Multiple Greetings from Beautiful Santiago, Chile! I arrived to participate in the LSU Geaux Global trip on Saturday morning.  I will be spending 3 weeks here in Chile, working with teachers and educators at the Southern Cross School here in Santiago.  I’ll be blogging frequently, making notes of adventures and intriguing insights from throughout the experience.

A 9-hour flight

I had never been on a flight more than 5 hours, so the nearly 9.5 hour flight from Houston to Santiago had me a bit worried. That said, the flight was beautiful. I was able to catch several hours of sleep thanks to a helpful sleep aid and my friend Shaofei Han’s travel pillow (Thanks Shaofei).  About 1 hour before the flight was over, we were able to watch the sun rise over the Andes mountains as we came into Santiago (see the photo below).  

My Host Family

I am blessed to be staying with a wonderful host family here in Santiago. Keith and Francisca have welcomed me into their home, along with their two children Martin and Christian.  The home is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see below.  On Saturday afternoon Keith prepared some barbeque and we had a lovely afternoon eating outside, drinking the famous Pisco Sour (a traditional Chilean drink) as well as some wine.  In the evening we had a lovely dinner and I caught some sleep.

Touring Santiago

The highlight of Sunday was the opportunity to go take a tour of Santiago. It was my first-ever excursion on a double-decker open air bus. The weather was perfect – it is late autumn here in Santiago, so the daytime temperature was around 65 degrees Fahrenheit – perfect for the bus tour. We were able to see some amazing sites from the bus – including some that I hope to go visit more in the next few weeks during our weekend trips.  The architecture is stunning here in Santiago, and as a booming metropolis (over 6 million people live here) – it has a great mixture of modern and ancient architecture.  I’ll post some of the sites below for everyone to see – although I encourage you to visit my Facebook page to see all the photos and videos I post throughout the trip.

We also had lunch at a great place called Carlo Cocina – sort of a la carte style. I had a delicious salad along with some salmon (my favorite) and a rice dish with shrimp and calamari.  So far the eating is quite excellent!

My Home for the next 3 weeks

Some Chilean Architecture