Today’s post is a weird one. It accounts for 48 hours of our time, yet is only one calendar day. Timezones, man. 

Last night we stayed in a boutique hotel that was once a convent. They kept the vibe, complete with the original names above the rooms, and added some over-the-top religious decor. Overall, very hip and cheeky. 

Millie was up at 3AM saying she heard noises and was feeling scared, which is rare for her. She generally never wakes up in the middle of the night. This morning I made the mistake of searching the name of the hotel followed by the word “haunted” and learned that after it was a convent, it lived as many years as a boarding house where people mysteriously died. I’m generally not a huge believer in this stuff but the energy definitely felt off and I was glad we only stayed one night. 

We packed up and then had 6 hours to kill in Auckland before needing to go to the airport for our flight. We decided on going to a big indoor play place to let Millie burn off some energy and get some playtime in with other kids before we leave this English-speaking part of the world. 

She played for hours, taking only one break to choose and eat an ice cream for ICF.  Nick and I took advantage of the WiFi and booked out our next couple of weeks. We got rental cars and hotels and Airbnbs and flights within and out of Chile. We have a very predictable emotional journey when it comes to planning—overwhelm, annoyance at the cost, questioning, reckoning—and the once everything’s all booked, our feelings shift to excitement.

Playtime got cut short when I heard Millie crying and then saw her crawling towards me, surrounded by concerned girls. She had twisted her ankle on the trampoline. I know how dangerous trampolines can be and had even had the thought “I hope she doesn’t get hurt right before our flight” and then here we were. She limped around dramatically for an hour but seems fine.

We got to the airport 3 hours early (my heaven) and ate a leisurely lunch-dinner. Nick and I treated ourselves to new neck pillows for the 11-hour overnight flight. He kept making me laugh, wearing it like this and asking if he looked like a “classic traveler”.

Our flight took off at 7pm. We made a plan that after dinner service we’d all try to sleep. Millie is so mature these days that it wasn’t a fight. She just took off her headphones, turned off the iPad, and then fell asleep for 7 hours. We got some sleep too thanks to our new neck pillows.

When we landed at 2pm (going back in time 5 hours) we felt surprisingly okay. Tired, but okay. It took us 2 hours to get through the airport and into our rental car.

The drive in was very pretty. Visibility could have been better but still we were amazed by the giant mountains surrounding us.

We checked into our hotel and rested for a while. Millie FaceTimed with my mom, a luxury now that they are one hour apart. We went down to the lobby to get our welcome drinks. We had pisco sours (and raspberry juice) and Nick looked at me and said “we’re back in margaritaville”. It really feels like the long road home.

We went for a walk to move our legs and played on a playground.

Room service for dinner and hopefully a full night’s sleep, even though our body clocks have been turned upside down. We’re staying up as long as we can to fight the jet lag.