And so it begins......

the roads are crowded,
the restaurants packed
my work day is crazy
the students are back.

For you Dad

My dad built me two cool benches for the house. All I had to do was sand and paint. Here is a picture of them. The red bench will go on the back deck and the green one will stay on the front porch.

Picture of the Day

My garden is overflowing with tomatoes. Any recipe ideas are appreciated!! =)

A Cherry of a Day

Well, actually a weekend.

Over the weekend my sissy Sara came to visit. She arrived on Saturday morning. We had a wonderful day. On Saturday we hung out at the terrace and had ice cream. Sara had cherry ice cream....this was the start of Sara's Cherry Day Extravaganza. 

(Door County, WI is known in these parts as a huge cherry producing county)

Then we headed to the farmers' market. On the way there we realized "you know, I bet they will have cherries at the market." We started to walk faster...We arrived to the market and find our cherries. One bag of tart, one bag of bing.

On the way back to the car we stopped at local store for none other than...you guessed it, Cherry Soda.  Hence the name of my blog post today....I am sure you can tell that my sis loves cherries! Here she is holding her soda and bags o-cherries.

On Sunday we had a random day. a hike, a picnic, a trip to the zoo, shoe shopping and a boat ride. We hiked at Devil's Lake and had a nice picnic, of course cherries were provided. We also drove up the rode a little more and went to The Dells, where Jimmy randomly said "I have always wanted to take a Duck ride."  No questions asked we all said "sounds good."

In case you are wondering. The Wisconsin Ducks are car/boats. They were used in the Korean War. The tour lasts one hour and you get to ride in the boat with wheels along wooded paths and then the driver revs the engine and you are driven right into the lake for a boat ride. It was really cool. I am glad we went.

What a wonderful weekend!

Jimmy's family reunion

Big, Loud, Rowdy, Fun.....need I say more! And this was just his mom's side!

Top Places You Want to Go?

With the travel bug biting me harder and harder I thought I would ask you guys your top five international places you want to travel. What are yours?

Mine change daily......next week they may be different but today here are my five:

1. Canadian Rockies (Banff National Park)
2. Switzerland
3. Thailand
4. Argentina
5. Italy

What are your five?

Your next test will be to name your top five places in the US to travel.

Pictures

To view all of our pictures click the following link. 

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1609271008/a=59598372_59598372/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Santiago

As we were having our last stroll down Cerro Concepcion a gentleman stopped us on the street. It was our waiter from our first meal in Valparaiso. He recognized us. He gave Jimmy a handshake and gave me cheek kisses. He asked us about our trip and we sadly had to tell him this was our last few minutes in Valpo. He smile and wished us well.

I waved goodbye to our room and our little hotel then it was off to Santiago. It takes a little over an hour from Valpo to Santiago. We passed by both vineyards we had visited on Saturday.

As we made our way into the city limits we quickly knew that Valpo and Santiago were quite different from each other. More or less...old world charm to urban city.

First we said goodbye to Valpo and next we parted with Jose. He waived to us as he drove away. I know he must see tourists everyday. I hope he realizes the impression he made on us and each one of his customers. It was sad to see him go. He was a great tour guide.

Our new residence was immense. A round hotel with resort like pools and palm trees. Luxurious rooms with a large marble bathroom suite and a two level room. First level had our bed and the second (lower level) had a sitting room. Saving the best for last....our room had large windows and a panoramic view of the Andes. I could not keep my eyes off them. They are huge, snow-covered and beautiful.

We ventured down to the lobby. Everything about Santiago seemed opposite from Valpo. Big buildings, no ocean, lots of people, busy roads. It also wasn't just Jimmy and I anymore. We had joined the conference.

Santiago kind of reminded me of a larger Miami (no ocean of course). Jimmy said it reminded him of LA.

In the lobby we found Ben and John who were looking for a place to eat lunch. We ventured to downtown Santiago to Plaza de Armas. Basically, a very large pedestrian center with a market, shopping, statues, churches and governmental buildings.

We decided to eat lunch at Don Agusto. I had fish, Chilean Sea Bass. Oh, have I mentioned that I ate seafood each day of my trip. Glad I am not allergic. We also had Pisco Sours, which is a local controversial drink. Chile claims it to be their own and Peru disagrees. Not sure who is right on this but the drink is good and that is all that matters to me.

