Going with the Flo'.

Just before lunch the following day, Will picked us up in their Florida car, and made Rich drive us up to Deerfeild Beach which is where Joel and Catherine live.  It's a lovely roomy home and just 5 minutes walk from the beach and , in the opposite direction, a small shopping centre. We had a wee tour of the house and grounds, played with Philippe, then Joel drove us to Santos for lunch.

 Santos is one of those buffet, " all you can eat" type places, so beloved of Americans ( and Kiwis, if I'm honest). It's not as bad as you might think - very nicely presented and prepared and included sushi and Asian food, seafood and cerviches, as well as the usual roasts, salads, soups and desserts. We couldn't help it, we ate more than we should, but it really was very good. And reasonably priced, especially since William shouted.

Back home, we had to wait for Philippe and his Mamie to finish their nap. They were both sound asleep on the big bed together.
When Catherine did wake, she showed me around pointing,
"Everywhere baby. In this room baby, in that room baby, and now, in MY bedroom and MY bed, baby!"
I had to laugh. I'd forgotten how one tiny creature can take over so much space and even more, time.

Soon it was time for us to leave for the airport, to pick up Tom and Hannah.William handed us the keys and gently pushed us out the door.
 As you can imagine we were more than a little nervous about tackling the motorway and navigating ourselves all that way. (I later overheard Will telling Tom about it "You know, you've just got to let them go sometime, and try for themselves." Hmmm)

We were actually managing rather splendidly, despite it being rush hour, with thousands of cars bearing down on us from both ways, but then there was a spectacular thunderstorm with the most torrential downpour you can imagine. We literally couldn't see a thing in front of us, as sheets of water sprayed over our windscreen. The traffic did slow down but we were at our nerves end.

"Lets go home for a while?"
Good idea. Remarkably we found our condo with no problem, had a cup of tea, gathered our wits and courage, and ventured forth again. Fortunately, Tom had let us know the flight was a little late, so we arrived as they were disembarking. We had forgotten to factor in, we didn't know the airport at all and we didn't know where to go to pick up passengers, and the cellphones stopped working so close to the airport, but eventually that seem to miraculously resolve itself and we did find them. We were so relieved to see them, we forgot to be nervous about meeting Hannah for the first time. Even if we had been, it wouldn't have mattered - she is lovely and natural and fitted right in.
A stop at our local supermarket for some tea from the deli (surprisingly good country fried chicken), and thus ended another day in Florida.

Grandma and Mamie

Tom the Terrorist

French chic

The nursery - lucky baby.

Day2. Only one major plan today - dinner @Charmes'. Spent the morning chillin'. We drove up to Deerfeild beach along Hillsboro, a coastal road. I think we really got the flavour of Florida along here. That's where the Florida of your imagination is, anyway. Miles of white sandy beaches and swaying palm trees, huge towering hotels, brilliantly blue sky and sea, and thousands of happy, frolicking holiday makers. There were signs warning us that it was the season for egg laying turtles.

Uncle Tom and baby AB

He doesn't seem too concerned about the upcoming games.

Here we come...

Walking down the street...

Look out for egg laying turtles - it is the season for it.

Santiago - Panama - Miami

In the wee small hours of the night, we blearily staggered with all our gear, over to the airport. Frankly most of this day is a blur, but there were some definite highlights. With thumping hearts we tried to wait patiently, to see if we could get on the flight with William. 

Even though Will was with us, we were still nervous about getting onto the flight, but we had nothing to fear; having friends ( or sons) in high places, so to speak, really does count. For the first time ever we travelled business class, and very nice it was too. Especially as it was in a brand new 737-800. It even smelt new, or maybe that was just the leather seats in business class. (Did I mention we flew business class?) 

Alex, our own personal flight attendant, spoke excellent American English and looked after us business class passengers very well.

 We celebrated by having a glass of bubbly even though it was two o'clock in the morning. That settled us down. I greedily ripped open my little goody pack with toothbrush, socks, eye mask, lip balm and moisturiser. (It was just like Christmas.) We had a light supper, fruit,cheese, cold cuts, roll , spread our blankets on our enormous seats, laid our heads on our posh pillows ( they weren't really) , flipped up our leg rests and laid our heads down to sleep. 

Well we tried to. Six hours on your backside is still six hours - a long time! 

