Wednesday Morning Blog

 Hi FAU Bloggers, As you might have guessed by now, I'm what's known in good Chilean as "pati-peri." However, aside from having been lucky enough to visit some amazing countries in my long life, I have also visited some amazing places in Chile. I travelled Chile from Arica to Aysen so I still have a third of the teritory left to discover. Today I'm going to write about a place in Chile I really enjoyed visiting and that I'd like to visit again: Malalcahuello.  I visited Malalcahuello in 2007 when one of my sisters was visiting from the UK. My sister arrive towards the end of February.  A few days after she arrived, and along with my wife, we decided to embark on a spontaneous road trip south. We packed up a tent and all our camping gear and headed South. We spent a night in Chanco, a couple of nights in Cobquecura and a night in Curacautin before arriving in Malalcuhuello. By this time my wife was tired of driving and wanted a holiday so we decided to stay a f

Good Morning FAU Bloggers: Today I'd like you to write about someone from your family. It could be a brother or sister, one of your parents or another relative (uncle, aunt, cousin, etc). I'm going to write about my brother Adrian. Well Adrian, or Ady (AD?) as we like to call him, currently lives in New Zealand with his wife and 2 kids - Ella and Freya (although both have left home now). He was a happy child, always joking and trying to make people laugh. He had a good temperament and rarely got angry. He learnt carpentry when he was a teenager and now works repairing violins and chelos and making groovy furniture. Ady is 18 months younger than me and we've always had a great relationship. He is someone you can depend on and is always ready to help out if things are complicated or you have a problem. The rest of the time he loves fooling about and playing music. He is a very good guitar player and an excellent violin player. He taught himself both instruments when he was yo

Hi FAU Bloggers, Let's talk language:) So, I speak English as a first language even though I'm technically Welsh (I was born in Wales). However, my Grandparents on my mother's side were Irish and on my Dad's side with a connection to the Campbell clan in Scotland. I don't speak Welsh, which is a Celtic language, and I tend to describe myself as a British "kiltro." As a child I went to a Catholic School. I had Latin lessons but learnt no Latin and French lessons and learnt no French. My next attempt at learning a foreign language was Spanish almost 15 years after leaving school. At age 29, I went to live in Spain in search of a new life (after 6 years trying to be a musician). I knew about 10 Spanish words when I arrived in Spain and it took me about 6 months before I began to speak any Spanish. People were happy that I only spoke English because they had the chance to practice with me but I became curious about Spanish and I really wanted to learn it. Now,

Hi FAU Bloggers I noticed that one or two of you mentioned that you like reading so, today I'd like you to talk about a book you can recommend. Actually, I started reading at a very young age and reading has always been one of my hobbies. However, I think there are lots of books that I love that maybe aren't so easy to read or that many people wouldn't find interesting. For example, a couple of years ago I read 2066 by Chilean author Roberto Bollaño in Spanish. It's a long novel (sort of 5 novels in one) and it took me about 3 months to read. It was very rewarding though as he is an amazing writer. One of my favourite books in recent years is a book by a Japanese author called Haruki Murakami. The book is called  Kafka on the Shore  and I read it in 2005. I discovered it because a British author I like called David Mitchell reviewed it in a magazine and said it was great. Then, a few weeks late The New York Times printed the first chapter. I read it and then bought the