The Last Ride and Saying Good Bye

The Saturday of our departure  Randy, my dad and brothers in law went for a last bike ride. Good idea to exercise and stretch your legs before a 24hr trip.  They enjoyed a nice ride. 

 

 

The luggage was packed and the time to leave to the airport was getting closer. My sister and their families came to spend that last afternoon with us, gave us lots of hugs and kisses and wished us a safe trip.  We were so sad to leave our loved ones but so grateful for 5 amazing weeks we spent with them. Our goal is to be able to visit every 18 months.

I don’t know why I don’t have pictures with Laura and Felipe, Gabriela and Fran. They were there, I promise.

The Food

We ate like pigs while in Chile. So many yummy dishes and sweets that you don’t find here or I don’t want know how to cook. I thought it would be appropriate to give the Chilean cuisine its own post.

Empanadas

Salty dough filled with deliciousness. There are so many combinations; meat, chicken, seafood, vegetarian, fried, oven baked… Chicken-mushrooms-cheese is my favorite. This restaurant has over 30 combinations. It’s hard to decide!

Once

We think we are Europeans, we have tea time. It’s called Once –eleven- I have no idea why. That’s the last meal of the day and we know how to enjoy it. A huge cup of coffee or tea (barley hot drink and herbal tea in our household) with some pastries and bread with ham and cheese or marmalade. Yummy! The bread is amazing in Chile, made fresh twice a day, so no preservatives. Every neighborhood has at least one bakery, and the smell of warm bread is just amazing. That what I miss the most food wise, Chilean bread has no comparison!

Chinese Food

Chinese food is completely different from the Chinese food you get here. I think Chileanized Chinese is way better than the Americanized. For starters it’s not buffet style so the food is made fresh when you place your order. I guess because it’s not Americanized it has more of a vegetable flavor with out the extra sugar, heavy sauce and fats.

Sea Food

With the extensive coast that Chile has, sea food is big down there. I’m not crazy about it, I only eat Tilapia and fried fish but my parents and sister enjoy see food very much. There is a great variety of fish and shellfish dishes. I love Randy’s face every time he ate fish. He wasn’t sure about it! I really enjoy that every place offers lots of different fresh salads. I love salads!

Churros

You already know how much Randy loves his churros.

A lo Pobre

A lo Pobre translates as poor style, but there is nothing poor about it. This is a typical Chilean dish consisting of meat topped with one or more fried eggs and served with French fries and fried onions. The most popular is steak but you can also find grilled chicken and pork chop a lo pobre.

Churrasco & Completos

These are the Chilean version of the hamburger and hot dog. Our junk food. Completo means complete, because a hot dog is only complete when you have warm fresh bread and a hot dog topped with multiple things. My fave is the Italian completo which has diced tomatoes(red), mashed avocado(green), home made mayonnaise(white, just like the flag of Italy) and your choice of ketchup and/or mustard. To die for!!

Churrascos are some serious sandwiches. Thin cut slices of steak grilled and served on a toasted bun. Again the topping vary. The most popular are Churrasco Italiano (tomato-avocado-mayo) Churrasco Chacarero (tomato-french style green beans-mayo) Churrasco Barros Luco (steak and cheese) and Churrasco Lomito (steak-mashed avocado and mayo)

Parrilladas

Parrilladas are essentially an individual cook-out brought to your table. The meat begins grilling at the restaurant’s kitchen and they bring a bracero pot to your table where the meat is still cooking if you want your meat to be well done. The parrillada includes different cuts of beef, pork chops, chicken, potatoes and sausages. The side dishes are generally a large variety of salads.

Now, who’s hungry?!?!

P.S. Randy and I underwent a vegetarian diet after our trip. We lost the gained weight and out cholesterol and triglycerides are back to normal!! I know you were concerned.

Donde La Cuca

Friday night was our last night in Chile, our flight was leaving Saturday evening. We had lots of fun at our farewell dinner party. We got together with family and friends and went out to Donde La Cuca, a dinning and dancing place where their specialty are Parrilladas. Delicious! The live band was pretty cool but the music was so loud, we had to scream to hold a conversation. At the end of the night we were happy to have spent another great night with our dear ones, dance some Tropical music and the twist!

Olmue

We had such a nice day with my Mom and my dear grandma Luque. It had been pretty cold and cloudy the last week so taking advantage of a beautiful warm and partially sunny day we decided to take Abuelita Luque for a nice afternoon trip to Olmue, a little town in the countryside. I love it there, the air is so pure and you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables in abundance at a great price since it is agriculture land. There are antique stores to visit and lots of great restaurants. We have our favorite that we visit when we are in Olmue.

Minus the cable lines the view is pretty amazing.

We stopped at this store on the side of the road to check the baskets out. They had some unique stuff. Mom bought me a cute basket to bring home.

I love the rustic and country vibe of this restaurant.

I want to copy the floor! I was thinking when we do our patio we Randy could try this out.

I love my Abuelita!

We are just like the Von Trapp family……Not!

My parents ward (church) was hosting a talent show with a dessert contest. My dad wanted to sing with his family and grand kids the children songs he used to sing to us when we were little and now my sisters sing to their kids. It was so fun to sing as a family even though none of us have a super amazing voice.

The first song is about numbers, the second about a kid robot and the last one about Martin’s little cow.

My favorite parts of the video:

1. 00:57 – Cristobal’s face is so funny.
2. 4:18 – Vicente singing loud
3. 4:28 – Vicente grabbing Cristobal’s hand. Cousin love, melts my heart!
4. 5:05 – Annya didn’t want to sing. I probably said something like Hey, are you singing loud? She was not having it. Grumpy pants!
5. 5:37 - Vicente waving to his mom at the other side of the line.

Randy wowed the audience doing some math tricks.

My dad is the bishop (unpaid pastor) and with his counselors rock the house!

This was pretty funny, the guy said I don’t know the lyrics so I’m going to make them up. He started mumbling at the mic. It didn’t matter, everybody was having a great time!

The dessert contest was great, so many delicious sweets to taste. I love me some Chilean desserts! Randy made a cheesecake and it was the bomb! Everybody kept coming back for more and asking him for the recipe. He didn’t win first place but we can say it was the peoples favorite. When I went to grab the pan this lady was using her finger to clean the pan and wouldn’t let me take the pan until she was done licking her fingers to the last drop.

Because my nephews and niece are so stinking cute, here is a bonus video.

Around the kids the most serious insult is calling each other a baby. They would come to you all upset because the cousin/sibling called them a baby. -“I’m not a baby, right?” -“Nope, you are not a baby”. And happy they go to keep playing. These are the kids teasing grandpa Francisco and calling him a baby. The name-calling got creative and we heard them call him; ugly duckling,egg face, girl, Donald duck and grandpa little kid. All of this to get tickled in “punishment” for the insults. The parents patiently waited until the kids finished saying good-bye to go home.

PS- I had to compress the videos to 100MB to be able to upload them and they look terrible. Does anybody know a better way to post videos on blogger, without having to upload them to youtube and make them public there first?