And it was exciting. Lots of firsts happening. First time being flown by our son, first time in Business Class, first time meeting our first grandson - no wonder I couldn't sleep, not to mention the spectacular thunder and lightening storms happening outside my window.

I'm not sure what time we landed ( and a beautiful landing it was too, I might add) 

in Panama, as there is a slight time difference, but it was still earlyish morning and we only stayed an hour and a half, without leaving the airport, before going through the whole process again to head towards Miami.

  

My son, the pilot.

Bubbles to celebrate

Plenty of leg room in business class

This didn't come out too well. The sun was just coming up, we were between two layers of cloud, and that dark bit in the middle joining up the two layers, was a massive thunder storm. Every few minutes, that tube would light up as the lightning danced about inside.

Well some of us got some sleep.

Captain  Ricardo and First Officer John (Apparently they think William is a surname so they call him John)

Fasten your seatbelts, folks - I'm taking this baby for a spin. (Will is looking slightly anxious)

There's not much room up the front and the windows aren't all that big either.

Me and my boy. Our plane is behind us.

After a relatively short flight from Panama to Miami (about 3 hours), business class again, we finally reached our destination. We were met at the airport by Julie's dad, Joel. They live about an hour or more from the airport, so it was awfully kind of him to drive all that way for us. Joel and his wife Catherine are French, but have emigrated to Florida as they enjoy the warmth.

"It's such a relief," I declared, "to finally be somewhere where people can understand what you are saying!"

"Now you know our pain," sighed Joel. I admit, it wasn't entirely tactful of me, but it did make me wonder what it would be like to permanently live in a country that spoke a different language to your native tongue. What courage and tenacity that must take. And too, I had forgotten, that the second language here is Spanish. I think most of the people who live in Florida have come from somewhere else.

Joel delivered us to the Palm Aire Country Club Condo that he and his wife used to own. They recently bought a house (with garden and pool) further up the coast at Deerfield Beach, and sold the condo to their son, who is living in Texas. It's been rather convenient for Will and Julie and now us as well. It's beautifully done out in Catherine's gorgeous enviable, elegant French style, which includes a lot of white - a LOT of white. We are awfully mucky monkeys, so we did have to take a great deal of care not to track our grubby footprints across the lounge.

And waiting for us there was what we had travelled half way around the world to meet. Our tiny little grandson of 3 weeks. And oh, it was well worth the effort. He's pretty adorable. (I'm not just saying that.) Long, long fingers and toes, dimply chin, gorgeous baby skin and those edible little folds on his wrist and knees. He's perfectly happy to be passed from grandparent to grandparent to father to grandparent - no such thing as too much attention, according to him. And how special to see our little boy, so gently and lovingly hold his own son. Sigh. A wonderful moment, that's for sure.

Julie had cooked us a lovely lunch which we all sat down to eat, including Philippe (although he didn't actually eat anything, just enjoyed the company). Because Tom was coming down from New York with his girlfriend (who we hadn't yet met), the next day, Julie, Will and Philippe went back to Deerfield beach that afternoon, leaving us to our own devices.

We wandered down to the Publix (sorry but I still think it looks like pubic) supermarket a mere 5 minutes away, to stock up on our supplies. Not many people walk around here. I guess it's because of the temperature and the humidity and also there are not that many walking paths. As there were so few people out and about, we noticed a perfectly normal looking bloke bike past us. When we got to the supermarket, there he was, squatting in a corner of the carpark doing poos! Ewww gross! He must be one of those simple characters that seem to be everywhere. When someone greeted him from across the carpark, he pretended to be talking on his phone - not even sure if it was a phone. Takes all sorts, I guess.

After a simple supper we retired early and with some relief sank gratefully into our bed.

FINALLY. This is what I've come to see.

Julie, Joel, Will and my mokopuna.

Hop on Hop off.

Today we say goodbye to our little ( very) home of the last few days. Our host Leo checked us out and kindly called a taxi for us. I wanted to use the app I had specially downloaded on my phone,Safer Taxis. This app did all sorts of things, except work when I needed it. Never mind. Next time.

We took our bags to the airport where we met Will. He sneaked them into his room at the Holiday Inn, directly across the road.

