We did wonder if the Blog should be changed to... "Where in the world is the Chile GOLD team...??!"
So... the day started with a mix up! 8.30 am we arranged to meet in the lobby for breakfast, everyone got up and dressed and sorted out, wandered downstairs, and gathered at the sofas... only problem was that Kirsty set he phone alarm.... in UK time... one hour waiting downstairs, and we were visited by Rachel, to check that we had rememberd to set an alarm (very kind we felt!) and we said "ohh we´re ok, just running a few minutes behind, we´ll be down soon."
Carried on non-the-wiser... it wasn´t until 11am Spanish time that we twigged we were in the wrong time zone... very polite everybody!
It worked out quite well as it gave Charlotte a chance to get some jobs done on the computer.
Another buffet breakfast later, and we decide it´s time to call the airline. "where are our bags??!"
"We have found four of them, they will be delivered today to the hotel"
YAAAAAAAY!! Hoorah! and lots of shouting and jumping around later...
...We decided to sit outside under the shelter to sort out project files... We visited Reception to inform them we were waiting for our luggage and Hey Presto! It had arrived!!! 4 bags were back in our possession (lucky Sam, Rach, Linz and Helen!) We then worked through all our session plans and ordered them, as well as managing to write a few more! We discussed adaptability, and how we may be able to use them. We linked them to GAT and talked about where links can be created. This session took us to a late lunch, it was useful to us all, as it gave us opportunity to consolidate information and to organise and determine who-needed-what (and that Helen was hoarding a load of session plans ;) lol).
Lunch... which is NOT a buffet!!
We then celebrated the arrival of the bags with a late afternoon swim, and some team bonding time.
Another phonecall to the airline... still no sign of the other two bags :(
Buffet tea...
...and an early night!
TTFN - Team Chile xx
Friday, 31 July 2009
Thursday, 30 July 2009
The one where we sat in the airport a long time...!
So!! Fun times all round, we got up this morning and had an amazin all paid for Continental buffet breakfast, then we packed our daysacks, sat around a bit talking to Carla and Barbara our new English-with-Chilean-family friends made during the madness of "are we flying?! aren´t we flying?! Who understands what-is-occurring?!" and caught up on the news of when they would be going, and where on earth their luggage is!
We then headed for the airport ourselves in search of answers...
First stop - Iberia helpdesk... re-issued tickets....
Second stop - Lost Luggage... a description, a printout, a hunt in a little room and a chat with a man who learnt to speak English by watching Little Britain later...
and...
Rach came to collect Sam, Kirsty, Linz and Helen from where we waited (´cos she´d be able to sweet talk security if needed!)
A walk through the Arrivals doors the wrong way, a lot of funny looks, questions from a security lady (full marks on security at this point!) and a short walk later we were all together again in the baggage reclaim area.
We sat next to conveyor belt 6 (as per instructions) and waited for candidates of our luggage description to circle us...
1 hour, 8 suitcases and our *cough*healthiest*cough* lunch so far(!) later.... the suitcases were getting dizzy as they were going round and round and round us.... 1 more hour to wait we are told...
1 more hour later... many many many bags/cases passed us by... none of them were ours!
We managed to fit in a few card games here to keep eachother occupied.
Another extra hour later (more because we couldn´t get to the end of a card game quick enough rather than because we felt our bags would appear) and we decided it may be time to vacate our cosy space in the baggage reclaim so we headed back to the hotel.
If the airport locate our bags we´ll get them delivered to us at the hotel tonight or tomorrow morning... if not... we phone up...
Good news however! We ARE going to Chile! On the 4th August, we now have had proper tickets issued. All we have to do now is survive until then in the heat of Madrid in our Chile-prepared winter clothes... literally (for the moment) only what we stand up in... Shopping anyone??!
TTFN xx
P.S A special mention has to go out here to Rach for her amazing Spanish skills. She has corresponded in many ways (face to face and phone) to help make sorting all this out quicker and easier for all of us... who knew her Spanish would be so amazing??! AND she claimed to be rusty... hurrmpf! (I wish I was as rusty as that at Spanish!!!)
We then headed for the airport ourselves in search of answers...
