Archive for August, 2018

Stepping Into Routines

Friday, August 24th, 2018
Santiago Gym

our Santiago gym

We have joined a gym, go out daily for long walks and groceries, go up and down the apartment stairwell to warm up, sit with our Kindles in a nearby coffee shop, and still we have too much spare time here. Like real retirement? 😉

Dan and I are sometimes “hermited” in our bedroom. When Julia occasionally hosts a lady friend in the living room, we are looking at our phones, catching up on news, politics and Facebook. That said, she spends most of her time in the guest bedroom, into which she has moved so that we could have the master for ourselves.

We take turns using the miniscule kitchen, and sometimes we three share dinner cooked by Dan. Ella es muy simpatica, pero no habla Ingles. Sometimes we are all at our phones taking Duolingo lessons, Julia included.

The apartment is kept quite chilly. Since we’d read about this trend before leaving home, we are prepared and are always in multiple layers of clothing.

    Dan at ValleNevado

We went skiing last Tuesday. It was pretty much a 12-hour day when you added up the commute times to and from. We had the skiing almost all to ourselves, and the groomed runs were fine. But that was a lot of time and effort for the 5 hours of skiing we got.

We considered a return trip to the same place today to ski the fresh new inches of snow, but this front is extremely cold, and we now know there’s no place on the mountain to shelter, so we decided to wait a couple more days.

Dan wondered last night if it would cost too much to fly home early. He is disappointed by the skiing options. I said let’s stick it out with other activities!! He is now researching excursions to the Atacama desert, a wine tasting day trip package and another one to a coastal city.

Today, we are planning a long walk to a park and museum with large Chilean sculptures as soon as it warms up. I downloaded Google Fit– I will be getting my 10 thousand steps again today!

Reality Check

Friday, August 17th, 2018

Looking at rental bikes

We arrived in Santiago, Chile yesterday morning but our skis and luggage didn’t make it due to a tight connection in Dallas. However we were welcomed with open arms by our kind hostess Julia Romero, who is charging us a modest amount to use her spare bedroom for 5 weeks. Now that we’re here, I realize we are using her own master bedroom, which she totally cleared out to accommodate us! This isn’t something she does regularly, but it happened because of a connection involving one of my co-workers’ parents.

Unfortunately, the language barrier is a more  immediate problem then expected, because Julia does not speak English. (Thank goodness for Google Translator!) Day to day communications as we get settled are a daunting prospect for Dan, and even me at my current level. He is feeling a bit down after seeing how difficult the logistics are to go skiing from here, a significant challenge even in a good snow year.

Mountains over Santiago

The Andes are calling

Yesterday was a gorgeous winter day in Santiago. We took the opportunity to stroll the neighborhood, first with Julia and later on our own. We found grocery stores, coffee shops, a dedicated bike path right out the front door, and people going about their daily lives.

The challenge as I see it: Establish a daily routine of exercise and mealtime activities mixed with learning better Spanish and how to live like retired folks. And on the side, of course we can plan excursions.

I have already done a 15-minute workout in the stairwell this morning, going up to the 7th floor and down at various speeds. But with no other clothes to wear, I don’t want to get too sweaty.

After our luggage arrives, our To Do list today includes charging the Bip! metro card, visiting a ski shop and researching the two nearest gyms.