Crítica Gastronómica

My family has asked me to be the food critique for our trip. As we mentioned already- meat empanadas from El Meson are our favorite. Time for another review. Last night we went to a restaurant called La Brasa it was really good food, and here is my opinion of the food;

1. yucca ( delicious )
2. black beans(really good )
3. red beans(not as good as the black beans)
4. platanos( okay)
5. rotisserie chicken(delicious)
6. yellow rice(very good)
7. yucca dipping sauce(very good with the yucca)

here is some tips about the food: if you blend the yellow rice with the black beans it tastes really good and I would also recommend with the yucca dipping it in the dipping sauce even if it does not look so good it tastes very good with the yucca

buen provecho, Grace

The Road Less Travelled...

photo from here

I've just finished a half-hour conversation with our insurance agent, the 3rd such call in the last week.  He was very helpful, but I felt sorry for the poor guy.  What we are doing seems to be quite unusual.  Diplomats, military folks, academics, retirees -- they all do stuff sort of like what we're doing, yet when we try to explain our plan to folks like poor Edward at the insurance company, we get blank stares and confusion.

What we ended up with for insurance, by the way, is a cobbled-together policy that actually costs a bit more than our usual home insurance, and offers far less coverage.   It's due to the fact that we're renting out our house to strangers, yet leaving all of our stuff in it.

This is a good place to mention the one book we've found that has been super helpful:  The Family Sabbatical Handbook, by Elisa Burnick.  It's full of practical advice about how to prepare, what to expect, and so on.  It's the bible of the take-your-family-abroad community.

The internet is full of good stuff too, of course.  Over the next few weeks we'll try to build our 'blogroll' of cool sites we've found, by folks that are doing similar things.

Ayúdame!

I have been wondering what to do with all of my Halloween candy.

My mom says that I cannot take it with us to Chile and I cannot eat all of that

candy before we go. I need suggestions! Post a comment below.

Theo

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It's official!

Well, I purchased our plane tickets today. So, it's official. We head to Chile on January 11, 2011. It feels like another milestone in the process of our dream turning into reality (although the price of 4 tickets to Chile was maybe a little too much reality).

The funny thing about purchasing tickets for a year's stay is that airlines only post flights around 330 days ahead. So we are having to purchase round trip tickets with a return in October and knowing that we'll have to change the dates to a return next December. Changing ticket dates can cost up to $250 per ticket (for 4 tickets that adds up), so the travel agent who helped me today specifically directed me to two foreign airlines which only charges $50 per ticket to change dates. Who knew?

So despite the protestations of my 95 year old grandma Verna that we must be crazy... come January we're heading out!
-Laura

3 Cheers for Dad!

Do you have home improvement projects that you’ve been wanting to tackle forever? We have 11 years of those projects in this 100-year-old house. It’s not that bad, but it’s been tough for these two working parents to keep ahead of the house project list.

Now that I’m done with my work at Joyce Preschool, I’ve turned my attention to getting our family and our house ready for next year. There’s lot to do in preparation and we continue researching living and study options in Chile. As for the house, we are getting it ready to rent in January. I’m happy that my dad, Chuck, is available and is great with home projects. So every week, Chuck and I are doing some of those little projects that have been on the list for awhile- some plaster repair, some paint touch-up, etc.

It’s great. Such satisfying and immediate results! Fixing a couple things up, in addition to decluttering, throwing out, and in general cleaning up the whole house, means that the house will look like we’ve always wanted it to... right before we move out! Thanks for the all the help Dad!

- Laura

Top 3 things you (and I) didn't know about Chile

image from Wikipedia

The kids and I were curious about the globe image below, and the portion of Antarctica depicted as part of Chile.  According to Wikipedia, Chile claims the shaded portion of Antarctica, between 53°W and 90°W longitude, but they are signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, by which they and other countries have agreed not to fight about it.

Three of the eleven children born in Antarctica are Chilean (the rest are Argentine).

Chile is rated a 0.58 on the Digital Access Index, the best in Latin America.