Weekend Update: Pasta, Bikes, Condors and More!

In big news this week, Anton arrived to Santiago!  He decided to cut his bike trip short to be able to spend time together here.  It's been wonderful.  Even just strolling around and having some of the world's best ice cream is 1,000,000 times better when you have someone to share it with!

One night, he made his famous homemade pizza.  Best meal I've had in Chile!  Other highlights from the week included wandering around a neighborhood full of used bookstores and kiosks and an evening out in the lovely Barrio Italia.  It is full of these little converted shopping centers with amazing stores with handmade and local designs, and sweet cafes in courtyards.  We ate a delicious dinner of homemade pastas with Italian and Chilean cocktails!  

Yesterday, we joined the Andes Hiking group again for an awesome hike to Rio Clarillo, about an hour outside of Santiago in Pirque.  It was an amazing day filled with interesting international people and spectacular views and of course the mandatory empanada and beer following the hike!

Two things not pictured below are the majestic condors and the greatest sunset we saw. The amazing birds got up close as we reached the summit of the hike.  They always fly in pairs and they were enormous, graceful and cartoon-like all at the same time.  On our drive back into Santiago we were accompanied by a gorgeous pink, orange and red sky.  

          

A few weeks back, I joined the bike share program here.  Today we will head out on our bikes together and pedal the city streets that close down for recreation on Sundays.  Perhaps we'll head to a French food festival and a map exposition. Update:  we lounged around eating croissants and listening to french music then went to another park to paddle boat around and visit the Natural History Museum.  Trés bakán!

In project related news, I've happily gotten into a steady groove of school visits.  I found out that my original project plan cannot drastically change so I'm sticking with the topic of cooperative learning and how it can be used as a strategy for differentiation in the classroom.  Something that is interesting and would super useful to me back in the States is how to incorporate more cooperative activities through project based learning.  Another good suggestion given to me is to research how to strike a strong balance between direct instruction and cooperative learning in the classroom.

I'll also be busy today and tomorrow preparing for a short talk I was invited to give to undergraduates at Universidad Alberto Hurtado.  I will be presenting about my experience with cooperative learning at a Symposium for students training to be teachers of English!  Very exciting stuff!