Chilean Wine

Today was great.  After a really great breakfast at our hotel, we headed into town to exchange our US dollars to Chilean pesos.  It turned out to be a little more difficult than I expected because I had to go upstairs and have a woman make up a contract stating the exchange rate they were going to give me before they handed out the bills.  Luckily, I managed to complete the transaction all by myself in Spanish!

After the bank, we went to the local museum with the private collection from an arms dealer who was exiled in Chile or stuck in Chile and who founded much of the wine business because he couldn't go back to Napa.  There were fossils, ceramics, portraits, swords, maps, and all kinds of things.  There were rooms devoted to old cars like the model-T, a 1960 Ford Taurus, and a replica of a Delorian.  Outside there were steam engines, wine presses, and hay bale machines.  It took over 2 hours for us to get through the whole thing and I was ready to be done by the end... everything was in Spanish!  I wish they had some translations for us.

From there we tried to locate a winery reccommended by Lonely Planet which was more difficult than expected (as travel tends to be in foreign countries) and we ended up at a different winery by accident that was also listed in the book, Monte Gras.  We took their wine tour, which was very similar to those in Napa, and our guide told us all about the different kinds of grapes and the wines that Chile is known for and those which are unique to this region.  At the end of our tour they let us sample 5 wines instead of 3, which got us all sufficiently hammered of course.  Our guide took a photo of us for their website too, which is neat.

We piled back in the car and pulled up to the winery we had been trying to find just before they were closing.  The guy suggested we buy a bottle of their Malbec, but I don't generally buy wine that I haven't heard of before so I asked if we could taste it before puchasing it and he obliged.  Very sweet of him!  We enjoyed it along with our pineapple, avocado, and tomato back in the hotel room.

For dinner, the family that owned the hotel suggested we try their friend's new restaurant for some Chilean food.  The woman did not speak English, but her daughter did.  They told us they would also be dining there for dinner and would be happy to help us translate the menu.  What they did not tell us, was how difficult this place was to find!  On our 4th attempt at circling the block Rich stopped at a gas station, we got directions, and pulled onto a gravel road next to a winery.  Voila!  And dinner was well worth the effort.  The English-speaking daughter, Virginia, and the chef himself helped us ordering the food, and it was the best meal I have had so far!

Us and the owner of the small restaurant we got to try

We started off with lamb chops and testicles... at the time we didn't know what the testicles were exactly so I only ate one and Sam ate 3.  They were incredibly tender, which is nothing like the previous experience I had with them at Dr. Lee's house.  For our main courses, Rich had rabbit, Sam and Sue both bad bacon wrapped beef filet- Sam with a fried egg on top, and I went out on a limb and ordered a typical Chilean dish that neither Virginia nor the chef knew how to translate- be proud, I am not usually this adventurous within my own country let alone abroad!  My dinner turned out to be beef soup, which was out of this world, and I am so grateful I ordered it.  Pear crepes followed for dessert, and at the end of the meal we took a photo with the chef, Patricio, and he signed a menu for me to take home.

One Crazy Drive

We left Valparaiso and headed South to Isla Negra, the most ecclectic and favorite of all Pablo Neruda's homes.  I am begining to feel that we are on the Pablo Tour since we've seen and heard so much of him in our short time here in Chile.

The road to the small coastal city was incredibly poor- it reminded me of going to my Aunt Annie and Uncle John's house in the mountains.  The road was unpaved, it wound back and forth along the coastal hills, and we were all feeling a bit sick by the time we arrived at Neruda's house.   Isla Negra was much more beautiful than San Sebastiana (the house in Valparaiso) and had much more interesting things inside of it.  Neruda's favorite collections were housed in rooms he added on as needed, and the most impressive collections were mermaids from the bows of ships, glass bottles in his bar, and butterflies and beatles pinned in shadow boxes.  I wish I had been able to photograph the bugs for Jackie, my entymologist college roommate.




We grabbed some empanadas, sent Justin back to Santiago on a bus, hit a roadside fruitstand, and made our way down to Santa Cruz with Sam's folks.  Sam got us remarkably lost along one of the "short cuts" he thought he found, but eventually Rich's intuition and my map-reading got us to our hotel.

Santa Cruz looks like Napa.  We are staying in a hotel that overlooks the vineyards and, behind them, the hills.  Our hotel is very nice.  It's built like a Spanish-style California home, with white stucco and wooden beams.  Unlike Napa (when I was there) this place is freakin cold!

