Christmas in January

 Trying to fit our entire lives into 11 suitcases in November was difficult. We had to be pretty cut throat about what we decided to take, what we stored, what we left at the house, and what we got rid of.  A result of this was that we had literally no room in our suitcases for new things, aka Christmas presents. We got around this problem by telling the boys that we had informed Santa we were moving, and that we asked him to delay delivery until after the move. They bought it! So, now that we were here and had time to shop, we celebrated Christmas again, in January. Grandma, being the artist in residence, painted a very lovely Christmas tree, and she and the boys made ornaments out of paper. Turned out very cute! Nice face, Avery. 

The main items were new bikes for the boys. Their old ones didn't have gears, so they were ready to upgrade to handle hills easier. Emerson's new bike even has front and back shocks! Santa brought lego sets, that weren't actually real Legos, but knockoff brands from China, that can still, amazingly, integrate with actual Legos. Real Legos are stupid expensive here because they get a special international import tax applied to them. Why that same tax isn't applied to the Chinese knock-offs is beyond my paygrade. We've all been learning about tariffs, haven't we? Moral of the story is, for those who visit us, we will probably be asking you to bring a lego set or two in your suitcase. There were also several police vehicles requested by Avery, and some games we had to leave behind, like dominoes, Jenga, and battleship. 

They also got a new wardrobe for their new school. Going to have to work with Emerson to get him to wear clothes that don't consist of "soft pants" and t-shirts, but we'll get there. Nothing like a little peer pressure. He liked trying on the fleece jacket, but was not a fan of the polo and dress pants. 

The last week has also been a Christmas of sorts for Drew and myself, as we scour Facebook Marketplace for furniture and appliances. We have a 5K budget to furnish our entire place, which actually doesn't get you very far once you start adding things up. And there's always something you forget to put on the list, like a vacuum! So far we've gotten the important things, like beds, a fridge, a washing machine, a couch, and a dining room table. Next stop will be Ikea for a boatload of linens, towels, kitchen items, etc. Merry Christmas to us!

We got an apartment

 Drew and I officially signed the lease on an apartment yesterday! It was our first choice, so really happy it worked out. It took us a week to get the lease signed, so we got a bit lucky, I think, that no one else put in an offer while we were working through the signing. It was a bit more difficult for us, as foreigners, for a couple reasons. One, we didn't have any of the typical things they wanted to see to show financial solvency. They wanted proof of income 3 times the amount of the rent and credit history with no late payments. They also require you to have a local Chilean guaranteer, aka a cosigner, that meets all the same requirements. Well, being pseudo-retired, proof of income looks different for us, so we were showing them our signed leases and LLC paperwork. We also showed them our Experian credit history and hoped they counted it. We also didn't have a guaranteer, so we were going to need to pay more up front to put their mind at ease. We ended up paying 4 months rent up front, plus a 2-months' security deposit. That was enough to alleviate their fears. We also needed to add some additional language to the lease to protect us as well. So we added a "diplomatic" clause that basically says if we are forced to leave the country for reasons outside of our control, we can terminate the lease with enough notice. We also needed to make sure we only paid for HOA expenses related to building maintenance, not upgrades. The current tenant who showed us the apartment kindly warned us that the HOA had just voted to upgrade the building's heating system, so we didn't want to get stuck with that bill. As you can imagine, all of this took several days to iron out, between us contacting a lawyer, updating the lease numerous times, some negotiating, etc. Again, I'm glad we were able to get it signed before someone less "difficult" took it. 

You're probably thinking, enough jibber jabber already, let's see the apartment! This is the main living room/dining room with a patio that faces west. So it will get some nice afternoon sun. 

Master bedroom, with ensuite bathroom and walkin closet. In total it has 3 bedrooms, and 2.5 baths, (not including the service bed and bath), so we will have a designated guest bedroom for anyone who wants to come visit! We did not rent it furnished, so all this stuff will be gone when we move in.

Kids' room.

Master bath. As promised, it's not updated, but it's not awful either.

Also as promised, a galley kitchen with the loggia (laundry room) at the back. This galley kitchen was wider than most though. 

There is a second patio that all 3 bedrooms have sliding doors out onto. This looks east, so it will get nice morning sun, but will hopefully be cooler in the afternoon. Our current Airbnb is oriented this way, and it's nice to be able to try to cool the bedrooms down without the afternoon sun blasting in. This place doesn't have A/C, so we'll be doing our best. 

