Winter Vacations 2017

We just wrapped up a fun two weeks with our students during their Winter vacations. Fortunately, the weather was nice enough to spend the majority of the time outside enjoying surf sessions and trips to the Botanical Gardens.

Wintertime in Chile has the tendency to bring in big swells which means we are sometimes unable to get in the water with our students. Though it’s always a bummer to show up to the beach and not surf, we used this experience to remind our students to always respect the ocean and to remember that it has the potential to be dangerous. We also hope that this experience motivates our students to continue working on their surfing skills so one day they will be able to surf when the waves are big. We were still able to have a good time without surfing. On the days we were unable to get in the water we headed over to the nearby sand dunes and enjoyed the pretty views of Valparaíso as well as practiced a different form of “surf”.

We spent our days at the Botanical Gardens enjoying some winter sunshine and looking for hidden treasure. We found ourselves in the year 1883 during the Gold Rush with other treasure hunters on our tails trying to steal our gold. We split into two teams, hid our gold and created treasure maps. The two teams then traded maps and searched for the hidden gold! It was a fun way to practice English, work as team, and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the gardens. Of course, no trip to the Botanical Gardens is complete without a pickup game of soccer!

We really enjoyed spending some extra time with our students and can’t wait for the next vacation to come around. For now we’re back to English during the week and surfing on Saturdays!