Chapter 7 - I Love Technology

Life In Chile

Chapter 7 - I Love Technology
(April 2014)

5 Months to go

This may seem like a random blog post but whilst being over here in Chile, my eyes have definitely been opened to how amazing technology is right now!!! We are so lucky!!

The reason I wanted to write about this topic was due to 2 experiences I have had whilst being here that have really made me LOVE how amazing technology is!!

1.     I visit a family here in Chile a few days a week and hang out with the kiddies in order to teach them some English. However, one time I had turned up to their house and the children were all out until 5.30 (1 hour and a half after I arrived at the house!!) The only other person in the house was their maid/helper who doesn’t speak English at all (let's remember I don’t speak Spanish either). This was going to be ONE LONG HOUR AND A HALF!!! After trying to connect to Wi-Fi through her phone I was able to download Google translate onto my phone. After the app downloaded we were able to sit there and get to know one another as we took turns to type and translate our conversation. To some people this may seem stupid but it made me so happy as I was able to ‘speak’ to her and learn more about her life, which I never would have been able to do without this technology!

2.     To be able to contact my family makes this time apart so much easier. I LOVE Facetime & Skype. Later that day I arrived home from work and had planned to Facetime family, not realising beforehand that it would be an evening full of non-stop talking and laughing. We were able to Facetime/Skype:

-Ryan and Emma- 2 hours (Maidstone, UK)

-Jodie-1 hour (Gloucester, UK)

-Ben-2 hours (Gloucester, UK)

-Sam, Hanna and Auntie Alison- 1 hour (Baltimore, USA)

What an evening!! On Sundays we are also lucky enough to speak to our families every week and I am also lucky to be able to Facetime my sister and Steve as well as see our little princesses and prince and how fast they are growing up! TOO fast!!  I am also able to keep in contact with my best friend Laura whilst she is partying hard in Salt Lake City.

It just amazes me how easy it is to contact anyone and everyone, wherever we are in this world!! We definitely take it for granted and are just so lucky to have this type of technology!

I LOVE TECHNOLOGY

Chapter 6 - Rio De Janeiro Part 3

Life In Chile

Chapter 6 – Rio De Janeiro - Part 3
(March 2014)

6 Months to go

Day 3

Luckily we had just planned for this to be a chilling kinda day. We had to check-out of our hotel at 12.00 but we were able to leave our bags there whilst we explored and looked for Rio souvenirs. Next to our hotel was a Havaianas flip-flops store which was amazing because the flip-flops were like £6-9 each!!!! Obviously had to buy 2 haha, loving life haha!!

We then went for a walk along Copacabana Beach where we stayed for a bit and took a few photos :)

 Then we headed over to Ipanema Beach quickly so we didn’t miss the beautiful sunset.  We had been told there was an amazing viewing point for it, and they were not wrong!!!!!! Ps this is the beach David Beckham’s Hotel was on AHHHH! But, sadly no DB L

Once Josh had had his little swim in the sea we had to rush back for our taxi to take us to the airport L

Ok, I completely am going to skip past the next part because I am so annoyed/scarred by this experience. We basically ‘missed’ our flight due to the stupid TAM Airline who claimed we were late for boarding, despite having proof that we were at the gate on time!!! Luckily a TAM/LAN air steward knew it wasn’t our fault so he helped us out and tried to make the situation we found ourselves in a teeny tiny bit better. He then missed his flight to LA to help book us on another flight for the next day for free, which was amazing! We had to stay the night in a hotel near the airport, but it meant we didn't have to spend the night at the airport in Buenos Aires, where we would have struggled to sleep, and got a delicious breakfast and dip in the pool too in the morning.  In the morning we were able to get on the flight - luckily they didn’t mess up that one - and we FINALLY arrived home!!!!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Presents for us :)

Chapter 6 – Rio De Janeiro - Part 2

Life In Chile

Chapter 6 – Rio De Janeiro - Part 2
(March 2014)

6 Months to go

Day 2

We had heard from a friend (Shout out to Sophie :) ) about this Free Walking Tour in Rio and that it was a must, so of course we woke up and went to the meeting point for the tour. 

As you can see by the photo above it rained :(

Here is a list of a FEW things that the tour included:

1.    Confeitaria Colombo- A posh café/restaurant that is apparently quite famous, but it is also famous to us Englanders as apparently this is where the Queen visited to have her English tea haha typical!

