Our adventure began on Monday November 29, 2010. We were preparing to leave for the airport and Jeff decided to check one more time to make sure our flight was on time. When he logged on, it showed that the flight wasn't delayed...it was cancelled! Jeff got online with Delta and made arrangements for a new flight the next day. We had been running so fast to be ready to leave that we all just crashed. We bought tickets to Harry Potter and went to a movie. We felt much better after the show and began packing and cleaning again. It was a blessing in disguise. We were much more prepared the next day.
Chile 'take 2' began Tuesday morning at 8:00 am. My Dad and my sister, Ann, drove us to the airport. Dad drove his truck with all 10 of our 50 pound suitcases and boxes in the back. Each person had 1 suitcase, 1 box, 1 carry on and one small backpack. Josh and Nate rode with Grandpa. Jennie, Jeff and I rode with Ann. We were quite a sight checking in our luggage. We made through security without having to go through the new ‘image’ scanners. They did take out the PS3 and inspect it closely though. No bombs hidden there! Whew!
The flight from SLC to Atlanta went smoothly. It was raining hard in Atlanta so they allowing more time between each flight as planes landed. We circled the airport for about 40 minutes and then landed. We got to the gate for the next flight and hung out for an hour and a half. Josh and Nate ran around and got all their energy out. We boarded the flight and headed off to Chile. Josh and Nate were pretty excited and a little nervous. The plane wasn’t full so Jennie had 3 seats to herself. Josh and I were together. Nate had 2 seats and Jeff had 2 seats. We had dinner and then went to sleep. Everyone slept pretty well. The next morning they served a little breakfast and then we landed at about 9:00 am Chile time.
First we got our luggage and discovered that it was quite wet. It must have been left out in Atlanta. Fun. Then we went to the reciprocity counter where we had to pay $150 each for Jennie, Nathan, and Josh to enter the country. Each person from the USA and other countries that charge Chileans for Visas, have to pay a fee to enter Chile for the 1st time. Next we put our luggage through the scanner in customs. They are very serious about not bringing any fruit, vegetables, nuts or animal products into their country. We made it through with the only inspection being that of the chocolate oranges I brought for Christmas. Once they realized they weren’t oranges, the inspector was quite amused with them.
Next Jeff was off to the Alamo counter to rent our truck. We all sat around with our mountain of luggage. We loaded up the truck by standing all the luggage on its end and putting the boxes 2 high in the back of the truck. Then Jennie, Nate and Josh got in the back seat and we piled all the carry-ons on top of them. Then I got in the front seat with a carry-on on me and we were off! We went straight to a temporary apartment that Jeff had found. Jeff and I went in and looked it over. It was good enough to stay in for a few days but I knew right away that it wasn’t good enough for a permanent apartment. We had to drive around and get our money changed and then pay the ‘finder’ of the apartment and then pay the owner of the apartment and then we could start moving in. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon by the time we unloaded and landed in the apartment. We had to get everything out of the luggage right away because it was all wet. Most of our clothes were in plastic space bags so they weren’t wet but there was still about 4 loads of laundry worth of clothes that were wet. There were also lots of boxes and books inside them that were wet. Luckily nothing was totally ruined. I’m discussing this with Delta!
Right now, Chile is 4 hours ahead of Utah. So all in all it was about 28 hours of travel and getting into the apartment.
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