The Expat Get Together And Plans For Another

Last night we had what I hope will be the first in a series of get togethers for expats and English speaking locals. Luckily, the rain stopped enough to make actually getting to Cerro Concepcion a possibility. It's been seriously tipping it down here for a couple of days and on Tuesday the streets were almost knee deep in water in both Valpo and Vina.

I wasn't actually sure how many people were going to come along so I was more than a little pleasantly surprised at the turn out. In total there were 14 of us. From the local blogging world we had: Meredith and only friend Elisa, Allie and only friend Julie, Luis, Clare, Jess and myself. Other attendees were Adrian and Sybil from England, Emma and Scott from Australia, Berkeley from the US and Pablo from here in Recreo. Ed, Allegretto's English owner, also joined us for a short time.

So thank you everyone for coming along. I hope you all had a good time- I know I did. It was cool to meet the people behind the blogs I read and also everyone else as well.

I'd really like to try to get something regular going and to attract more people to the meetings. I was thinking maybe once or twice a month to all come together and have a good time? Let me know if you'd like to do it again at least...Allegretto is always a good option as it's not too expensive and there's usually draught Cerveza del Puerto (it had bloody well run out last night...bah...). But if anyone else has a suggestion then please let me know and we can all decide.

Also, if anyone just fancies meeting up for a beer at any other time, I'm not usually averse to that kind of activity so just get back in touch..!

Something I would like to definitely try and organise is a trip Pablo, Jess and I were talking about. For 300,000 pesos we can hire a boat that will take us 30-odd miles out to sea. The reason for this adventure? Once way out into the Pacific we'll be able to see a huge array or sea-birds and other marine life, including Albatross and Penguins. I'd love to see an albatross in real life. With a group of 15 we'd have to pay 20,000 pesos each, including light snacks and all the dead fish required to throw overboard in order to attract all the sea-going critters. The boat would leave early in the morning, around 6am and we'd be back sometime around 2-3pm.

If anyone is interested in doing this, please let me know and we'll try to fix a date for sometime in June.

Thanks again for coming along and I hope to see you all again soon. If you couldn't make it this time, hopefully there'll be a next time in the near future..!