S. America bound

I aim to resurrect this little blog for the next few months.  Our family heads to S. America tomorrow, and it seems like a good place to record a few of our (my) thoughts.

We fly to Santiago, Chile, first, then quickly escape town.  I'm sure it's a lovely town, but with three littles (8, 5 and 4) I think we'll all be happier someplace further from cars.

The kids are pretty unfazed by this whole thing, so far.  A few misconceptions we've had to clear up to achieve this unfazed status:

1.  There will be no lions attacking our village.
2.  Although everyone around us will be speaking Spanish, we (hubs and I) will still be speaking english.  I.e., they still get to speak English to us.
3. We are not moving.  We are, in fact, coming back.

We depart tomorrow at ~3 pm on a a 15 hr. journey south.  A red eye, which  I expect will be terrible.

My own misconception, discovered yesterday:
Santiago is, in fact, 3 hrs AHEAD of us.  In my mind, the west coast of S. America and the west coast of N. America were at the same longitude.  In fact, totally not.  Despite looking at many maps in my day, this key fact escaped me.  I argued with MJ about this, not extensively but enough that I am embarrassed.

We have packed 2 suitcases and our individual carry-ons for the trip.  I spent 2 hrs tonight looking for my misplaced prescription medication.  I am (sort-of, kind-of, at a totally healthy level) panicking about our departure.  Today it dawned on me, that, although I have travelled a lot, I have not travelled for very long.  My longest trip was Bosnia, deployment, for 4 months.  EVERY other trip has been shorter than this.  Which is epic, in my mind, because they were all so monumental in my memory.

Additionally, although I have travelled to places where I barely speak the language, I have not done so when I have little people depending on my abilities.

That being said, I did not have the technology that I now have during previous trips.  Should make life easier?  I hope.

I have the slightest hesitation posting about all our travels on social media.  But have decided that between a house sitter and an alarm system, we are probably fine.  But, y'know, please spare us the stress of break-ins?

Alrighty.  Farewell.  See y'all soon.