One of the best parts about it is the location. It is a 12 min walk or 3 min bike to the boys' school. It's also walking distance to a Nikkei restaurant (that's Peruvian/Japanese fusion, which is my new favorite), a tennis school, and a bus stop. Just want we wanted. Overall, rent is $1,400/month, and about $400/month for HOA fees and utilities, so we're right on budget. Look at us staying on budget. 

Drew and I went out to dinner for sushi to celebrate. We got $40 worth of sushi, and it was so much, we couldn't finish it all! For anyone who has ever eaten sushi with Drew, you will know this is quite a feat. Now on to furniture!

Haircuts and Doctor's Visits

 When we descended upon Santiago, the boys were a shaggy bunch, so one of the first orders of business was to get shed our winter layers and get a summer do. We found a hole in the wall place that could get us in the next day, so we went for it. The lady who did it was probably 70 years old or more, and she was definitely old school. She did everything with one pair of scissors, except the final neck cleanup, which she used a buzzer for. The boy's favorite part was getting their hair washes. Cost per cut: $13. Not sure if we'll go back to her again, at least not for Drew anyways, and he likes the super short sides that only a buzzer can achieve, and I don't think that style is in this abuelita's wheelhouse. But a fun first experience none the less. Before and after photos!

 

Emerson and I also had our first doctor's experience. I had been dealing with crud, super sore tonsils, and pain when swallowing for the past week, and I was getting nervous that it was strep when it wasn't going away very quickly. When Emerson woke up complaining of an ear ache, I decided to bite the bullet and I booked us doctors' appointments at a private clinic about a 5 minute drive from us. I booked the appointment online at 7:45am and was able to get an appointment for 9:15am. Drew and I bought insurance for emergency level care, but not for clinic level stuff. We figured we can pay out of pocket for that since it is much less expensive here, so we got to test out the process. My appointment at a private clinic was only $40, and Emerson's pediatrics appointment was $60. I was seen right away, but I was also the first appointment of the day for my practitioner. For Emerson, we waited about 45min past his appointment time before he was seen. Not sure if that's normal or not, but I think it was because the patient before us was really little and needed extra care. At the end of the day, I did not have strep, so no antibiotics for me, just ibuprofen to reduce inflammation in my throat and a very effective, natural throat spray I had never heard of before. Emerson did had a minor ear infection, so he did go on antibiotics. All in all, positive experience. 

Also got to explore how pharmacies work here. You do need prescriptions for antibiotics (which was not the case in Hong Kong), but you don't need it for other things, like the Levothyroxine I take daily for hypothyroidism. I can get 82 pills of that for $7, and no prescription needed. However, they do keep everything else related to illness behind the pharmacy counter too. That included Tylenol, ibuprofen, cough syrup, etc. You don't need a prescription, but you have to ask someone to get it for you. Not sure of the logic there but whateves. This is the cool throat spray the doc recommended. It has propoleo in it, which I had to google. In English propoleo translates to propolis, which is aromatic resin that bees collect from tree buds. It is used in the construction of bee hives and is consumed in small amounts in honey. Propolis has antiseptic and fungicidal properties, which is why it is used to treat infections and is considered to bee a good antioxidant and anesthetic. Who knew?!? 

Apartment Hunting

 Drew and I have spent the last 5 days visiting 10 apartments. I had been keeping an eye on apartments I found on a website called www.portalinmobiliario.com, which was basically a bad version of Zillow. It allowed me to see photos and basic details of the apartments, and it had contact info of the listing real estate agent. The website does have issues: the location pin doesn't change color after you've viewed it, so you're constantly retracing your steps, there were alot of apartments that had already been rented but the listing hadn't been removed, and there were also many duplicate listings. I hadn't bothered contacting anyone until the Monday before we moved, because it seemed like jumping the gun a bit, and I didn't want to waste my time if the apartment was already going to be gone by the time we got there. But, it did allow us to set a realistic budget, and we knew we'd at least be able to afford a large enough place in the neighborhood we wanted, which is Vitacura. We picked this neighborhood because it's very family friendly, there are parks littered all over the place. It's quiet, and it's very walkeable. So once we were able to secure spots at a decent private school in the same neighborhood, we knew we could start looking here. It actually reminds me of Platt Park in alot of ways. Here is a map of where Vitacura is (the red circle) in relationship to the whole of Santiago. 