2.    We were then shown Carmen Miranda’s home. I just know her as the fruit lady haha! Her home has now been turned into a restaurant.

3.    Teatro Municipal- Just a theatre really but quite pretty on the outside.

4.    The Chilean steps- Our favourite!!! I will let you google what the Chilean steps are about haha!! Once again packed full of tourists but SO worth it!!

The tour then finished, we grabbed some Brazilian food to eat and then headed for our exciting tour around the Maracaná Stadium. It was SO cheap to walk around the stadium without a tour guide!!! We just loved picturing the World Cup Final and being able to say we’ve been there hehe!!

We then headed back to our Hotel to get ready for our BIG night ahead of us. Yes, we were lucky enough to get tickets for the RIO CARNIVAL!!!!!! Yes, you read that right! We could not believe our luck that we had come to Rio on the week of the Carnival and we were able to get tickets for the biggest carnival of the year. Oh, I forgot to mention but I am sure you have seen by the picture, it had been raining ALL day and was now raining SOOO much more. Here are the before pictures and you will see there was definitely no point in dressing up or doing my hair or make up!!!!

We decided to leave the Carnival early as we were so tired and there were only 2 more samba schools left. Can I just add we arrived to the event at 7:30pm, we arrived back to our hotel at 6am!!!!! Just remember we left EARLY, I dread to think what time it actually finished haha! We just wanted to get out of our wet clothes and into our dry clothes and sleep in a warm cosy bed haha! But, it was an incredible experience and we were definitely so lucky to have the chance to go be a part of it!!

Chapter 6 - Rio De Janeiro - Part 1

Life In Chile

Chapter 6 – Rio De Janeiro - Part 1
(March 2014)

6 Months to go

So I just want to start by saying this was the BEST little holiday EVER!!! I am not and will not ever do it justice so I am just going to TRY and keep it short and sweet with the writing (this was a lie! I wrote this at first and now I have decided to put the days as separate posts as it was too long and boring altogether haha!) and just have lots of photos : ) WAHOO!!  Josh and I originally were only meant to be in Rio De Janeiro for 3 days but you will see at the end of this post why it was extended to 4 haha!! Enjoy people x

Day 1

We arrived at the Rio de Janeiro airport around 9am. We had to catch 2 flights, 1 that went to São Paulo where we had a 5/6-hour layover but this is where we had to have our ‘sleep’ to give us energy for a LONG day. This definitely didn’t happen for me :S. We then went from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. As we stepped off the plan we were welcomed by 34 degrees, I’ve never been so hot!!! We arrived at our hotel and checked in early, unpacked and then went back downstairs to book us onto a tour.

Representing Kaba :) You're welcome Dad :)

 Here is what the tour included:

1.    Maracaná Stadium- World Cup Stadium baby.  This is where the final will be played :) 

2.     Cathedral- Now from the outside this place looked manky to me and it looked like it came out of an Indiana Jones movie but then we walked inside….I will let the pictures speak for themselves!!

3.    Christ The Redeemer- One of the many amazing wonders of the World. We were so excited to be here after seeing tv shows, photos, videos, comments about this statue we just couldn’t believe that we were here/there standing in front of him. As you can see everyone taking photos had at least 1 person photo bombing that photo haha! It was packed to say the least, there are about half the people full on lying down on the floor to get a good photo of the statue it is mental! BUT SO WORTH IT!!!!!

4.    Sugar Loaf Mountain- I just want to start and say this is not for the faint-hearted haha! To reach Sugar Loaf you have two trips, one cable car takes you to another mountain and then the next cable car takes you to Sugar Loaf but when you get into that cable car you will not think you will ever make it to the mountain as it looks like the cord/rope/death trap what ever you would like to call it will snap, SO SCARY! I just kept my head down in both cable cars :) I am such a wimp! But WOW, once you arrive onto Sugar Loaf mountain and look out at the view you will completely forget about the ordeal you have just gone through and have to go through again on the way down. By the time we reached the top it was dark but it didn’t ruin the view at all, it was just so beautiful to look out and see all these shining lights across Rio especially Christ The Redeemer! That was glowing like no other :) Such a beautiful view!

Our Tour Guide :)

We arrived back to our hotel after a LONG day and we couldn’t be bothered to find a restaurant as we were so tired that we just went and got a casual Maccy D’s, so exotic haha! We both ordered CBO’s and shared a TRIPLE cheeseburger :).

To Be Continued