{"id":5378,"date":"2018-09-03T12:54:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T16:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=5378"},"modified":"2018-09-03T12:54:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T16:54:45","slug":"chilly-chile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=5378","title":{"rendered":"Chilly Chile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A good find at the wine tasting<\/p><\/div>\n

I flew to Santiago, Chile, last Sunday afternoon and arrived there the following Monday morning – wow, it\u2019s a long flight! It\u2019s winter in the Southern Hemisphere, which was a welcome break from D.C. heat. The mornings were chilly, and I was glad for my beautiful alpaca wrap I bought last spring in Bolivia. It was kind of overcast a lot of the week, but the last day was just glorious – sunny and clear. \u00a0I could catch glimpses of the snow-covered mountains through the tall buildings.<\/p>\n

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View from the rooftop gym at my hotel in downtown Santiago<\/p><\/div>\n

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Santiago at sundown<\/p><\/div>\n

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Only in Chile do you have seven wines to choose from at the airport lounge – and that\u2019s just the reds!<\/p><\/div>\n

Monday evening I went to dinner with the TDY consular chief and his wife – they are both delightful. Friday night, several of us from work went out for an excellent dinner and enjoyed several bottles of wine. \u00a0I happened to catch a nice wine tasting at a liquor store one night and got to sample several really good ones. The prices are incredibly low, even in the restaurants – and boy, what great wine.<\/p>\n

My friend Carla from Pakistan invited me to the Ritz for a spa day on Saturday – we enjoyed massages and the rooftop (glass-enclosed) pool, along with lunch and a little bubbly. We talked so much and time just flew by. Before I knew it, it was time to catch a taxi to the airport, and I got home mid-morning on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Pamela and her family dropped by while they were in the neighborhood – a welcome impomptu visit with them! The kids are getting all grown up!<\/p>\n

John got a great \u201ccongrats\u201d note from our Hendrix College \u201cpeeps\u201d – very clever!<\/p>\n

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Thanks to Hendrix College for recognizing John\u2019s War College success!<\/p><\/div>\n

Today marks the one-year anniversary of losing the funny, wonderful Howard DePietri – what a great guy.<\/p>\n

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Pakistan 2014 with Mike, Ale Petit, and Howie at the Marriott Hotel<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I flew to Santiago, Chile, last Sunday afternoon and arrived there the following Monday morning – wow, it\u2019s a long flight! It\u2019s winter in the Southern Hemisphere, which was a welcome break from D.C. heat. The mornings were chilly, and I was glad for my beautiful alpaca wrap I bought last spring in Bolivia. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5388,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378\/revisions\/5388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}