After arriving, we went to dinner at a typical Peruvian restaurant and they had the worst insulation of any place I had ever been.  Not only did we keep our coats on throughout dinner, Sue kept her gloves on.  Overall, the food was really, good.  I had steak and grilled veggies because it was the only thing on the menu that featured vegetables of any kind.  Dear Lord these people need to encorporate more FRESH FRUIT AND VEGGIES into their diets!  We also tried some local wine that is only made in Chile, which was peppery and very warming.

Tomorrow, wine tasting!

Last night in Valparaiso!

Justin is a bit big for his bed

Today was a great day.  We got moved into the "family room" at the hostel last night and that meant Sam and I slept in a queen-sized bed while Justin and Liz shared a bunk bed.  It was really fun to have the whole room to ourselves, and because Justin has a pad lock we were able to lock all of our stuff in the room after breakfast.  

Today we went for a walk down near the port and enjoyed some real local parts of the city.  We climbed back into the hills (Valparaiso is the city of seven hills according to what Sue read in the Lonely Planet) to check out some silver shops.  She bought some beautiful lapis lazuli jewelry- a bracelet and matching earrings.  They are lovely!  We also went into a leather shop, which was really neat.  The guy who owned the shop had all kinds of beautiful purses and wallets.  

After shopping, we had lunch reservations thanks to our friend, the owner of our gelato place.  She recommended Pablo Neruda's house to us yesterday, and when we came in last night she insisted on making us a reservation at the place with the best views in all of Valparaiso- Cafe Turri.  It was some amazing scenery during lunch!  (I will post photos when we get back and link them into these posts as they fit.)  Sam had fried eel, which I did try this time!  I am pleased to report it's just like white fish and nothing like calamari which I expected it to be like.  I had the duck confit which was lovely and had a great sauce!  I probably liked the fried duck at Bebek Bengil in Ubud, Bali better overall, but man the orange sauce at Cafe Turri was out of this world!  Sue and Liz had a really amazing seafood lassagna which had the black ink from the squid cooked into the layers.  It looked like spinach a bit, and didn't really affect the flavor at all.  Kind of neat really.  

After lunch, Liz couldn't catch a bus back to Santiago so we all piled into the rental car and drove out to Vina del Mar which is about 30 minutes South from Valparaiso.  After the boys passed out in the backseat with their heads on my shoulders (adorable picture will be posted ASAP), we got just a bit lost.  We were on our way to the National Botanical Gardens, and pulled over to check the map right across the street from the Easter Island Museum.  What luck!  We tried to take a group photo in front of the statue head they had on display outside, but the woman helping us turned off the camera instead of taking a picture so we had to redo it with just Sue, Rich, Sam and I- Justin and Liz were off and away checking to see if the museum was open or not.  Across the street, there was a very expensive and very nice jewelry store that Sue had read about.  It was REALLY nice, but more than a little out of my price range.  :-)

We got back on the road, headed for the Botanical Gardens.  Rich somehow took directions from one of us backseat drivers which took him onto a toll road.  We had to pay our fee, get off the road, get back on going the other direction, and pay a toll to get back to Vina del Mar.  Oops!  The Botanical Gardens weren't too hard to find after that... and they had 600 different varieties of plants on the grounds.  It was really, really lovely.  Surprisingly, we walked through most of the gardens in about an hour and a half and the photos are really nice- again, I will post them when I'm home and can download them to the computer.  :-)  

Tonight, we have been hanging out in Sue & Rich's hotel room while Liz works on the homework she was supposed to do in Santiago.  Sam and Justin have been playing INSANE scrabble games and Sue and I are kibbutzing (hebrew for "offering unsolicited and arguably helpful advice").  The boys had gone to the market and picked up a liter of beer, a bottle of wine, and a bar of chocolate.  Quite the evening!  I think Rich and Justin polished off the beer; Sam and I definitely made short notice of the wine.  

Saludos des de Valparaiso!

The Andes

Hola amigos!  Sam and I have arrived safely in Chile after quite an adventure getting here.  We got to LAX 2 hours early on Friday to find out our flight to Dallas was delayed an hour and we would only have 20 minutes to make our connection to Santiago.  There were no earlier flights leaving for Dallas, and unfortunately, American Airlines only has two flights to Santiago per day, one from Dallas and one from Miami.  Luckily, a flight to Miami was about to board, so we changed our flights and hoped to make the connection in Florida.  As we were boarding, the flight attendants let us know the plane was too full and we would have to check our carry-on rolling suitcases.  I was nervous, but there was no other choice.

Sam & I before landing

In Miami, our connecting flight was delayed 30 minutes.  As we sat at the gate, an announcement over the PA told us the airport would be closed due to electrical storms in the vicinity.  Great.  Stranded in Miami was a helluva lot less exciting that being stranded in Dallas where we could have visited my good friend, Michelle.  We boarded the plane an hour later than our intended departure, and then had to sit for an additional hour while they waited for the airport to re-open and for the baggage to be loaded onto the plane.  I took some really exciting video of the rain and lightning from my window seat while Sam fell asleep.  Finally, at 2:15am, we took off for Santiago.

