do best then attempt to fix it by Monday morning.

Before

During

After

We also took a midweek trip on the bus to Quillota at somepoint. In search of the cinema.Pretty interesting trip.. Ines how do we get to the cinema.. "spanish spanish spanish number 7 bus.. spanish spanish near the plaza..spanish spanish number 3 or 4 back spanish spanish." ok then number 7 number 3 or 4 and somewhere near the plaza. on the bus we go.. Ella cleverly asks the bus driver man to holla we were near the plaza. Done. in quillota brillo ah yes and theres the cinema. I leave a paper trail for our way back. Right whats on.. ah good nothing. Lets watch this one. Ah yep sitting comfy. Bugger. Ive definately seen this terrible movie before. Drag me to hell; terrible terrible movie. Ive definately learnt my lesson on the spanish name disguises for films now. and once again for anyone that has seen the movie fear old women again. Now to get home.. yep theres no buses here... erm.. so we call manuel who finds it hilarious and attempts to describe where we need to be. And in the end a nice man directs us to the supermarket which is apparently where the buses reside.. true dat.. ah yes the number 3. home we go. Another town conquered. Well maybe that one conquered us, but still now we know for next time.

And our most recent adventure was to Valparaiso on Friday. Which is my new favourite place. Unfortunately forgot the memory card to my camera so we'll have to go again. yes. Here we met up with Andres who introduced us to his lovely girlfriend and showed us the sights of valpo. A place with real cafes. and very arty, me likey. We went out in the eve to some bars caught about 6 words from the convosations but enjoyed every minute none-the-less. and in true british style bought a lot of chips on the way home. Mainly over a small confusion as to whether they'd been ordered yet so ordered more. whoops. Ill take photos next time..not of the chips.

To anyone thats made it to the bottom of this, congratulations this was long ting. Ive learnt my lesson, Ill try not to leave it as long next time.

over and out x x x x