We are back from Chile!

We had a really great time in Chile and the kids loved visiting Gramma and Pappa. I got to talk to them almost every day and they picked us up at the airport when we arrived home. The people in Chile are so kind and friendly and wonderful. The first day, we didn't have money to pay the toll for the road we were on and there was no place to get money so a guy that worked there loaned us $350 Pesos (<$1 USD) for the week and just asked that we repay when we return to the airport to go home. We thought we were good so we just drove on and then ran into another toll station, still without any money! This time, the guy behind us paid. Then, he gave us more money for the next toll so we could pay that too because there are no places to stop in between and then we followed him in to town to repay him and he went out of his way to help us find our hotel in the next town up. It was really amazing! After we got our hotel room, Jeff and I drove down to Valpraiso, an old shipping town built into the surrounding hills. It is so steep, they have funiculars (elevator things) to get people up to their homes. It used to be the biggest shipping port in South America until the Panama Canal was built. Anyway, we were just driving around and I saw a lady in a pink coat with a camera around her neck. I said to Jeffy "Hey... that looks a lot like Susie!" (Susie is the photographer who was hired to do the wedding down there and she and her husband, Paul are our friends). Jeff turned around and sure enough it was Susie and Paul! They had gotten a flat tire while driving around in Valpraiso and stopped at a gas station to get it fixed. Susie later said that no one will fully understand how amazing that was to find each other. It's like randomly finding someone you know in LA. We spent the rest of the day together in Valpo, had a very nice dinner and then returned to our hotel in Concon where we had a suite with a deck and a view of the Pacific Ocean. We decided to meet the next morning - early at my request because I didn't want to waste the whole day sleeping in. Of course, I overslept until almost 11 the next day. I'm a dork, and they'll remind me of that for a long time to come.
Next day in another post.