We then found a Centro Puerto bus, which runs every few minutes outside the terminal and only costs 1500 pesos each ( quite a big jump from 18000 pesos for a taxi). It made only a couple of stops before depositing us at Los Heroes bus station in town, half an hour later.  A 20 minute walk found us at Plaza de Armas once again.

"Goodbye comfy bed."

Leo chats to a friend while waiting for our taxi. He insisted on staying with us so he could direct the driver. He was very kind - or he just wanted to make sure we actually left. Rich lurking in the background.

Ah, the palace again.

The streets are beautifully tree lined. There are a lot of English trees, which Will commented on, saying it was a nice feeling seeing something familiar. Although the Melia, which we have on our back lawn, did spark our hay fever.

Coffee at the Museo.

Street artists in Plaze de Armas

The statue that honours the Spanish conquistador, Valdivia, who founded Santiago in 1541. The statue faces what was once his home and now serves as the main post office. I'm interested in this as I am reading a novel about him by a very famous Chilean author, Isabele Allende. Highly recommended.

We spotted a lad across the Plaza with a Turistik sign strapped to his back. He escorted us to the modest little office down some steps and issued us with our armbands and earphones, made sure we knew what to do and sent us on our way. 

We have done Hop On tours before, and find them a really great way to orientate yourself in a new city and get a feel for the spirit of the place. The best ones have live guides who can answer questions and make you feel you have met a local. Unfortunately this wasn't one of those. It's actually quite hard to concentrate on the canned voice and you are constantly fiddling with your earphones because they don't really fit. Also, it was quite chilly (yes Chile is chilly), and poor Will was dressed for Florida. I'm glad I had my 'warmies' on. 

The start of the tour covered a lot of ground that we had done on foot a few days previously, so we just rode them out; Mercado Central,( the markets) Plaza de la Constitucion, ( Palace), and St Lucia hill.

Carabineros, on horses, with dogs, are more than happy to pose for photos. This girl wasn't getting too close though.

Fish market

Selfie. If I don't put myself I a few photos, I'll never believe I was there.

Stop 5, Providencia. The history of Providencia dates back to 1897 and is directly related to the sisters of the Divine Providence who arrived in Chile from Canada in 1853.  We've heard this story a couple of times, and it's always described as 'amusing'! Didn't make me smile and I'm sure those poor sisters weren't wetting their pants laughing - although they may have been for other reasons. Originally they were supposed to land in Oregon, USA but it was flooded. Not knowing how to return home, they met a Chilean captain who bought them to this remote corner of the world. 

Yep, that's it - end of funny story.

The next couple of stops are in the El Golf district, which is also amusingly known as Sanhattan, a mixture of Manhattan and Santiago. The modern glass towers are mostly less than 20 years old, while the residential area could be up to 50 or 60 years old. It used to be rather exclusive and has a lovely established feel to it. And yes, there is a rather large golf course close by. ( Los Leones Golf Club)

talk about a 'green' building. Not sure how they managed this.

I knew I had a photo of that big tower.

By this time we realised that the tour was going to take longer than promised - probably due to the time of day and traffic, so we had to decide which stops we would stop at. We settled on Parque Arauco, a huge modern mall about half way through the tour. It was really lovely, as far as malls go,inside and outside, different levels, fountains etc,  but a little bit posh for us. We settled on a spot for lunch, right at the entrance. We were quite confused to start with, as to how it worked, but soon figured it out. Grab a tray, point to what you want, go to the cashier and sit yourself down. Unusual here, as even the most basic cafes, you take a seat and are waited on - no paying at the counter before you start.

I lucked out with my octopus. Really good.

Great atmosphere, and more importantly, it was warm

Often, when the bus stopped,some sort of street performer would rush out, hoping to pick up tips thrown from the bus. This girl is waving flags, but we also had various jugglers and dancers.

The zero point in the Plaza de Armas where all distances are measured from.

Kiwi nugget shoe shine guy.

Mooching around at the Holiday Inn while our pilot sleeps.

We managed to get Will back in time to have a sleep. Quite important as he was flying us to Panama in the early hours of the morning. We thought we would amuse ourselves until we flew by hanging out at the airport, the lounge of the hotel, anywhere really, but couldn't keep our eyes open so sneaked into Will's room and trying hard not to disturb him, curled up with him and had a little kip.