On October 4th, a Saturday, our school held their annual Bradford Cup, an intra-school sports competition. There are three classes per grade, A, B, and C, so each class across all grade levels was associated with an area in the UK. Bradford is a British school, so all activities are UK themed. So Class A was White for England, Class B was Red for Wales, and Class C was Blue for Scotland. They had a fun opening ceremony with a parade across the field where each group got to display their flag and play their anthem. This was just for 1st grade and up, so it was mainly for Emerson, but Avery got to compete a bit too. Emerson is in 1st C, so we wore blue for Scotland. It was funny scenario, because the competition itself was being held at Estadio Italia, which is a sports club for Italian citizens. The Bradford Cup was held at this particular club because Bradford has a relationship with this club, and the older students get bused here several times a week for practices and such, as they have many fields that are much larger than ours at our school campus. If a school is very large, they have their own sports stadiums. But our school is on the smaller side and doesn't have a large footprint, so we use the fields at Estadio Italia for the bigger kids. And the pool too, actually. Starting in 2nd grade, all the kids get to go to the pool once a month for swimming classes. Emerson gets to do this for the first time next week! Anyways, sports clubs in Santiago are huge thing. Most people in our circles belong to one. Some are SUPER exclusive, like a country club equivalent, but you have to be connected to the country, either by citizenship or through work. The German club, called Estadio Manquehue is like this. We toured it when we first visited in Oct. 2023, because it is right down the street from our house and it's one of the few Estadios with a beach volleyball court. Well, we didn't qualify, even with the last name of Kirchner, so we can't join officially. Apparently you can pay a mountain of money and finagle your way in, but we weren't about to do that. There are funny work arounds though. Drew can still pay for volleyball clinics and classes held at the courts within Estadio Manquehue, so he can still play there, which is all he really cares about anyways. I'm assuming he wouldn't be allowed to use any of the other amenities, but once you're in the door, I'm not sure how they'd know. There are other more low key sports clubs that you can just pay outright to join. But since we'll be gone literally all summer, it doesn't make much sense for us to join one. But if we were here for the long, long term, I'd imagine we would. Also, surprisingly there is no American Club. Just not enough US folks here, I suppose. Anyways, it was very funny to Drew and I that the Bradford Cup was a British themed event, held at a sports club for Italians, but within the country of Chile. If that's not international, I don't know what is.
During the football match, the parents got to play too if they wanted. I'm honestly not sure why the school wanted it this way, as the kids were doing just fine on their own. I think to foster a parent/kid play bond? So Drew went out to play, but not really. But they had fun. Apparently it is a major concern for parents, especially parents of boys, if your kid isn't into football, at least a little bit. Something about how all friendship problems between boys get worked out on the football, and if the kid doesn't like football, it's a bad sign for future behavioral issues. Interesting.
For the athletic portion, it was much more informal, and whoever wanted to race could race, against whomever they wanted. The kid on the right is Emerson's best friend Sebastian, or Sebas for short. I can't tell you how long it took me to say Sebas and not Sebby.
Avery was able to compete in the running and the jumping, and he had a blast. He must have competed in the running about 20 times.
The following Thursday, Drew and I did a hike up Cerro El Carbón. This hike is much easier than the last hike we did up Manquehue. It's graded an intermediate/hard difficulty level, and it has well defined trails that are certainly steep in sections, but not crazy. The view was great, but the view from Manquehue is better, as you can see more of the mountains on the backside of the city. But for a less experienced hiker, Cerro El Carbón is a great option.
That is actually Manquehue in the background there.
One really nice part of the hike was this entire hillside covered in orange flowers. ChatGPT believes they are California poppies. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
Finally, we saw these two birds of prey, a male and a female, hanging out together. It's October, but it's springtime here in Chile! I'll never get used to that. Halloween when flowers are blooming instead of dying is very weird.
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