Viña and Valpo, Chile: As Close to Home As We Could Get While Traveling

After roughly 3 months on the road (we are a bit behind on posting), we have realized that as much as we love traveling and being out and about we definitely miss our family and friends. Living in NYC spoiled us, with A's family being <10 miles away and Z's family only a 3 hour bus ride away, enabled us to go home for any and all holidays that we wanted to. And we love to host, so we have really felt not having a proper kitchen and being able to invite people for meals.

But, luckily for us, our friend Max joined us and he has a Chilean 'family' from when he studied abroad in high school. Together, the 3 of us went to his family ~2hrs outside of Santiago in the town of Vina del Mar. From the moment we walked into their home, we felt like one of the family. It was so nice to have this feeling! So for 5 days we had an adopted set of parents and siblings (don't worry real family we did not replace you). Our 'mom' constantly offered us more to eat and drink. Our 'dad' drove us around the neighborhood and took us to the beach. Our 'brothers' hosted a BBQ and showed us around Santiago for a night. We could not ask for more! To show our appreciation, albeit in a small way, we made lunch for everyone on our last day.

Making sopapillas with our host mom

A lovely bonus to our family weekend was that there are gorgeous beaches near by. Although May in Chile is winter, we had tremendous luck with some 60+ degree sunny days, which allowed us to stroll comfortably along the boardwalk. And Valpariso which is a lovely city where the houses are brightly colored and nestled into the hills. Also all the streets have wonderful graffiti art on them!