Jack and Gini's Excellent Adventure

Gini - I'm so sorry for the lack of blogging, the week has been sooooo hectic with family BBQ's and drinking outings (poor poor us).
They say photos speak for themselves so please feast on this!
I forgot to mention that here at my Tio (uncle) Alejandro's house we are extremely spoilt by their wonderful maid named Rosita, so here are a few of her creations.

An authentic Chilean breakfast: everything is all set at the table to share food as a family.

It also happened to be Gini's cousin, Alejandra's birthday, so we had cake too, pineapple and cream sponge cake (bring on the calories)

Lunch Entree: Rolled ham, filled with palta (avocado) on a bed of tomato and lettuce.

Main: Chicken with a spinach frittata

Entree: "Ensalada Chilena" = Chilean salad which consists of onion and tomato, olive oil and salt oh and a bit of coriander to garnish

Main: "Cazuela de vacuno" = beef soup with potato, corn, string beans, carrot, rice and pumpkin...delicious and very soul warming

The Andes provide a backdrop to all of Santiago

Business district downtown

Tunnel through the mountain

Underneath in the tunnel about 5-6kms long

My uncle's pride and joy SMC Chile where he is the president of the company

This beautiful carved wooden frieze is hanging in the board room

Cesar my cousin giving us a tour of SMC, he is in charge of projects and plays with robots all day

The custom sculpted wooden furniture in the board room

Santiago city

Santiago culture and art museum

Quirky vagina chair


Horse head chair

In front of the "Moneda" the parliament house of Chile, this is where it got bombarded by 2 fighter jets in 1973.

President/comrade Salvador Allende, the last president before Pinochet's coup in 1973

Chilean sweets

In front of "El mercado central" = Central market

"Pastelera de jaiba" = Crab "mornayesque" kinda dish with delicious fresh crab meat

"Calamares al pil pil" = Fresh cooked calamari rings marinated with garlic, olive oil and chili

"Chupe de mariscos" = A mixed fresh seafood pie without the crust very similar to the crab dish but with more seafood: crab, razor clams, prawns, mussels and more.

Kunstmann beer, freshly brewed in Valdivia, a southern town, which we shall go to

Seafood on offer at this restaurant called "Donde Agusto"

Mussels as big as Jack's hand

Sea urchins

Seafood is sold everywhere!

Santiago is a big city, with lots of history. We went to the Catedral de Santago, which was built in 1561. It bears the scars of many an earthquake and fronts onto a plaza where every day people gather to play chess.

A cute lil doggy running after pigeons, playing with big smile on his face, it made our day after missing Shaggy so much.

Artist at work

Breakfast in the city

One of Rosita's many creations. Entree: Salad with hard boiled egg dip

Main: savoury crepe filled with a creamy corn mixture

Near my auntie's house, a place called La Florida

Alvaro and my nephew Renato walking into my Aunty Miriam's house

Preparing the charcoal BBQ

Typical mouth watering Chilean BBQ

A blurry shot of the lunch table

"Pebre" a typical Chilean salsa

Bianca one of my Auntie's dogs

A tiny shopping mall - NOT it's about 3 times bigger than Highpoint

Food Court

Outside the mall

We went here for a few drinks

Mojito, caipirinha - happy hour - half price drinks - $4AUD cocktails (2000 Chilean pesos)

Enjoying a Chiliean beer

Cesar, Pia and Pepa - Gini's friends and cousin

Enjoying the evening

Tequila sunrise

A little snack to eat during our 5hr drinkathon. Chorillana: fries, little bits of BBQ meat, fried onion and a fried egg

Digging in

Going to another party by metro, the Chilean subway

Some hot chili sauces

Chilean white wine

A delicious appetiser of: boiled quail eggs, rum and coke and a different version of "pebre" (the chili salsa)

The chef (my Tio Alejandro) starting the mouth watering BBQ

Aunty Nancy and cousin Cesar and Nataly and our nephew Felipe

Rosita, the maid, our new culinary friend

A plate full of BBQ delights

Joaquin my cute little nephew

Jack-
As we began to descend towards Santiago airport, the first thing that caught my eye was the huge mountains on both sides of the plane. I'd never seen anything like it! Next was the immigration check, and the form we had filled out earlier on the plane was stamped by a guy in a booth, who was so busy talking to his friend next to him, that he didn't even look at us. Passports stamped, it was off to collect our luggage.

SOME of which we didn't get until 10pm the following night, as it somehow got misplaced in Sydney - but that's another story.

