Day 1 - She said: Well, it took awhile (i.e., over 24 hrs door to door), but we are finally at our first stop and in a real bed. Literally. I'm typing this in my jammies, propped up on my elbow in this awesome bed with a glass of wine by my side. On that note - I must say there are MANY fabulous things about Chile, but it's white wine offering so far does not appear to be among them.

I know that all seemed whiny, but it was all to temper the jealousy, because I'm in friggin' Chile. On my honeymoon. With the best husband ever!

Seriously, our flights were all comfy and uneventful. I caught up on some horribly cheesy romantic comedies and actually managed to sneak in some sleep on the big flight! I know, this is monumental. Mark it in your calendars.

The Santiago airport reminded me rather remarkably of the Rome Fiumicino airport. And the Tower o' Luggage installation was an interesting touch.

In general, people are friendly and helpful. We are trying out some rather atrocious Spanish...but the good news is that this place is just crawling with Germans, so I probably at least have a chance to converse in a foreign language without coming across as a complete moron.

I'm jumping all over the place, but I'm sleepy, so I feel we can all just enjoy the moment and feel good about it.
So, once we (finally) arrived, we were greeted by Carolina, our absolutely delightful guide, and our driver / luggage handling dudes whose names totally escape me because I am sleep deprived and I was just so excited we were here and someone was at the airport to pick us up that I'm afraid their names just didn't register. Please don't judge me.

Carolina told us a bit about Chile itself. It's a relatively small country compared to its neighbour, Argentina, and has a pretty small population overall. Although Canada is massive, it seems there are many parallels between our population/culture/economy relative to the US and those same factors on the Chile-Argentina front. We learned that many Chilean farmers actually go to Canada (Alberta) to learn more about farming because there is so much more open land than in this (beautiful) sliver of a country.

Most importantly, we learned where we are eating dinner tomorrow night. We asked Carolina where she likes to eat and, without pause and with a heavy dose of enthusiasm, she shared that Sotito's was the place to go. Look out tummy, cuz you're about to have a fantastic seafood experience. Well, we hope. More on that tomorrow. After the fact.

That's it in a nutshell. Stay tuned for the best blog post ever tomorrow. Penguins and a crab dinner all in one day?! Look out world!

Love and hugs and familial/customary Chilean cheek kisses to everyone at home!