Settling in at Vina del Mar

Our flight from Atlanta to Santiago nearly took off without my brother, Warren, due to his delayed flight from St. Louis.  However, after we sat with the boarding door closed for about 30 or more minutes (waiting on some baggage to be loaded), someone knocked on the closed airplane door!  We have never seen this.  A flight attendant opened the door and in walked Warren!  He talked his way on since the plane was closed but still sitting at the gate.  They found him the last seat (a middle on, of course) and we took off.  They had told him that his luggage wouldn't make it, and sure enough, it didn't.   The flight was pretty uneventful with the nice sunrise over the Andes near the end of it.

Sunrise over South America

A few minutes later

The Andes from the plane in early morning

At the Santiago airport we breezed through immigration (unprecedentedly quickly) but customs made up for it.  After dealing with Warren's lost luggage (paperwork with Delta), the customs agents who are agriculture ministry workers found a bottle of honey that I had brought as a present.  As the honey was from Italy (and not Chile) it was contraband.  No non-Chilean animal products allowed in Chile!  Alice was shepherded like the criminal she was from office to office and signed paper after paper.  In the end, there was no fine or other bad consequence except they confiscated the honey.  But it delayed us about 45 minutes.

We got the car (a mid-sized Hyundai) and headed for Valparaiso/Vina.  We stopped at our favorite lunch spot along the way, the Tonino restaurant of the Casas del Bosque winery in Casablanca.  It did not disappoint.  We sat in the garden in perfect weather and enjoyed wine.  Steak for the men and grouper for me.  We then loaded up on some wine from their wine shop to enjoy in apartment over the coming weeks.

Casas del Bosque winery in Casablanca - great wine, amazing food, beautiful setting

Alice doesn't look too bad after flying all night

Getting ready to order some vino y comida

Warren loved his filet with potatoes and fried quail eggs

Our heretofore trusty GPS, Clive, started letting us down.  His directions and navigation became almost non-existent.  After troubleshooting it today I have identified the problem as an intermittent faulty connection between the SD card with the Chilean maps and the GPS.  It is faulty more often than not, so we are buying a new GPS here (it is always something).  Anyway, I was able to navigate by a map and we found our apartment complex, the Mare Nostrum.  There are three highrises (19 stories high) with two indoor pools, tennis courts, a gym and a private funicular from its hilltop location to the main street below (Avenue Libertad).

We were fortunate that our hostess, Constanza, from Santiago was there to meet us and go over the apartment complex and the features of the apartment.  We tiredly move in and unloaded.  Randy and I headed to a nearby supermarket, Lider.  The lines to check out were ridiculously long (efficiency is not a strong suit in Chile) but we got our stuff eventually.  Warren was too tired to go out so Randy and I drove to the main part of Vina, parked, walked to the seafront and enjoyed strolling there to our favorite restaurant in Vina, Divino Pecado.

Alice with Constanza, our friendly landlady who is an architect in Santiago, at Mare Nostrum

There, our favorite waiter, Mario, greeted us.  He had worked in New York and has very good English.  We had two pisco sours each (yeah!) and split a cerviche.  Randy had salmon while I opted for pasta with anchovies and bacon.  Yum!  We got rid of a few calories by the walk to the car.

Numeral uno pisco sour

After all of the previous two days, we were pretty tuckered.  Our sleep was long (more than nine hours) and today we woke up refreshed and energetic.  We made breakfast using the new coffee maker I had purchased at Lider (must have my coffee maker) and ate outside on the balcony overlooking the sea.  The day started cloudy but is clear blue skies now.

Randy and I shopped more at a home goods store (light bulbs, trash cans, a scale, etc.) and Warren lounged at home.  Lunch was leftovers from last night (for me) while Randy ate a ham and cheese sandwich.  Like the Spanish and the Italians, the Chileans do love their pork products.

Leftovers from Divino Pecado on the terrace

View from our terrace.  The massive ships are waiting in the bay for their chance to unload at Valparaiso harbor

Watching Davis Cup tennis on TV which is actually coming from the TV in my bedroom in Auburn.  How? you might say.  The signal comes from my bedroom TV to the Slingbox in the bedroom then via the wireless in my Auburn home, over the the internet, to our wireless in the apartment in Vina.  I brought and installed a Chromecast device to the TV in our living room in Vina.  I open the Slingbox app on my iphone and it streams via the Chromecast to our TV in our living room in Vina.  I don't understand all of this technology but I do like having access to U.S. TV, especially for sports (tennis for me and baseball for Randy).

We meet up with our friend Rosa tonight for dinner and are heading to the beach for a walk now!  Until later  (hasta la vista).