October already?! The the girls felt the fall while Mike had a second helping of spring for a week.
Mike found a little card Hallie had included in his luggage. He feels very lucky to have Hallie!
The entrance to this university reminded him of the cloistered compounds at Oxford's colleges.
At one of the local schools in Santiago.
Our house in Missoula isn't super well insulated, such that Eliza opted to keep warm by sitting next to one of the vents with Hallie's blanket to do school one day.
She has also opted to return to taekwondo. Hopefully she'll be able to earn her black belt in due course.
Mom checks in on E while at school. Fergus has become her study buddy. Now that Hallie is back to work in the Missoula County Public Schools, Fergus may need to do more supervising.
The group spent two days in Santiago and two days on the coast. On Tuesday, they learned about educational leadership history in Chile and work they do to map educational outcomes. Kind of dry stuff, but Mike's head was spinning with ideas for how he and his colleagues might do similar work in Montana, which is kind of the point of these exchanges.
He got a T-shirt from the sponsors. He wore his T-shirt.
Little Miss Eliza accomplished something meaningful this week. She thought she had burned out the motor on her electric bike, but what actually happened was that she had caused a couple of power wires to come disconnected. So, using some brains and YouTube videos, she diagnosed and repaired the wires, thus getting the bike back up and running. Good on her!
Fergus caught a mouse, but he didn't kill it. Eliza captured it and returned it outdoors. Apparently then Fergus caught it again and killed it. The mighty hunter seems back in action.
Mike saw an abundant variety of street art on his trip, with murals and other visual art around nearly every corner.
Wednesday for Mike meant traveling from Santiago to Viña. The organizers planned a group lunch and a visit to a vineyard on route, as one does when going through some of Chile's wine country.
Conferring with faculty and graduate students.
Enjoying a bite to eat between visits. We had everything from fancy lunches to box lunches to fending for ourselves depending on the day.
Mike took advantage of the morning and evening hours to go exploring the cities he and his group visited. Along the river splitting Santiago, there's an outdoor sculpture garden whose works get illuminated at night.
The group spent two days in Santiago and two days on the coast. On Tuesday, they learned about educational leadership history in Chile and work they do to map educational outcomes. Kind of dry stuff, but Mike's head was spinning with ideas for how he and his colleagues might do similar work in Montana, which is kind of the point of these exchanges.
Group photo time!
Mike met a friendly cat. And a dog. No pic of the dog though.
Our lunch took an extremely long time, but we had fun. The whole area is full of flowers. For Mike it was like a California spring, which of course it was, considering how similar this region is to where we grew up.
The vineyard grows its grapes organically, using lots of processes that are friendly to the earth.
As for the tasting itself, Mike found it all quite educational. A bit pretentious, but quite informative for those who are into wine, which he has decided he isn't.
On to Viña! The group stayed near the beach, so Mike got to walk along the boardwalk and take in gorgeous sunsets along with other tourists and locals.
Sunrises too had their charm there by the sea.
He found this mural in one of the elevators to be entertaining. There's a whole sordid love story going on between the eyes of the blonde girl on the left and the mouth of the bespectacled gent on the right.
Anyway, more visits to universities and schools on the coast.
Lunch at a local yacht club. The administrator of the school we visited commented that this was the first time she had ever dined there.
Mike and the small sub-group with whom he had traveled to the school decided to go on an impromptu trip to the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater, home to the annual International Song Festival each February. The guards wouldn't let us in due to the lateness of the hour and preparation for an upcoming event, but one did let us know of a back way where we could at least see some of the stage. Plus we got a hillside view of the city for our troubles.
Here is the Palacio Vergara, now home to an art museum. They got in with literally two minutes to go in, take pics, and skedaddle.
After they walked back to the hotel, Mike went walking to a couple of local malls in the evening and caught sight of the tail end of another dazzling west coast sunset.
Meanwhile, three hours in the past, it was still early afternoon in Missoula. Eliza went to a horse riding lesson at Drue's. We are so grateful to have found a great instructor.
Friday morning dawned with high clouds again by the beach.
Mike and his group went to see a K-12 art magnet school up in the hills of Valpo.
This woodcut press used by a local artist as a classroom and community workshop. Throughout the trip, Chilean educational researchers, leaders, and teachers shared their thoughts about something they termed la convivencia escolar, which roughly translates into "getting along with each other at school" or developing in schools the capacity to learn to live in community. Mike could go into a bunch of detail, but suffice it to say that it's a unique way of looking at social relationships and resolving conflict in schools. Part of that has to do with bringing in members of the community into the school through work represented like this.
Valpo has a bunch of street art all through the densely populated hillside townhouses and shops.
Here we are at the chapel of the last university we visited and one of the hosts, the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso.
The first graders at Hallie's school earned a jammy day. Hallie was the only teacher to wear jammies. The kids found it fun. That is what really matters. Next time it is a sweat suit for Hallie.
On Friday evening, school and university visits all done and everyone free before his group traveled back to Santiago and their flights home on Saturday, Mike wandered to a few tourist-oriented spots in town, taking pics along the way. He really liked the murals by Vale Clave.
The group had a final dinner at a seaside restaurant. Their mood was kind of subdued now that all the fun was done.
The group also had Saturday morning free, so Mike did some more exploring. Here's a mural by Un Kolor Distinto, a collaboration by two artists who worked with the art magnet school Mike had visited.
He hoped this funicular railway was open, but sadly, it appeared not to be.
He went back to the Palacio Vergara for a longer walkthrough and then on to the Museo Fonck, an archeological museum.
Eliza, upon seeing the shrunken heads in this photo, noted that she found them "disturbing" and asked if they were real. They seemed real enough to Mike at the time he took it.
These are not UNO cards at an exhibition at the Rioja Palace, the local decorative arts museum.
Mike then finished his time in Viña with a walk along the breakers and through a local street fair before the long trek home.
All this week, UM celebrated Homecoming. Eliza got to participate in the homecoming parade, where Eliza followed behind Drue's horses. Go Griz! She said that she got a lot of cheers for being the poop scooper.
Here are a couple of images from Mike's ride back to Santiago. It really is quite similar to a California late winter/early spring, complete with bright green hillsides and acre upon acre of golden poppies in bloom.
Mike took about a full day to get home, starting Saturday evening in Chile and ending Sunday afternoon in Missoula after stops in Atlanta and Minneapolis. Suffice it to say, this meant the blog is late in posting. Oh! And Missoula also has abundant street art. It was good to be away, but it's great to be home!
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