Getting There

James >> Today we made our way to Santiago. Leaving Devonport at 0630 (and home at 0500), the dogs barely got out of bed to farewell us. Remembering the toiletries bag, 5 minutes down the road, we still had time to duck back home and grab it and remarkably be on time! Our flight from Melbourne to Sydney was in business class but that all came crashing down for the long haul from Sydney to Santiago. Initially things were looking quite bright, 3 seats in a row and the last was empty. Unfortunately the flight attendant felt the need to move and old, large, borderline disabled man into the spare seat. Kathryn got quite upset that the in-flight entertainment wasn't quite working as well as it should, read: NO Big Bang Theory or Movies that were worth watching. James settled for yet another John Grisham novel None-the-less we persevered flying down below 65 degrees of latitude. We were treated to nice views of the Andes mountains as we came down for landing.
Once we touched down there was the obligatory queues at immigration that all went off without a hitch. Then we got on the correct bus and got off at the correct station. Then we had to buy a 'bip!' card for the subway. Since the automatic machine

didn't play ball James really got to show off his Spanish (so far he had only need the phrases 'gracias' and 'dos'). He pulled out 'no habla español', this turned out to be the most useful sentence we could possibly learn, short of actually learning Spanish. Once used the Chilean people were very accommodating and most of the time immediately spoke English. Once the 'bip!' was obtained there was an uneventful subway tip and short walk to our airbnb apartment. Before having a quick nap James managed to lock himself in the bathroom.
We forced ourselves to get up out of bed around 1800 found an Italian place nearby (La Serrana). Again 'no habla español' really worked. Great food. Then we had a bit of a walk around, saw the biggest Chilean flag around. There were lots of people around, walking their dogs, shopping, even skipping. We ended up in a supermarket to grab a few things, unfortunately Kathryn wasn't sure of the system for buying bananas but it got sorted out in the end. Our door handle and lock woes continued, this time the front door refusing entry . After a few text messaged with the guy from airbnb we got in and are looking forward to a good sleep.