Adventures in Chile! June 2007

It has been a very busy summer! My friend Becky Broom and I had a chance to go visit Jenni the last week of June. It was such an exciting time! After our 9 hour flight, we were met at the airport by Jenni and Rod. The airport had been remodeled since I was there last; we really zoomed through there.

Rod is such a gentleman -- he grabbed our bags and off we went to find a taxi. We went straight to Jenni's apartment. It is so cute. I had seen pictures, but they didn't do it justice! It is perfect. The airline had simply not given us any breakfast, so we were starved! Rod treated us to his special scrambled eggs and we had fruit and medialunas (crescent rolls with icing). So good!

Then we all headed off to church, a fifteen minute walk. It is winter there, so we had on our coats. Jenni and Rod thought it was cold, Becky and I didn't. I never wore my coat again on this trip! Church service was all in spanish of course. But some things are universal. The singing was great -- and since it was projected we were able to participate. At the end of the service, they had Jenni introduce us. We had to stand up and everyone clapped. Afterwards we all got hugs and a kiss on the cheek from a lot of folks. I was especially glad to see Rod's brother, Christian, and his girlfriend Perla again.

Then we went to lunch at Los Vikings. This was all decorated in Viking style tables, chairs, etc. We put on Viking hats for a picture. We all had some sort of fish dish, all so good and so different from Texas.
Here we are modeling our Viking hats. Don't you love those pigtails? And look at our meal, too!

Next we checked in to our hotel, Club Presidente. We had a two bedroom - two bath apartment, kitchen included. Becky had her own room, Jenni stayed in my room and got to listen to me snore.

We did lots of touring, and visited a lot of restaurants, too. We walked everywhere, learned how to buy a metro card (in spanish!), how to ride the bus with your metro card -- they are called Bip cards. They are like the blink credit card, you put it next the pay spot, and it beeps.

We also got to know Rod. He is fun. He patiently listened to our English and answered in English. We played 20 Questions a lot. He asked us questions in Spanish, too. We answered in English,though.

Becky actually had an entire conversation in Spanish in the elevator of the hotel. She only needed the words "Hola" "Zero" "Chau", but it was a conversation, none the less! We had breakfast provided. We loved the fruit, the ham, the cheese, the membrio, and the bread was wonderful!

Here we are at one of Jenni's favorite restaurants -- Like Water for Chocolate. She and Rod are holding up the menu. The meals were so huge, Becky and I shared one. Afterwards we topped off the meal with Chocolate Fondue -- can't go to a restaurant with chocolate in its name without eating chocolate!

We went to tour one of the houses of Pablo Neruda, too. He was a famous poet in Chile. He had several houses and a mistress for each one, I think. This house was called "La Chascona" after his mistress. It means "crazy-haired woman". She apparently had very curly hair. That is my new nickname. My hair went crazy curly while I was there.


We are sitting at an outdoor restaurant here. We will never forget our visit to this restaurant. Just after this picture, the waiter knocked over my Coca Light into Jenni's lap!

He did provide her with lots of towels! But he still billed us for the drink when I really only had 2 sips out of it!

Luckily Jenni's pants dried very quickly. She tied the jacket I still wasn't using around her waist.




Here is Becky at the fish market. That was an interesting tour.

All in all, we found the time went by so quickly! We did not eat out all of the time. One night Rod prepared chicken and rice soup and we had fresh bread. He throws an egg in the soup, and it was wonderful. This was the second time he had cooked for us. We decided he could open a restaurant and name it Rebolledo's Juevos.

Another night we cooked for Rod. He wanted a Tex Mex meal, so we fixed nachos. The cheese was different, but we found everything we needed in the Foreign Food section of the grocery.
We also made an apple pie. I use "we" loosely. Becky made the crust, from scratch, and I chopped the apples. We did not have a pie pan, but we improvised. It was great!


Our last day, Jenni rented a car. She and her friend Ingrid took us to Vina del Mar. By the sea, obviously!

We found a great seafood restaurant. We drove around, walked around. On our way back we stopped at a scenic area and took pictures.

This is Jenni, me, and Ingrid. See the wild hair?

By now I am sure you wonder if I will ever stop talking. We just had so much fun it is hard to tell it all. And believe me, I didn't tell it all! Our last morning, we fixed Rod biscuits and gravy, Texas style. Again, Becky is the cook! She made the biscuits, I made the gravy. Then we checked out. Rod got to take us shopping until we met Jenni for lunch. All too soon, it was time to take us to the airport.