While riding, I caught this self-portrait and thought it was a perfect representation of how I feel at my new school, the lone rider. I've grown used to being with my teaching buddy: walking & sitting with her during inservice days, going out to lunch, and dashing into her room whenever I have something to share or ask. But this year I'm riding solo. I confess to an intense sense of isolation and of being "the other." There is a bright side to my situation that I intend to force to the front of my conscience however, and that is the freedom of solitude... I behave less like a pack animal when I feel out of the mainstream. My goal this year is to seek less help and tap into more of the knowledge I have acquired through research and experience. Cross your fingers for me; I'm heading into uncharted territory!

road trip

It's the end of summer and my next chance to get away seems a long ways off, but it remains -as always- the light at the end of my tunnel

Fabrics are the Stuff of Dreams

My first intention was to spend the day at the park Chapultepec and visit the museum of anthropolgy there, but my stomach lead me to lunch, and I never returned to finish the other 9/10s of the museum! Instead, I discovered a couple of things that were not even on my todo list.

1) An elegant place to eat--Check out the women's bathroom at Elago (the restaurant at the lake)... it has to be the most elegant place I have ever eaten (not the bathroom, but the restaurant proper).

2) Paradise--By the time we finished lunch though (over two hours of style, grace and flavor) it was raining heavily and we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel where we ventured out across the street to discover a REAL fabric store!

The Thing about the Elevators (ascensors)

They are really--REALLY--scary!

The bottom picture shows the century old mechinery that allows the elevator to transport us up and down the hill... very beautiful, but still pretty old gears to be relying on for our safety! The top picture shows the tracks they ride on. The clickity-clack sounds coming from the ride reminded me of the wooden roller coaster on the boardwalk in Santa Cruise. --sooo hard to hold a conversation with August AND hold my breath...

Day Five: Valparaiso

San Francisco has nothing over this town in terms of curvy and steep streets. It's so steep that it has elevators designed to bring people from the port and city level up to their homes! The elevators are all over 100 years old and still being used, but that's another story!

Santa Lucia

Smack in the center of Santiago is this fascinating remnent of history--a crazy high castle! The steep stairs are seriously narrow and not created for my size 41 feet, but was well worth tripping and stumbling to reach the summit and take in the panoramic views of the city. Apparently this beauty was ignored for 300 years until a nineteenth century mayor decided it would be a worthwhile project for prisoners to transform it into a park with historical significance. It was at the bottom of this hill in 1541 that the city's founder Pedro Valdivia declared this the city of Santiago.

The castle is authentic to the point of being dangerous! Stairs are cut in to the rock and have death defying drops. Thank goodness the mote was empty or I am sure it would have had alligators in it...so amazing and real that I kept thinking it could be in Disneyland!

Santiago Day Three

Fernando Botero (though he is stored in my memory as the artist who paints fat people and whose last name starts with a B --thanks google) has long been one of my favorite artists because of his rendering of the human figure in a way I can relate. So when I saw his horse just standing alone in the park my heart skipped a happy beat, and I asked my favorite model to strike a pose with it!

Day Two Santiago

I am enchanted by the graceful detail of the buildings here... My eyes can't seem to get enough, which apparently can't be said of this lady about me.

She looks like she has seen more than enough!

Day 1 Santiago

This is the view from our hostel window. We are face to face with this lady. Her mood seems to change from pleasant to serious to severe throughout the day. August knew I would love to look at her and her neighborhood so she picked this hostel for us.

My baby is twenty-eight & that's great, right?

Here's the kinda fun people can have when they invite Dunhams to their parties.