Our goal was to find a 3 bedroom apartment that was highly walkeable to the boys' school, the grocery store, parks, bus stops, etc., as we're trying to go carless while in the city, for under $2,000 per month. I found this budget to be pretty amazing considering we were looking in one of the nicest, most sought after neighborhoods in all of Santiago, which is, by many standards, the nicest, most stable city in all of South America. Now, were there lots of other bigger, newer, and more stylish apartments that were out of our price range? Yes, definitely. But were we only seeing dumps that felt living in a dingy tin can? No, we were not. We knew this budget was doable given my advanced research, so the Monday before we flew, I started contacting the listing agents using Whatsapp to try and schedule showings of the apartments that were listed at that time. I was able to do that surprisingly successfully; I think on the Wednesday that we flew, I already had 5 appointments lined up, and by the time our weekend of apartment hunting began on Friday afternoon, we had 8 booked with 2 more to follow by the end of the weekend.

Items that we learned during our hunt. Tenants in Santiago (and maybe all of South America, I'm not sure) typically buy their own appliances, which means when they move out, they take them with them. The only appliances that would stay are ones mounted to countertops, like the stove top. But dishwashers, refrigerators, and washing machines all go, so Drew and I will have the fun job of finding and installing our own once we find a place. I'm realizing this is actually a giant scheme by the landlords of Santiago. Could you imagine how much easier your landlord life would be if you didn't get called every time the dishwasher broke? It's brilliant. 

Next item is that most apartments in the middle class neighborhoods are designed to have a live-in cook/housekeeper. This means that the kitchens are galley kitchens with doors that close, and off the back of the kitchen is typically the laundry room, the service bedroom, and service bathroom. This setup would allow the housekeeper to cook all the meals and do all the laundry behind closed doors. There is often times a door in between the living rooms and the bedrooms as well. I think half of this is for privacy and the other half is for energy conservation reasons. Having a service bed and bath is a phenomenon we were used to from Hong Kong. The difference was in Hong Kong it was still VERY common for most families with kids to have a "helper." But in all ten apartments that we toured just now in Santiago, none of the families had a helper (that I could tell), and none were using the service bedroom and bathroom as they were designed. Most were using them as offices, storage rooms, 4th bedrooms, etc., which is what we plan to do. Maybe this service bed and bath design will start dissipating as more and more families prefer more open concept layouts, but, for now, they are still around. And our apartment will most certainly have this galley style because we're not looking at super modern ones, due to our budget. Another difference from Hong Kong is that the service beds and baths in Santiago were almost a liveable size for an actual human, whereas the one in our Hong Kong apartment would not have qualified as more than a large hall closet. This is an example of a service bed and bath we saw on one of our tours. 

Finally, most of the laundry rooms here are actually covered patios called loggias. They get alot of direct sunlight, which means most people here do not own dryers. They simply air dry their clothes. Luckily, the climate in Santiago is similar to Denver in that it has very low humidity, so air drying clothes is actually possible without gross, moldy results. Our Airbnb is the same, so I tried the whole phenomenon the other day, and, you know what, it worked! It was actually faster drying our clothes in the sun (under an hour) than it would take to dry a load in a normal dryer cycle. Now, was it a bit annoying to hang up every single kiddo sock? Yes, yes it was. Were the clothes as soft and fluffy as they normally are after coming out of the dryer? No, no they were not. But was it unbearable? No, no it wasn't. This is an example of a loggia we saw on one of our tours. A bit messy, but you get the idea. 

Drew and I have officially begun contact negotiations on an apartment, so we'll see if we're successful. As you can imagine, renting as a foreigner has some complications, which I'll go into more next time. But fingers crossed we get our first choice!

We Made It to Santiago!

 We made it!  Amazingly, everything went remarkably well! We had no weather delays for any part of the journey, and by flying in Jan. this was definitely not guaranteed, (I think the Atlanta airport got snow two days later and a bunch of flights got cancelled, Yikes!)  The day we left Colorado (Jan. 8, 2025) it was actually stunning: a bluebird day with everything covered in a lovely, white dusting of snow.  That actually made our departure more bittersweet, because it's tough to beat gorgeous Colorado.

But, we piled on in Sergio, that's Leah and Osman's diesel pickup truck, the only vehicle that would fit all of our luggage as we drove to the airport; thanks, guys, for loaning him to us.

We flew from Denver to Atlanta; that was roughly a 3 hour flight. When we boarded our plane to Atlanta, the pilots let the boys hop in the cockpit. This was another first for the boys, and they were thrilled. They got to push buttons and move the joy-stick around and everything!