Upon our arrival, our bags were nowhere to be found.  As our dear friends' son, Ethan, likes to say, "Uh-oh!"  So we headed through customs with the clothes on our backs and our backpacks full of books.  Not quite the adventure I thought I had signed up for to say the least!  

Justin and Rich met us at the airport and had rented the car, so we went back to their hotel and picked up Sue.  Then we drove to the coastal city of Valparaiso.  Sue and Rich are staying in an adorable hotel, The Gran Hotel Gervasani, and after checking them in, we went for a walk in the city.  Just before dinner, we met up with Justin's girlfriend, Liz, a fellow UCD student.  Liz is great- she's very nice, speaks fluent Spanish, and is a wonderful tour guide.  After finding a great restaurant for dinner, Sue and I wanted to check out this really good looking gelato restaurant we had passed.  The owner had visited San Francisco 43 years ago and LOVED it.  She was a huge help and suggested several things for us to do while we're in town.  

After dropping Sue and Rich off at their hotel, Sam, Justin, Liz, and I went out to a club.  It was VERY fun!  They have different rooms and floors all with different live bands and DJs and the Latin dancing is unbelievable.  Sam, Justin, and I stick out like sore thumbs, and not just because poor Sam and I had been wearing the same clothes for over 36 hours.  

Pata Pata

We are staying at a great little hostel, Pata Pata, and it's Sam and my first hostel experience.  I have to say, it's not all that bad!  The four of us stayed in a room with an Irish guy, who has never been seen except while he's sleeping.  Thankfully Sue had an extra toothbrush for me to use- it was SO nice to brush my teeth!

This morning we had an amazing breakfast- banana & manajar sandwiches, coffee, fruit, and orange juice.  The manajar was really, really, yummy.  It's the consistency of nutella and kind of reminds me of Almond Butter.  I need to try to find some to bring back to the US with me. 

After breakfast, we hiked up into the hills to visit Pablo Neruda's Valparaiso home.  It was filled with lots of eclectic stuff like a horse from a carousel, the [drinking] bar from a ship, and other various artworks collected during his lifetime as a poet and diplomat.  Better than all the neat decorations, the view stretched from one side of the city to the other- spectacular!

Neruda's San Sebastiana House

We had lunch at the fish market, where the locals eat.  I had a lovely fried fish, one of the local variety whose name I can't recall at the moment.  It was something that started with an 'R'.  Sam ordered a whole leg of pig, which was pretty crazy.  Sue and Justin had fish soup with mussels, shrimp, crab, and various other sea creatures.  Liz outdid us all and had fried eel... which I was not brave enough to sample.  

On our way back to the hotel we popped into a few cute shops- we had been window shopping all day.  Sue and I are looking for souvenirs and Christmas gifts for a few special folks and we aren't quite sure if we should take advantage of Valparaiso since it's the artist's city, or if we should hold out for later in the trip.  We did find a really beautiful something special for my mom.  I was looking at one, and I pulled a second one to compare and Sue assured me the second one screamed "Camille."  Mom- get excited for Christmas.  xoxox

We arrived back at Sue and Rich's hotel to find our luggage had been delivered- thank goodness!  I was desperate for clean clothes by the end of today, I will be honest.  :-)  Now Rich is taking a nap while Sam and Justin play a very exciting game of scrabble with Sue and Liz helping.  I am serving as the "judge" looking up words on the Miriam-Webster online dictionary.  Technically, Sam owes us all a scoop of ice cream because he lost a bet earlier, but it's already 9:30 and our little gelato shop is probably closing soon.  We might just have to wait until tomorrow.  

Chile Bound

We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!

Well not quite... we're off to see Chile, and the wonderful Justin Galle!  Sam and I are taking off from LAX at 3pm, we have a brief layover in Dallas (Hello Michelle!) and we arrive in Santiago tomorrow morning.  

It seems unreal to me that we're going to be in our 6th country of 2011 (not including the good ole US of A) tomorrow morning.  This vacation really snuck up on me!  It was just Wednesday that I finally photocopied our passports and flight information and emailed my parents our itinerary.  My bags were only partially packed until this morning which is INCREDIBLY rare for me- I have always been a weekend-before-my-trip-packer.  And I left all of my travel-related purchased until the very last possible minute.  

