New Years!!

December 31 and January 1!!

We spent New Years Eve in Valparaiso and you already know I love the city, and that love spread right into the new year. We celebrated by going to the market and then cooking a roast in the AirBNB. It was a hugely successful meal, especially since the oven didn’t work. So Michael cooked the roast on the stove top. It was delicious and enjoyed by the four of us and Robbert and Charlotte, one of the couples from the cooking class.

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/img_0539.trim_.mov

After the super late dinner, we headed down to the water to see the fireworks. We went complete with a huge jug of water and a few bottles of wine to enjoy the show. Even getting down there was part of the fun. Within a few blocks, we were approached by a few kids who were spraying everyone walking by with flour and confetti.

That bag I’m holding above? It’s a bag of grapes. Chileans have a few NYE superstitions. One is that you have to wear yellow underwear, so, of course, we all did. The streets of Valpo and Santiago have tons of yellow underwear vendors leading up to the last day of the year. Another superstition is that you have to eat twelve grapes at midnight for good luck in the new year. If anyone needs to see it off the blog, I have a photo of Krystal eating all 12 grapes at one time. There were somewhere between 2 and 3 million people down at the water which was just a crazy energy. And then the fireworks!!

There were 16 barges off the coast setting off fireworks. We don’t have too many pictures since we were told to take nothing down to the water – no phone, no wallet, no money. So I got these pictures from Phil/Krystal and Robbert.

An amazing night in a great city!

The next morning, we packed up one AirBNB and headed off to another AirBNB in Aconcagua Valley. Side note: Aconcagua is the tallest peak outside of Asia at 22,837 feet or 6962 meters. We struggled to find the AirBNB after the guard turned us away on accident. But once we finally sorted it out, we arrived at Lupalwe – the mountain home of Andrea and Waldo. It was incredible – a house right out of a Crate and Barrel magazine with an unbelievable mountain view.

We tried to stop at the market to pick up some stuff for dinner, but had a hard time since so much was closed on New Years Day. We showed up to the house with most of the ingredients for Michael to make his bolognese. When we arrived with store bought pasta, Andrea immediately started making homemade pasta for us and opened her extensive kitchen to Michael to complete his dinner.

Here’s a picture of us enjoying our amazing meal – complete with pisco sours (the best he’s ever had per Michael) and a homemade strawberry tart that Andrea whipped up for dessert.

The great hospitality didn’t end for the next couple of days and we really enjoyed this wonderful retreat.

Here’s one of the breakfasts that Andrea had prepared for us – homemade biscuits for Avocado toast with fresh squeezed orange juice and real coffee every morning (although I nabbed the tea most days):

Meat!!! Waldo cooked us some incredible wood fire grilled beef! Note the clever bowls that Andrea thought said soups when she bought and a friend had to correct her English and let her know that she bought soap dishes instead. She loves them too much on the table though to care.

See the wood fired hot tub in the back?

You should all know that many of the pictures that I post in the blog are contributed by other people. This one here was taken by Michael and speaks to how glorious the meat was:

Dinner Selfie:

Thanks to Andrea and Waldo for an incredible stay! We had a blast!