First stop - Iberia helpdesk... re-issued tickets....
Second stop - Lost Luggage... a description, a printout, a hunt in a little room and a chat with a man who learnt to speak English by watching Little Britain later...
and...
Rach came to collect Sam, Kirsty, Linz and Helen from where we waited (´cos she´d be able to sweet talk security if needed!)
A walk through the Arrivals doors the wrong way, a lot of funny looks, questions from a security lady (full marks on security at this point!) and a short walk later we were all together again in the baggage reclaim area.
We sat next to conveyor belt 6 (as per instructions) and waited for candidates of our luggage description to circle us...
1 hour, 8 suitcases and our *cough*healthiest*cough* lunch so far(!) later.... the suitcases were getting dizzy as they were going round and round and round us.... 1 more hour to wait we are told...
1 more hour later... many many many bags/cases passed us by... none of them were ours!
We managed to fit in a few card games here to keep eachother occupied.
Another extra hour later (more because we couldn´t get to the end of a card game quick enough rather than because we felt our bags would appear) and we decided it may be time to vacate our cosy space in the baggage reclaim so we headed back to the hotel.
If the airport locate our bags we´ll get them delivered to us at the hotel tonight or tomorrow morning... if not... we phone up...
Good news however! We ARE going to Chile! On the 4th August, we now have had proper tickets issued. All we have to do now is survive until then in the heat of Madrid in our Chile-prepared winter clothes... literally (for the moment) only what we stand up in... Shopping anyone??!
TTFN xx
P.S A special mention has to go out here to Rach for her amazing Spanish skills. She has corresponded in many ways (face to face and phone) to help make sorting all this out quicker and easier for all of us... who knew her Spanish would be so amazing??! AND she claimed to be rusty... hurrmpf! (I wish I was as rusty as that at Spanish!!!)
The one where we got stuck in Madrid...
So...
We made it to Heathrow prefectly fine, and then we were delayed a little :( sad times!
We flew out with British-would-you.like-to-fly-cattle-class-and-feel-irrelevant-Airways who laughed when we let them know that we had to attempt to make a connection... nices!
A short *cough* run through S, U and half of R and the HUUUUGEness of terminal 4 in Madrid airport we finally found the gate we needed... but... uh oh!! Sorry peeps, you have missed it by half an hour (at which point we were still in international airspace)... Great.
"mañana" the lady said "Tomorrow!" we cried (as this is one of the words we can actually say in Spanish) Only to travel through the entire airport on an Iberia Airways Customer Service Desk Hunt (5 did we visit?!?!?) To then be told "6 of you? we can fly you out on (tapping keyboard)... the4th of August......*tumbleweed*....."
So. We are currently in Madrid in a four star hotel (quite nice) paid for, 3 meals a day paid for and... eachother and our passports, so eventually all will be well! It wouldn´t be GOLD without a spanner in the works... and we as a team have dealt with this superbly (if I do say so myself!!!)
We thought it would be ok but it is suddenly sinking in that 5 days of Madrid would be ok if we weren´t missing out on project....
Now off to the airport to chase up baggage and flights... fingers crossed for hotel-ness!
Over and out... Team Chile x
We made it to Heathrow prefectly fine, and then we were delayed a little :( sad times!
We flew out with British-would-you.like-to-fly-cattle-class-and-feel-irrelevant-Airways who laughed when we let them know that we had to attempt to make a connection... nices!
A short *cough* run through S, U and half of R and the HUUUUGEness of terminal 4 in Madrid airport we finally found the gate we needed... but... uh oh!! Sorry peeps, you have missed it by half an hour (at which point we were still in international airspace)... Great.
"mañana" the lady said "Tomorrow!" we cried (as this is one of the words we can actually say in Spanish) Only to travel through the entire airport on an Iberia Airways Customer Service Desk Hunt (5 did we visit?!?!?) To then be told "6 of you? we can fly you out on (tapping keyboard)... the4th of August......*tumbleweed*....."
So. We are currently in Madrid in a four star hotel (quite nice) paid for, 3 meals a day paid for and... eachother and our passports, so eventually all will be well! It wouldn´t be GOLD without a spanner in the works... and we as a team have dealt with this superbly (if I do say so myself!!!)