Then we had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta, where we met up with Brian and Karen (aka Grandma and Grandpa), who flew in from Grand Rapids, MI to meet us there. We got to spend a few minutes noshing in the Delta Sky Lounge.

Finally, we jumped aboard DL 147 to Santiago! It was an overnight flight that left at 8pm and landed in Santiago at 7:20am the following day. This was the first time the boys have flown this long ever or done an overnighter, so my expectations were very low. But they did awesome. 

It helped that both middle seats in our two rows were vacant, so we made cozy beds for the boys on the floor (yes, yes, it's gross, I know, but I was willing to sacrifice some germs for the opportunity for myself and Drew to lay down flat ourselves and actually sleep-ish. I'm selfish, I know. I'd do it again.)

We were traveling with 7 big suitcases, 6 carry-ons, a ski bag, a bike box, and 2 giant car seat bags stuffed to the brim plus backpacks, and somehow all of our luggage made it! Getting out of Denver was easy because thankfully Delta had curbside check-in for Drew and I to throw the luggage out of the back of Sergio and move it a few feet to the check-in line. In Santiago, they have those luggage carts available for free, so with all four adults wielding a cart, we made it! We booked 2 Transvip vans to take us from the airport to the Airbnb, and I would highly recommend them. They have a coordinator right outside the main doors, and, even though we were 45 min early than our booking, (wasn't sure how long it would take to get through immigration and customs) they got us our vans immediately, and off we went. It cost about $40 per van to take a 30min ride to the Airbnb. Wasn't the cheapest option, but it didn't break the bank, and it was very reliable. Would definitely use again. 

Finally, our Airbnb host was super accommodating and let us check-in super early, even though they weren't done cleaning the place yet. It wasn't like we could stash our mountain of luggage somewhere and go get lunch, we needed an early check-in, and he made it happen. Very grateful. We are staying on the 8th floor of a building off President Kennedy Avenue in Vitacura, which is the neighborhood we will be living in. Very nice building.

And it has a pool! Didn't actually realize the building had a pool, so that was a nice surprise. The seasons in Chile are opposite than in North America, so we went from single digit temps in wintery Colorado to high 80s, low 90s in summer filled Chile. The weather feels similar to Colorado though in that, while it's hot, the humidity is low, so if you're in the shade, you're fine. Definitely need sunscreen though. And limited bugs (yes!), and when the sun goes down it cools off quick, to like 60s. In general, Santiago has seasons, but the temperature extremes are a bit milder compared to Denver. This is the hottest time of the year, but it won't get above the low 90s. Not missing those 100 degree days, Denver! And the city won't ever get snow. Winter temps are more in the 40s/50s.

Those mountains still have snow though! Another similarity from Santiago to Colorado is the mountains, except here instead of the Rocky Mountains, we have the Andes! This is the view from our Airbnb balcony. Pretty gorgeous huh! The picture doesn't even really do them justice, they are really epic looking. Santiago is only at around 1,700 ft above sea level. But the Andes rise up to 16,000 ft around the city, with the tallest mountain in the Andes, Mt. Aconcagua, clocking in at 22,831 ft above sea level! It's actually the tallest mountain in the entire Western Hemisphere! By comparison, the tallest mountain in the Rockies is Mt. Elbert at 14,438 ft. 

However, the mountains in Santiago are to the east of the city, so I have to rewire my brain when processing directions. We get some nice sunsets bouncing off the mountains though. 

Overall, we're settling in nicely. Drew and I have started looking at apartments (more on that later). The kids are resetting their body clocks to be in the GMT-3 timezone, that's 4 hours later than Denver. So, when I was asking them to go to bed at 9pm the first night we were there, that was only 5pm Denver time. But, they were so tired from the trip, they did it, and now we're going to keep inching them back til we get back to our 7-7 schedule. This was actually another reason we picked South America as our destination. I didn't want to deal with super jet lagged kids who had their days and nights mixed up. 4 hours later is enough for me. Well, more next time, with hopefully an apartment update! 

PSA: The easiest way to message Drew and I now is through Whatsapp. What's Whatsapp you ask? It's the messaging platform that almost the entire rest of the world uses except the USA. So come on in, the water's fine! If you text us using the old ways, we're likely not to get it. So if you want to coordinate a trip to come visit us or simply to catch up, Whatsapp!

Mo's cell +1-615-975-5893

Drew's cell +1-303-726-7533