25 hours later… finally arrived in Santiago

So where do I begin.. I am in Santiago de Chile, kinda tired of the 25 hour trip, the new surroundings, all the palmtrees, the winter, the language almost everything, and, obviously, a bit of a Jetlag. My Laptop still tells me the Amsterdam European Time ( 1:00 am) even though here in Santiago it’s just 7pm. Because were on the southern part of the earth it’s winter and with this the sun sets pretty early (around 6pm), which does not really help overcoming my jetlag.
 

Let’s start at the beginning…

Latam godess airplane for my 12,5 hour flight :)

The night before leaving I had a nice dinner with friends and an unexpected meeting with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Leaving later then intended I figured doing an online Check-In would be a good idea, next to organizing all kinds of last minute stuff I thought still would have time to be finished. But as my flight was overall organized by LATAM but the flight from Frankfurt to Milan was organized by Air Berlin and carried out by Alitalia I could not check in at any of the websites. Despite this dilemma (which in the end wasn’t a big deal after all) I had to arrange how to get from one airport in Milan to the other as it wasn’t just a carryover. With a Shuttle just driving until 16:30, which was useless as we arrived at 16:15, and I still needed to check out my luggage etc and very unclear information on the internet about other ways I kinda had a mental breakdown, tried not to cry and wondered why I was even doing this crazy journey. In the end I couldn’t have thought how great and already enriching my trip would be like.

The next day, after like max 2,5h of sleep and nerves that were almost unbearable and which made it almost impossible to eat I was driven to the airport by my lovely aunt and a very close friend I know since we’re little. My first experience with the flight personal was really nice, a stewardess which probably also was an awesome mom took away most of my worries by confirming, that I will do fine changing airports and that there is almost nothing to go wrong. Further she told me about a very awesome marked at the foot of a volcano where it was possible to get almost everything, which made it a bit easier to look forward to come here.

On the plane to Milan I already had my first two enriching experiences: First I was lucky to have a nice business man sitting next to me telling me all about his exciting travel experiences due to work and which way would be the easiest from one airport to the other. In addition to this, after landing we figured that me and another girl BOTH had to switch airports and… who had thought so.. both had to go all the way to Santiago de Chile.  If that wasn’t enough we both love Latte Macchiato (basically milk with an attempt of coffee :D ), traveling, talking and we kinda also just had the *CLICK*. Caro and me could share a cap from one airport to the other and from there on go through this first Chile adventure together. 

After a good while of sitting and waiting at Malpensa airport we couldn’t believe what we saw when we entered the plane. Even though the first thing you see is a business lounge, also the economy class was enlightened by a nice violet indirect shine. This later turned out to come in handy when starting to adjust to the new time zone you’re flying into, because the served dinner at 12:00pm ( so like 6pm in Chile)  the lights were dimmed a bit later and we found ourselves sleeping around 1-2 am (Amsterdam time zone). I must admit, food from LATAM was great and in general I can just recommend flying with them considering service.

5am on the plane – DESAYUNO No 1 – after a night of more or less sleep I’m again surprised by the quality of food they have on the plane and that it might have been an really good investment I did, when buying the not really cheap ticket to Chile. A bit later we had a stop in Sao Paulo which let us feel the Winter for the first time. I guess I didn’t really remember how cold 12°C can be and that in Latin America almost no place (also not the airport) will be heated. Prepared as I was I took my nice read winter jacket and my scarf and built almost a tent around myself. People knowing me will recognize this as I am cold like all the time and additionally I started with 29°C in Frankfurt and Milan. In my last flight from Sao Paulo to Santiago I had another breakfast "Desayuno 2", that was a weirdly sweet tasting croissant (which had more the consistency of German "Butterhörnle") with ham and cheese. To be honest, in the end it didn't matter what it was they served - I was hungry so I ate it and my plan was anyways to eat a lot of food I just don't know yet.
All in all  the whole trip went awesome and like 1000times better than expected. From in seat entertainment to spa like lightening there was nothing to complain about (except of the Asian people next to me making weird movements while sleeping maybe :P ).

Just before arriving in Santiago Chiles Nature shows it best side

In the end I was picked up by a friend of a friend who is so friendly to let me warm her Couche for my first days. Due to this I didn’t have to organize a taxi adventure and get lost in this enormous city. I guess I’m still not totally aware of the dimensions of this city and country, but all I saw on a documentary (thanks to the in seat entertainment) and the great Andes I could enjoy from the window of the airplane, already show me that 6 month might even not be close to the time I’d need to truly discover this diverse country. Yet I will have enough time for the most important things to discover.

 


Oh I almost forgot – I had my first PISCO and typical chilean dinner – what Pisco is, and why I should extremely careful with it I’ll tell another time. For now my Jetlag sadly is killing me but probably tomorrow it will be a lot better already. 

Muchos Besos,

Leonie

PS. Considering my earlier post - there was no problem with the VISA yayyy! Probably they thought I just have a good face creme so I do not look that old :P