We love you Santiago, Chile

Last week we left the borders of Peru to complete the process of obtaining Mary Allen's Peruvian residential visa. Abigail and Adeline stayed behind in Trujillo with some friends (thanks Dr. Doolittle & Dr. Gates). We chose to go to Santiago, Chile, and it was a great choice! What a beautiful country. We turned our necessary visa work into a vacation and had a wonderful time treating Mary Allen like an only child and seeing the sites of this city of 5 million. Although they are neighbors, Chile is a much more advanced country than Peru. It is much cleaner, has great road systems (the cars actually drive in the lines and have traffic laws), and has clean tap water. In fact, other than the language difference and the beautiful view of the Andes from our hotel window, we felt like we were in New York! It is one of latin America's most modern metropolitan areas. Their subway system was really nice and there were an abundance of really nice shopping malls, resturants and coffee shops. It was a fun get away!
The Palacio de La Moneda (or the"White House" of Chile)
The streets were beautiful and easy to get around.
Mary Allen enjoyed the hotel pool.
Having fun with Santiago's cutting edge art scene.

We even found a restaurant named "Louisiana"(my home state)!
And. . . .the reason why we went. . . to do 30 minutes of paperwork. Here is Mary Allen getting her fingerprints taken at the Peruvian consulate.

We thank God for a safe and smooth trip and protecting our older girls while we were away from them.