Liga club

Enrique, our Spanish teacher took us to his private club to play some football and tennis with his family. It was also the practise ground of the Liga football team. Tom was loving it!

Our first visitors, Debbie and Timmy

Deb and Timmy came to stay with us in November. They stayed with us for a weekend before they headed off to the Galapagos for 8 days and then to the jungle. As well as showing them round Quito old town we went up the teleferico which goes up Pinchincha and overlooks the whole city. We also went to the 'Midad del Mundo,' where we had a go at all the different experiments and enjoyed trying to kick the world (look at the picture of Tim's toe!) There are 2 middle of the world museums. The first one, is the famous one where the monument is, where everyone has their photograph taken. They then realised that it hasn't been built on the equator at all but that it was 50 metres out. So, another smaller museum was built in the correct location further up the road! Here it is not well advertised and not many tourists go so it is much much better. You can try and balance an egg on a nail, see water going different ways down the sink either side of the equator and get more of the history of the country. It was great having them to stay, they were grateful to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel for a change!

Rio ICT conference

I was lucky enough to go on an ICT conference to Rio de Janeiro in November as I am ICT coordinator for the Primary school. I went along with Andy and Claire, colleagues from BSQ. Apart from 3 days of workshops, we managed to see a bit of the city. We were staying in a hotel off Copercabana beach. The beach front was lovely but not as busy as I would have expected because the weather wasn't great. As it is the capital for haviannas, I managed to buy 10 pairs! I also tasted the best ever caipirinhas at the British School Rio, they made them out of whatever fruit you fancied, the strawberry ones were the best. We add meat in one of the famous restaurants where they come along and slice the meat off in front of you, we also went to a samba club in Lapa, I did not even try to dance samba, they move so quickly. We took the cog train up Corcovado for stunning views beneath the open-armed Cristo Redentor, I forgot my camera though and was not happy. We went up the cable car to admire the Cidade Maravilhosa from atop Pão de Açúcar, otherwise known as sugarloaf mountain. It was lots of fun.