To the States and back

Hello again! It's been a shamefully long time since I last blogged. We had a fabulous trip back to the States, highlighted mostly by the immense number of friends and family we managed to squeeze in. We would have liked to spend so much more time with all of you. Alas, three weeks is hardly sufficient for a US tour. Here's a brief rundown of our travels.

We headed to San Fransisco first. I arrived almost flu-like (when we left school there were 300 students absent with flu symptoms--disgusting!) and spent the first couple of days trying to feel better. We got to meet and Erin and Chris's new son Jack, see Opie and a very pregnant Tina, Sarah and Erik, and Megan and I got to do some solid hanging out and brunching. We were so glad we made the stop, however short. Here's a shot from the BBQ that Megan threw for us, which was terrific because it allowed to see a bunch of people.

From there we crossed the country to South Carolina to spend time with Justin's side of the family. Our nephew, Jacob, is a little over 1 year and was great fun. He spent most of his time marveling at the modern miracle of sliding doors. He is also a man that loves his peekaboo as illustrated here:


The weather was amazing and we logged a bunch of hours on the beach with books. Lots of great meals and especially desserts at Pete and Lynda's new favorite hangout, Rita's (an Italian ice stand on Hilton Head). I'm pretty sure they are both thinking about Rita's in this picture:


From here it was on to the midwest. We spent a great day with our friends, Joel and April, before taking off for Dearborn and a visit with Grandma Betty and Frank (who, as if to make it abundantly clear that he was retired, was wearing overalls and reading in a lawn chair in his backyard when we arrived--p.s. Frank, Justin's Merlefest shirt is a great fit and officially part of his t-shirt rotation).

I should mention that we borrowed Lynda's car for our midwest romp. The best part about this was that it is a covertable. We took full advantage:


We stopped in Eld Rapids on the way up from Dearborn to say hi to Laurie. This is me and my favorite food on the planet: Jeff and Laurie's whitefish pate. It's love (and it was great to see you guys!)...

We had a spectacular time in Michigan. My brother Andrew was able to make it up there which was a huge added bonus. Let the physical challenges begin!

Immediately after this picture was taken, Justin, Andrew and I engaged in a high-kicking contest. Some days after that, I broke my pinky toe while wrestling with my "little" brother. Way to go maturity!! Some of the highlights from Michigan:

An amazing day of sailing on Lake Charlevoix with Kris/Mom at the helm and first mate Terry/Dad. Andrew mostly swabbed the poop deck while he tried to avoid allowing my dad to accidentally step on my broken toe.

Doing daily yoga here:

Nightly raspberry-lime pisco sours! Zing!!

And finally, a cameo by the one and only Sarah Natchez.

Mom and Dad, thanks for an amazing time. I miss you so much!


From Michigan (and after a good six hours of driving and working on not feeling sorry for myself that I had to leave), we got to Chicago and spent the weekend at Craig and Larissa's house. Again, we got to see a ton of people that we love and miss. Most exciting (sorry Shafer), was getting to know this guy:

Nice to meet you, Eli! Here he is enjoying his brunch at Orange.



We had an excellent time at the Saturday BBQ at Craig and Larissa's. There was probably a little too much of this for me...


But overall, seeing Jill and Larissa showcase their African dance skills made up for it. Yes, I have video of that. No, I don't have permission to show it to you. So instead, here is a picture of Joe in his Billy Joel/Elton John t-shirt.


I'll leave you with some pictures of our new digs here in Santiago. It is a loft apartment and the view is amazing. We are absolutely loving getting know our new neighborhood and coming home each night to the sun setting on the Andes. Don't miss the short video from our hike up Manquehue at the end. Lots and lots of love! We miss you tons!

Heading home...

We're heading back to the States for three weeks tomorrow night, but we thought we'd post some of our favorite pictures from this past year...














Hopefully we'll be seeing you soon!

Bizarro Santiago

The snow has been falling on the mountains these past couple of weeks, and here are some pics from our (soon to be ex-) apartment window:



The ski slopes are opening this weekend, and we might take a trip this Saturday to get a good day of skiing in (or maybe attempt #2 at snowboarding?) before our break.

This past weekend we took part in a Nido tradition and joined in a contest to see who could visit the most spots from Bizarro Santiago, a book about all of the strange monuments, clubs, and stores throughout the city (think "Weird Illinois"). Every team had 10 hours to get in as many sights as possible. Here are some of the better pictures we came home with...

Here we are at the start of the contest, looking as cool as possible in our matching uniforms:


It wasn't in the book, but we thought it was pretty funny that we ran into some North American brethren (a mariachi band almost as out of place in Chile as we are):


A lot of the "bizarro" sights were closed for the weekend, but we found a pretty interesting outdoor cueca (traditional chilean dance) festival in one of the city's squares:


Because we were having trouble finding things from the book that were open (but we were set on winning the contest), we felt like we had to create some of our own bizarro-ness. Here's a pretty familiar sight for people who live in Santiago (street performers trying to make some money at intersections):


Here's a slightly less familiar sight (Claire trying her hand at it but then coming up empty-handed)...


Possibly even more unexpected, here's me trying the same (and somehow actually making 100 pesos from a guy who probably thought I had some sort of condition deeming me worthy of charity)...



A few weeks ago we had the chance to head to Buenos Aires again and, despite missing Sarah and Megan this time around, had a lot of fun. Here we are outside of our hotel (in Palermo), trying to figure out a map (clearly lost without Sarah!), and then hitting up one of the street markets (probably trying to find Claire the biggest earrings possible):



Besides that, we've spent our last few weeks hunting for a new apartment. After a run-off (between a cabin on a mountain in a nearby canyon and a loft apartment further into the city), we made our decision and signed the lease for the city loft this afternoon. We're excited to spend the spring exploring even more of the city, and maybe when it warms up after 6 months we'll be ready for a house in the mountains.

We miss everyone back home, but we're excited to see as many people as possible when we zip across the country in a couple of weeks! Hopefully we'll see you soon.

Rio de los Cipreses

We've had a nice last few weeks. Thanks to Labor Day in Chile we had Friday off last weekend and so we headed a couple of hours south to a reserve called Rio de los Cipreses. It has some notoriety because it's very close to the site where the Uruguayan rugby team's plane crashed in the early 1970s (there was a movie about it a while back called "Alive").


On the way out we happened to drive by a rodeo so we stopped to take a look.



We found a great camping spot on the edge of a ridge overlooking a river, and we had incredible sunrises and sunsets over the mountains.






Because the park is known for its population of pumas, we were on the lookout during hikes. We found lots of huge paw-prints in the dirt:


The park also has a few flocks of a parrots, so everyone once in a while we'd look up and see huge numbers of brightly colored birds flying by.


A couple of weeks ago the elementary school music teacher put on an assembly to show her students how music becomes a life-long hobby for people. She asked us (along with a bunch of other staff members) to perform at a "concert" she organized. Here's a pic of Claire and I playing Journey, Guns-n-Roses, and Metallica at about 9:00am on a Tuesday morning to a room full of 8-year olds:


In other news, Claire's coaching season for basketball is coming to a close (final tournament next weekend) and my season coaching futbolito (7 v 7 soccer) is over in a few more weeks. The two of us are excited to be part of an indoor soccer tournament this month on Wednesday nights, and we've been happy to have a consistent gringo pick-up basketball game on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before work. I'm looking forward to heading to Charleston, SC for Jack and Linwood's wedding next weekend, and the following weekend Claire and I are going to head back to Buenos Aires.

We hope everyone is doing well. Happy Mother's Day!