View on the ride from the airport

Mountains in the background.

The airport is about a 45 minute drive from where we are staying in La Reina, Santiago.

Gin's Tia Nancy left us a welcome present

And the feasting begins!

You can buy quail eggs in the supermarket here

A Chilean classic - pastel de choclo

What a massive day! So many different sights, sounds and smells.

Gini-
Airports: a wonderful concept if you want to go somewhere around the world but a boring concept if you have to wait for the flight.
For those who have never travelled before, let me tell you about the process:
Check in, get boarding pass, weigh baggage, check in baggage, take off all metallic items, get your hand luggage scanned, go through customs, wait at the gate to your plane.....and wait....and wait....and wait.
For all international flights you have to check in 2hrs earlier....it's good to get this process done ASAP but then the waiting game begins.
Airports can be interesting to look around and do some shopping but after a while (and if you've been travelling internationally like me since 5 years old) you can get the gist of things.....all airports have 1-3 newsagencys, a food court, an overpriced perfume shop, a tourist shop of the country, duty free and a pharmacy.
We are waiting to board 8:10am flight we have about 1hr to kill...it's not that boring this time because I have Jack that is a virgin to all this and it's fun to explain and show him things.

Jack -
As my travelling cherry is about to be popped I feel a strong sense of anticipation. We only got about 3 hours sleep last night but I still feel like I'm buzzing.
It all seems surreal - we've been planning this for so long its hard to believe that its finally happening.
The time here seems to be passing so quickly that before I know it, its time for us to board the plane and take off in search of new experiences, far away from the small, familiar world I live in and know so well.
If I could see myself I'm sure I would be wearing an idiot grin - like a little kid the night before Christmas, eagerly awaiting the coming day.
I almost got caught with my pants down too - the first time I took off my belt to walk through a metal detector.
Take off belt, put back on, empty bag, repack - over and over - its like groundhog day... part of me is shitting myself every time I get a suspicious glance from a luggage inspector, and I'm thinking "Am I carrying any contraband"?

Gini-
Ah yes, the famous metal detectors! We all get paranoid everytime we go through the whole process because we all get that "suspicious" look.
You tend to think crazy thoughts like: did I bring that butterfly knife? Is the gun loaded? Am I even supposed to be carrying a gun?

Jack-
Sydney here we come - as luck would have it I got a window seat and we can wave goodbye to Shaggy from above as we tuck into our first serving of airplane food.

Gini-
Airplane food: what a great way to start a holiday.
Seated, served and fed! All served in tiny but cute packaging.
Qantas breakfast: tasty muesli, juice, dried apricots and coffee or tea.

While we were eating our breakfast we had the pleasure of looking outside at the beautiful "marshmallowy" , soft looking clouds, melt away as we flew directly towards them.

From Sydney to Auckland then to Santiago = 16hrs flight

A small snack to welcome us to the longest flight ever!
A ham, cheese and tomato sandwich with relish on a delicious herbed grain bread, accompanied by an apricot frangipani cake and some cut up fruit.

Dinner
Beef Ravioli with a white sauce, a small salad, a bread roll, a small strawberry mousse cake and a beer.

Checking up on our progress

Nearly there!

I guess the one thing we will miss the most during our crazy adventures away, in a foreign, nolstalgic country that I have already lived in/visited, will be our "little man".He watched us pack, he watched us organize our documents and very soon he'll watch us leave.....

Bags are not even packed yet, kitchen is full of plates after our inspirational roast, prawn crackers and banana custard dessert creations.....I guess when we get stressed about something we start to avoid doing the things we need to by cooking and eating.
Despite all this we are enjoying our last hours in our own house and having our music on and smelling the sweet aromas of the incense but we are also very very keen on touching SOUTH AMERICA soil!!!

We are both going to weigh ourselves before our trip and then we are going to compare it to how we will weigh on the way back.

Its my (Jack) first time out of this country and I feel nervous, but I feel even more excited to be able to go somewhere far away and eat copious amounts of different foods!! I'm also seriously looking forward to experiencing different cultures, cuisines and ways of life. Did I mention eating?
From what I have seen so far, Chile looks like an amazing country and I can't wait to explore some of it with my very well travelled soon to be wife.

Lomitos, completos, empanadas, seafood, familia Vilche, Chilean wine, Mendoza Argentina.......we have many many things ahead of us in this: food eating, food discovering, food cooking, wine drinking....oh and discovering Chile/Argentina ADVENTURE!