Cycling dogs, vegetable milks and language classes!

Most dogs we know (just like most people) are massively underexercised (with workout routine of fence barking and lazying around in the front garden if they are lucky). We make an effort with Mario to keep him in shape but this has clear time constraints as we both spend quite a lot of time working 5 days a week (not to mention language classes and trying to keep ourselves in good shape too)....


In short, it is not easy to walk your dog friend for 2-6 hours every day! but we seem to have found an excellent way of "speed-working-out" Mario. Thanks to our lovely colleagues in the UK, we had some vouchers for an online shop (that we will not advertise here) and we got him a bicycle attachment so we can run along our bikes. In 15 minutes, he is able to have a great workout consisting of sprinting and troting while we cycle and he loves it! Strongly recommended for dog lovers who want to keep their dogs fit:

More stuff we have been doing... well, let's say that as much as we can appreciate the lovely weather of Santiago when compared to the UK, we also have to admit that the UK had some advantages ;o)

For example, here our purchasing power is limited by what is on offer, and a lot of what used to be staples for us, are either not on offer or considerable lower quality than what we were used to (examples are oat milk or agave syrup which does not exist in Chile!! ARGHHH).

Anyways, nothing is essential (apart from the obvious: clean(ish) air, clean(ish) water and a climate that supports life ;o))... so we decided to take the plunge and start making as many of these specialised products as we could. We started learning to make soya milk and tofu. The tofu is really great but the soya milk to be honest is ok but tastes a little too much of bean to our spoiled european palates! So we decided to join a workshop on "Making vegetable milks" (will post some recipes in a separate post!). The summary is that it is super easy, takes about 5 minutes to make (though you do need to prepare some stuff overnight) and they taste AMAZING!

Our friend Belen (or Chirimoya alegre) organises these sessions and we got to know a bunch of interesting people through it. And now we can enjoy every night a chocolate drink of almond milk, banana and rapeseed oil (very good for calcium especially as we eat all the left over almond flour in our muesly, potassium and omega 3 oils).

On a final note, from Monday, we are both starting private Spanish and German lessons. We found an amazing teacher (details of whom will not be published so all you greedy language students do not steal his availability ;o))... now seriously, he is AWESOME and has everything a good teacher needs: he is a bit eccentric, very knowledgeable and extremely motivating (as well as he can teach both Spanish and German which is to say the least very convenient in this household).

 So 3 hours each week for each of us... let's just hope we can keep this going till we are trilingual! :op