Having learned from my previous mistakes, I purchased a pair of compression socks for the flight.  When we arrived in Bangkok my poor calves and feet were swollen for 5 days- the first 2 of which were agonizingly painful.  It was as if my tissue had ossified and was stiff as a board.  Amanda had suggested the socks before our SE Asia trip, but I didn't have time to track down a pair.  This time around, you better believe I made time!  

I also bought some travel detergent.  This stuff is MUCH more convenient than what I've seen before.  It's a small plastic container the size of dental floss and it's filled with 50 sheets of detergent that dissolve in water.  Very neat!  I will have to recommend it to Nonna if it works.

Finally, I have finished my laundry and packed my bags.  This is quite an accomplishment because I've got books to bring for school, one for pleasure, and 2 projects I need to complete while we're away.  I hope I haven't forgotten something essential in my focus on academics.  

This is a relatively short trip, only 8 days in Chile, but Sam and I are really looking forward to it.  He finished his 2-day licensing exams on Tuesday which we are excited to celebrate.  Once he gets the results he will be able to prescribe medications. (I know some of you have been asking when that would be possible for the last 5 years and I am happy to let you know the day has almost finally arrived!)  I may have time to pop on and blog while we're gone, but if not I will be sure to take LOTS of photos, keep a journal to keep all our travels fresh in my mind, and blog feverishly upon my return to the states.  

PR & Advertising

Last night, my second class of the quarter started and I must say I am impressed.  Both classes I am enrolled in are going to be incredibly interesting.  The PR & Advertising class on Wednesday nights is broken into 2 parts, the first 60-90 minutes will be devoted to a guest speaker (mostly PR people) and the second 90-120 minutes will be lecture based.

It's incredibly interesting to hear these PR professionals speak about their jobs and see first hand what power they wield in shaping consumer trends.  I must admit I am very intrigued by theories of persuasion and coercion, possibly thanks to my mentor at UC Davis, and I like the idea that it's possible to shape an entire product's success based on the decisions marketing teams make.  I seem to be just a little power-hungry, no?

I think what I'm finding I really want is to make a difference.  Sam comes home and talks about saving people's lives- literally saving their lives- based on the decisions and diagnoses he makes on a day-to-day basis.  And what have I done?  Most days I'm happy to have submitted two job applications, made it to the gym, accomplished errands (groceries, laundry, etc.), and cooked dinner.  Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting those are not important things.  On the contrary, I can personally attest to the commitment required to have a fresh-cooked meal and eat as as 'family' every night.  There's also the task of menu planning which can be a bit overwhelming when you're trying to work with a budget, be heath-conscious, and also vary your meals.  I also appreciate the time it takes to do laundry: wash, dry, fold, put away.  But when Sam finishes telling me about his day and asks, "So how was your day?  What did you do?"  I would like to have something substantial to tell him about... and I think this is the key point, I want to have something I personally view as substantial.  I applaud the individuals who want be homemakers- one look at our apartment and you will see that I love coordinating my decor with the seasons, and I am definitely known to be a fan of home cooking, but I aspire to more.  I want to be somebody, and not just somebody who goes to work and pushes paper around.  I want to make a difference.

To tie this into popular culture, here's a great quote:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.  Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on." -Steve Jobs 

RIP Steve

Today, we have lost a real innovator.  As I sit here typing away on my MacBook Pro, with my Apple wireless mouse, and my iPhone4 sitting within my reach, I realize how profoundly Mr. Jobs has changed my life despite the fact that we've never met.

Sam convinced me to go the Mac route when I replaced my desktop with a laptop the Christmas after I graduated from college.  He loved all of his Apple products (iPod, Mac, etc.) and was quick to point out the ease of Apple's "plug and play" software capabilities.  There wouldn't be as much installation of software or as many interface-related glitches.  I figured I would give it a try, and, with some help from my tech savvy friends, I was up and running in no time.

Before long, maybe a year later, I was still a poor schmuck without a smart phone, a slave to t-9 texting.  The iPhone had caught my attention and the luring convenience of having my music library in my pocket at all times along with my address book, my emails, and my calendar was hard to resist.  I did eventually give in to the beauty of the iPhone, and Sam tells me I am an iPhone junkie.  True, I upgrade my technology and buy every other generation of the iPhone (on average) but that is what I love about it.  The cutting edge, the features, the "what will they think of next".

Today, I salute Steve Jobs on a career very well done.  I applaud his remarkable ability to stay involved with Apple as the CEO for as long as he did- stepping down roughly 2 months prior to his death.  I thank him for his innovation and keen business sense, for the way he has shaped our technology, and for the ability to check my email, play sudoku, post to facebook, and text my mother all while taking a call from Sam that he'll be home for dinner in a half hour.

Best of luck in the great beyond, sir.  And if you bump into Melvin and Marie Hunter, give them my love.