We thought it would be ok but it is suddenly sinking in that 5 days of Madrid would be ok if we weren´t missing out on project....
Now off to the airport to chase up baggage and flights... fingers crossed for hotel-ness!
Over and out... Team Chile x
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
The one in the London-Town Hostel...
So...
We all made it to London Town safe and sound, and the finding eachother bit went pretty well! We managed to gather together collecting eachother at various stations, and to arrive at the hostel together.
Yesterday we went to Covent Garden to find a shop for Kirsty 'cos she needed a travel towel.... even though she had already bought two (she left them both at home! - Whoops!)
We had a lovely tea in London-Town at Pizza Express :)
We saw Fin from Casualty WHOOOP!
We saw the Scottish Charity shop and wondered if Kirsty and Lindsey would be worth anything... but then decided that actually they were probably more invaluable to us... being part of our team!
A lovely trip to Tesco Metro (very exotic...) later and we had snacks for the night and breakfast for the morning!!
A lot of resource/session plan sharing later... (everyone has worked really hard on all their sessions and resource preparation which is great, we have an amazing bank of resources ready for when we arrive out there, and for most session thoughts requests). We had a chat about how with being the first Chile GOLD things could be very.... "interesting!"
We signed the banner!!! WHOOOP!! (Photo soon! fingers crossed...)
Then bed time called...!
Today we are going to visit Diana at CHQ, visit the Guiding Shop and then head over to Heathrow...!! PLANE TIMES!!!
London this morning.... international airspace tonight... Chile in the AM!!! FUN FUN FUN!
TTFN Team Chile x
We all made it to London Town safe and sound, and the finding eachother bit went pretty well! We managed to gather together collecting eachother at various stations, and to arrive at the hostel together.
Yesterday we went to Covent Garden to find a shop for Kirsty 'cos she needed a travel towel.... even though she had already bought two (she left them both at home! - Whoops!)
We had a lovely tea in London-Town at Pizza Express :)
We saw Fin from Casualty WHOOOP!
We saw the Scottish Charity shop and wondered if Kirsty and Lindsey would be worth anything... but then decided that actually they were probably more invaluable to us... being part of our team!
A lovely trip to Tesco Metro (very exotic...) later and we had snacks for the night and breakfast for the morning!!
A lot of resource/session plan sharing later... (everyone has worked really hard on all their sessions and resource preparation which is great, we have an amazing bank of resources ready for when we arrive out there, and for most session thoughts requests). We had a chat about how with being the first Chile GOLD things could be very.... "interesting!"
We signed the banner!!! WHOOOP!! (Photo soon! fingers crossed...)
Then bed time called...!
Today we are going to visit Diana at CHQ, visit the Guiding Shop and then head over to Heathrow...!! PLANE TIMES!!!
London this morning.... international airspace tonight... Chile in the AM!!! FUN FUN FUN!
TTFN Team Chile x
Monday, 27 July 2009
Before departure...!
Ok...
I am packed (sort of) and ready (nearly) to go and meet the team in London-Town!
We are to jet off on Wednesday to the land they call Chile to begin our project. There have been about a million (slight exaggeration there) texts sent between everyone about "what are you packing?" "Are you packed?" "do you have....?" "when do you get to...?" "how much money are you taking?" etc... so many thougts - so little time!!
Once we have flown out we will be staying in Santiago for a few days, we have a rough plan - but as we shall soon know - GOLD is flexible!
Fun fun... VERY excited!
Passport... Tickets... Money...
That's all for now.... x
I am packed (sort of) and ready (nearly) to go and meet the team in London-Town!
We are to jet off on Wednesday to the land they call Chile to begin our project. There have been about a million (slight exaggeration there) texts sent between everyone about "what are you packing?" "Are you packed?" "do you have....?" "when do you get to...?" "how much money are you taking?" etc... so many thougts - so little time!!
Once we have flown out we will be staying in Santiago for a few days, we have a rough plan - but as we shall soon know - GOLD is flexible!
Fun fun... VERY excited!
Passport... Tickets... Money...
That's all for now.... x
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