Pisco is a liqueur made from grapes. It smells a little like tequila. They offer it to you at most every restaurant you go to. When it was offered I generally accepted. =) The sour is made with Pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup and egg whites. Mix, shake with ice and pour.

On Monday the conference had started for Jimmy so I was on my own. Two other spouses joined me for a day on the town. Sarah, Jen and I had a wonderful day. We ventured to Cerro Santa Lucia. Which is a rocky hill in the middle of town. It was actually where the town was named in 1540 and also was visited by Charles Darwin.

We rode the subway, walked a lot. We walked so much that Sarah had to buy new shoes. I am very proud to say that I can order shoes in Spanish. She didn't know the size to ask for but from my high school spanish class i could remember the number 39 (european sizes). My dad says that I have never met a shoe I didn't like. Now my new mission is to learn how to ask for shoes in any language.

After buying shoes we were starving. We couldn't find a place to eat and finally wandered into a restaurant only to find out we were eating chinese food. Oh well, I don't think we wanted Chinese when we were in Chile but when you can't read any signs and you are starving anything will do.

They spoke no english in the restaurant and the menu wasn't translated as it was in many places. The three of us pondered over the menu and saw the choices of pollo or carne, primevera (egg rolls) or wantons, made our choice and hoped for the best. The food was good and we were happy.

Monday night we went to the Ox for dinner. It was a good steak place and at the end of the night each table was served cotton candy. Yes, you read this correctly, the restaurant served pink cotton candy on plates. We all stared at it and then devoured all of it. It was quite funny. I have never seen that before.

Getting to Ox was another story. Lane chose the restaurant b/c the concierge recommended it. He (the concierge) drew us a map but carelessly put the hotel on the wrong side of the road so we got very lost walking to it. Finally, after 20 minutes of walking we got cabs. 3 cabs for 12 people. This wasn't good. Two cabs made it to the restaurant and one cab did not and they got lost. The lost cab gave up and chose another place to eat.

Tuesday, Jimmy had to attend a few sessions in the morning and then we were headed to Los Domincos. A public market with local arts and crafts. It was very nice and our group bought lots of souvenirs. For lunch with ate outside in the middle of the market. We all had beer and empanadas. I had baked cheese and meat empanadas and Jimmy did too. It was like a dream. Eating outside with friends with the Andes in the background.

That night for dinner we ate at Como Aqua Para Chocolate (like water for chocolate). Jimmy and I shared shrimp, steak and chicken fajitas and I had a pisco sour.

Wednesday was our last full day in Santiago. Jimmy and I rode the funicular up to Cerro San Cristobal and saw the large Virgin Mary statue. Quite impressive. Almost surreal. It was so pretty. As we walked up to see her they played Silent Night. She was beautiful against the blue sky.

After that we went to Cerro Santa Lucia. I had seen this with the girls on Monday and really wanted Jimmy to see it as well.

That night we had Thai food with Lane and Jennifer. Then had after dinner drinks with John, Erin and Lee.

Thursday was a packing up day. Jimmy and I walked to some shops near the hotel and luckily ran into Charles and Margaret Peacock (from NCSU). We ended up eating lunch with them at La Chimba (Chilean food).

Around 4pm we headed the airport. Goodbye hotel, goodbye mountains, goodbye Santiago.

The airport was busy. It was also neat to be flying back with several people we both knew. There are only three US flights in and out of Santiago per day. Arrivals in the morning and departures at night. Many of the conference goers were on our flight.

As the plane took off I was sitting at the window and could see all the lights of Santiago. As the time passed they got smaller and smaller then diminished. Goodbye Chile....

Three flights later as we sat on the tarmac in Madison I looked at Jimmy and said with a smile.."Where to next?"

There is No Place Like Home

I am back in the good ole' USA. Jimmy and arrived in Madison yesterday afternoon about 1pm. I am so glad to be off of the plane. We had 3 flights coming back and while walking onto the ramp of the last leg of our journey I felt like I was on the Amazing Race tv show. We had been on a plane since 8pm on Thursday.

