In Santiago

The overnight flight was uneventful, but not conducive to restful sleep. We cleared customs and caught a taxi to the hotel near the airport where we'll be staying tonight and tomorrow night. We got to the hotel about 5 hours before we could check in, but the hotel clerk was really kind and took our bags and let us avail ourselves of the hotel breakfast--despite the fact that we hadn't officially checked in. 

 

We hung out in the breakfast area for about two hours when the clerk found us and said that there was a room available. We went up to the room, brushed our teeth (it had been far too long) and promptly slept for about 2 hrs. Here's the view out the hotel window looking west. The real view is to the east where the Andes tower over the city (see photo at the end).

After our nap, we forced ourselves to get up and wander around downtown. We Uber'd. Normally, we'd try to figure out the public transit, but since we're only here two days before moving on to our permanent home in Vina del Mar, we decided to figure it out on a later visit, if necessary.

It's so interesting to see buds on the trees on Aug 31. Another reminder that it is early spring here. That said, it was a beautiful, sunny day with temps in the mid-60's. September is coming in like a lamb here, not a lion.

Here's a shot through the window at the other end of our hotel floor that gives kind of an idea of the scale of the Andes to the east. The lower outskirts of Santiago stretch along the base of the mountains.

While we wandered around we found a sandwich place, called José Ramón 277: Chopería & Sanguchería. This was my sandwich, Mechada Pastelera Sanguche de Carne , relleno de pastelera de choclo, cebolla caramelizada, aceitunas, huevo frito. / frayed pulled beef, caramelized onion, corn pastry, olives and fried egg. Really good 

It was fantastic. Definitely would eat there again.

Excited to meet one of my research collaborators tomorrow at noon. This will be my first in-person meeting with him. I'm hoping we can really map out what the next 6 months will look like.

We're tired, but well. Happy to be in Chile and practicing our crappy spanish. 😊 Everyone we've interacted with has been very patient with us. With our minimal spanish and their minimal english we've been able to make it work.
 

In Miami...

 ...waiting to board the flight to Santiago. Had a lovely time visiting Laura's mom and brother. We started our trip from the Orlando airport. Some of you might recognize this airport if you've been to Disneyworld recently.

 And, here's our luggage,

 

That'll get us through 6 months at least.

Not looking forward to the overnight flight. My neck is sore just thinking about it. It'll be weird flying for 8 hours and not changing time zones. The entire flight is essentially due south for 4,250 miles.

 

Visiting

 Having a lovely time visiting with Laura's mom and brother in Florida. 

 

Our flight to Santiago is tomorrow at 7pm. We'll leave here around 3pm to drive to the Orlando Airport. Hoping to sleep tonight because there won't be much sleeping on the red-eye tomorrow. 🥱

Leaving Walla Walla

Laura and I left Walla Walla yesterday for at least 6 months. We caught the early flight out of the Walla Walla airport. For Walla Wallans, you know that means leaving home at 4am. After months of preparation, we threw our bags in the car and drove away from home. For Walla Wallans, you also know that not much is happening at 4am. The full moon lit the empty streets. An eerie setting to match the eerie feeling of leaving home for such a long time and, at the same time, knowing that we'll be back before we know it. 

Laura will continue to work remotely from Chile and has at least one flight to the US scheduled for October as part of her work. 

I will start working with my Chilean research collaborators next week. I spent a lot of the last 4 months reading their research papers and getting up to speed on their work. I'm asking them to treat me like a grad student or postdoc for the first few months in hopes that a productive working relationship will develop. We'll see where we end up in six months.

Today we're in FL visiting Laura's mom. Tomorrow, the same. On Sun, we take a red-eye to Santiago. On Tue, we travel to the coastal town of Viña del Mar.

I hope to post updates and photos here as we go through our time in Chile. We have a furnished place in a small coastal town called Viña del Mar. You can see some photos in the AirBnB entry.