December 18 - 28, 2011
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| Together at last! |
The following is a series of photos with brief commentary. So much happened and unfortunately, I let too much time pass by before sitting down to write this.
Elisa brought me a wonderful gift - a kindle fire! That I have thoroughly enjoyed using. Beyond just practical for reading books, it also allows me to read news online, access my e-mail, and do pretty much anything else I could imagine. I took the kindle on my travels with me, which was a fantastic space saver.
Elisa's flight was delayed, but I met her at the airport with flowers anyway. A Chilean family was very entertained by my attempts to get her attention while I was on the other side of a glass wall, jumping up and down and waving my flowers to no avail. Finally, when she came out on the other side of customs and I greeted her, the giggling family decided to take pictures of our first embrace. It was pretty funny, and I guess someone else has some great footage.
One of our first nights, we only had nights and evenings together because I was working all day, in Santiago, we went to my favorite restaurant: El Mesón Nerudiano (Neruda's Big Table . . . sounds better in Spanish). We drank the best pisco sours in the city, ate cordero patagónico (patagonian lamb) and shared a mousse made with port for dessert. Our seafood appetizer and Chilean wine also helped make it a great evening.
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| The wine selection was out of this world. |
On Wednesday, we went to celebrate Christmas early with my Chilean host family. They were going to be traveling out of the region for Christmas, so we made sure to get the fun in early. They served us a wonderful meal, then we went into the living room to open presents. We brought a potted flower and a bottle of wine for Los Claudios (Claudio and Claudia), a soccer ball for Francisco, a jumping rope for Javiera, and sausages for José Ignacio. It was a great time for all. The night included José Ignacio putting Javiera in a backpack and Elisa having her time almost entirely monopolized by the little Javiera, who had been looking forward to meeting Elisa for three months.
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| Playing the role of Santa |
On Friday afternoon, we had the time to hike Santa Lucia hill and see the view. It was a beautiful day even though we were pretty tired. We also picked up a gift for Jenny in the gift exchange we had planned for that night.
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| The view from the top! |
Because most everyone was spending Christmas with their host families on Saturday or Sunday, we decided to do an all ChACE gift exchange that Friday night. We got things kicked off with some cookie frosting and decorating and drank copious amounts of Cola de Mono (Monkey's Tail) a chocolate liquor popular in Chile during Christmas time. Then for our gift exchange, Elisa played game-show host and distributed the gifts so that people had to guess who gave them the gift. In the end, it turned out that Caitlin had drawn my name. She was so sweet as to think of both Elisa an I by buying two copies of Lo Que Mueve Mi Vida for Elisa and I to read in our long distance book club.
As I previously stated, most everyone spent Christmas with their host families. Elisa and I just walked the almost completely abandoned streets of Santiago. We took the opportunity to wade in a fountain near my apartment.
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| I bet we won't take many more Christmas photos like this one. |
We finished our time in Santiago with an asado with friends on Wednesday. Then it was on to Pichilemu!
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