Adjusting to life in Concepcion!

Hola,

We arrived in Concepcion on September 1st and have been busy getting settled in ever since!  The weather has been cooperating with us, it's been cool but sunny!  Since we have yet to purchase a car we've been hiking up and down a respectably steep hill to our apartment (9th floor).  Public transportation does not attempt the hill.

We live on the 9th floor of an 11 floor building.

We live in the building on your right.  Yes, we do have a glassed in porch that looks out over the suburb of San Pedro de La Paz.  We have already experienced one little quake a couple of nights ago.  Needless to say I didn't get much sleep but things have been quiet since then.

The girls have started school at the Thomas Jefferson school (http://www.thomasjefferson.cl/).  They don their uniforms every morning and are picked up in front of our building at 7am!  Two days into the routine and things are going pretty well (I think the uniforms help).

You can see our view behind Ella.

So far life here is going well.  We found peanut butter at the local grocery store so Mabel is happy.  We do see signs of the big earthquake last February ...

There are tons of these new signs telling folks where to run to next time there is a tsunami!  

I guess there are advantages for living on the top of a hill!  We've been admiring the different flora here.  It's spring and everything is blooming!  We've all enjoyed looking at the flowers and seed pods (from last year) of all the trees and plants.  Some look familiar and others are completely new to us.

Mabel with small palm-like trees.  We've seen much bigger ones all over.

Pink flowers that look like morning glories with clover shaped leaves.

Eucalyptus trees grow everywhere and smell great when warmed by the sun

These yellow flowers look like Scotch Broom (sp?) to me.  They are everywhere.

We've only been into the city proper once, last Saturday.  We visited the University and had a great lunch consisting of Empanadas.  Mike will spend most of his time here working with folks learning more about CO2 in the ocean down here.   

We're standing in front of the University of Concepcion's main entrance.

Everyone seems to be adjusting well.  We'll keep you posted on how things progress.  The only thing that has really changed for us is Mabel's hairdo and the lack of 1/2 and 1/2 for my coffee!

Notice the great desserts she's helping herself to!

We hope you are all doing well and look forward to hearing more about life in the US.

Adios!