December 17,

When we woke up and looked out… YUCK & OUCH!! The air conditions were horrible! So smoggy, we decided to not go outside. The air quality was pitiful- Jeff looked it up. We had our Javas and breakfast of oatmeal and Muesli with yogurt.

We spent the day listening to music, reading, researching, and playing games on our phones. For lunch we went out to a local rotisserie chicken place, called Pollo Don Francis. We both got a ¼ Chicken (pollo) with (con) French fries (papas fritas). I waited for our order as Jeff went to a grocery store for some wine. Jeff returned, but the order was not ready yet. So I took the wine back to our place as Jeff finished waiting. Wow! When Jeff returned each order had a monstrous amount of fries. Thankfully they were great! We paid 10,000 CLP ($10.98). Then supper was cheese, fruit and the wine we had just bought. We finished the day rewatching the second Avatar.

      December 18,

I slept in this morning, not getting up until 0800. We readied and had breakfast of oatmeal with our Javas. We put a load of laundry into our tiny washing machine. It only holds around three days of dirty clothes! But hey we have one!! We started up the clothes and went out.

The day – air quality – was much improved from yesterday. We went to see the changing of the guard, but that was a wash. Where the daily event happens was filled with an exhibition of local goods. We weren’t interested in sticking around for that so we moved on after we explored the little plaza there.

We went to get Jeff a SIM card. The place we went to did not sell the cards, only phones. But they kinda directed us where to go. It was in Spanish so only got the direction she pointed us toward. We walked and came upon a tech shop. The lady there worked with Jeff and got the card set up. All countries handle this differently. That fact still amazes me. I mean foreigners need a card for their phones, which everyone relies on these days. You would think this would be a more standardized event. Anyway, he is set up to carry us through until we leave Chile. I, on the other hand, will run out of internet in three days. But I can hotspot him now. My new phone does not have a SIM card slot – only E-SIM capability and is locked out for another 6 weeks. It worked out. We next recharged our Metro cards a bit.

With that all accomplished we went to a large Chinese mall, called Centro Comercial China. We found a few odds & ends we needed then went back to our place. We hung our laundry to dry, and had a sandwich we made for lunch. Then we got about, going back out. We went to the Metro and took it to the mall we were at a couple of days ago. At the mall we went right to the Cinepolis. We got in no problem, which was great after our fiasco of getting a reservation for Avatar a couple of days ago.

The movie was great – in an 3D IMAX theater – like the director, James Cameron had made the film for. When it was over we caught the Metro back toward our place. But we stopped at a Peruvian Restaurant for supper. We ordered and were served our Sprite, only to learn that the cook ran out of gas and could not get more for cooking our meals. We tried to pay for the soda, but they did not have change, so we got it for free. WOWZA! That was different! We found another Peruvian place called Crazy Mary’s. We ordered with Google Translate. I had a Pork Chop, Chuleta with a side salad. Jeff had the Loma Vetado, a Ribeye steak with a side of rice, green beans, and mashed potatoes. We each had a juice of Pineapple and Melon Juice, which were overly sweet. The meals were great though. We paid 13,750 CLP ($15.09).

We now went back to our place, I blogged and Jeff read/edited. It was a good last day in Santiago. Tomorrow we leave this city for a coastal one.