The trip was wonderful. I can think of a million ways to describe it. My first international trip was complete and it felt like a dream. 

As we arrived in Valparaiso on Friday morning I think Jimmy and I both had some what of a small panic moment. Not bad or anything. It is hard to describe. You feel a little helpless. You can't speak the language, you don't know your way around, you don't know currency conversions, you can hardly read the maps b/c guess what you can't read the language either. Jimmy's Spanish came back to him from his childhood in southern TX and my elementary Spanish came back as well. People are eager to help you and will try their best to point you in the right direction.

It was a chaotic for me to go through customs. Jimmy had traveled internationally so he knew what stations we needed to pass through and what to expect. I panicked on the plane b/c when we had to sign our customs paperwork I realized I had dried fruit in my bag from Target.....not so smart Anna, it is illegal to bring it into the country. I tried eating a lot of it before we landed and ended up throwing it away before we arrived in Santiago. 

Once we got through the customs and screening part of the airport our next stop was to find our driver. I had no idea what to expect. I had booked two tours and shuttle to and from the airport with our B&B in Valparaiso. Was it a big van of people or a taxi? We had no idea.

As we rounded a corner there was our driver, holding a sign with my name on it. 

He was very nice. His name was Jose and he gave us our first impression of the country. We were also happy to find out that our other tours were solely through him and they were private tours. We both were excited that they were not on a big bus.

Our drive to Valparaiso was very pretty. We went through the Casablanca Valley were Chile produces a large amount of its wine and olives. When we arrived in Valpo I was first a little shocked at how large the city was. No tall buildings or anything just so many multi-colored homes on the side of the hills was quite impressive. There are 40 hills in Valpo. Each hill has it own name and character and many of them drop right off into the ocean. We stayed on Cerro (hill) Concepcion. Some hills are poor and some have a bad reputation. Jose told us where to walk and where we should not venture. 

Our hill was beautiful. I have to brag that it was the prettiest!! mainly in part because I organized the Valpo part of our trip. I booked the hotel, shuttle and tours. I actually really liked researching information for our trip. Maybe I should be a travel agent? Or a little secret...I also like watching the travel channel and I knew of the hill from Samantha Brown's passport to South America......

Our room had a view of the bay and the neighboring rooftops. The B&B had 6 rooms. It was very charming. Hardwood floors, decorated very nicely and comfy rooms. We had breakfast each morning in the dining room. For breakfast we had a fruit tart with skewers of kiwi, bananas and strawberries. Then a cheese and ham plate with homemade bread and jams. 

One night we got a little lost walking home and it was getting dark. We are very thankful to a lady who stepped from her balcony and told us "peligro" DANGER. She motioned to us to not go up a certain road and we took her word for it. We are not sure what was up there....and do not want to find out. We told her thank you and walked back down. She watched us until we made it safely down the hill.

I talked previously about our first two days in Valpo. Our first day we had a walking/driving tour of the city with Jose and Francesa. She is a student majoring in tourism and works with the tour company for part of her schooling.

Second day we went to two wineries. Vina Indomita and Casas de Bosque. Both were beautiful. I had lots of wine. Their tastings were quite plentiful. I had lots of fun! Lots of wine!

Our third day in Valpo was a short one. Jose was picking us up at noon to drive us to the conference hotel in Santiago. We awoke early to make the most of the morning. We went down to the harbor to buy some souvenirs and also to see if we could take a boat ride. 

The harbor has tons of boats ready to take tourists out for a view of the city from the water. One captain approached us and asked if we wanted a ride. He basically spoke in Spanish and pointed at his boat and we said "yes". Oh Lord....what are we doing I thought. We are getting on a boat with a man who speaks no English and we speak very little Spanish. I am concerned at this point. His boat looked legit. It was named, had numbers on it for registration, he had a name tag and life jackets. I whispered to Jimmy "should we be doing this." Jimmy didn't seem concerned and could understand the captain enough to figure out it was an hour tour of the bay and how many pesos it would cost us. We had a grand time. We saw sea lions, penguins and I even got to drive the boat.

Each day was sunny with lows at night in the 40s and highs around 60.

At noon it was time to leave.... goodbye Valparaiso. On to Santiago.