Day 5 - Are you scratching my Brain??!?

The Harry Potter movie dinner ended at midnight...we will never watch that station again, as about 1/2 the time is commercials (seriously, over 20 in a row).  So, we slept in this morning, heading to breakfast about 9:30am.

About to leave our room, we see two envelopes that had been slid under our door.  Apparently we had to go for Antigen testing from 10:30-11:30.  Well, good thing we didn't have something major planned!

I think our housekeeper thinks we
drink a lot of water???    

So, we had a long breakfast and then went to get tested. There was a bit of a queue, but we were able to meet some of our fellow travelers. There was only one person performing the Antigen test...and she was gentle (disputed!) but "thorough".  I told Bill I'm very happy I was going first, as I would have wanted to go running if I had seen Bill's reaction.  (She stuck the swab in as far as it would go, then made sure by pushing another 1/4", and then began turning!)

For those of you wondering about traveling in this COVID time, we had to do a PCR test within 3 days of leaving the US, then had another PCR test when we landed in Chile. Today was an Antigen test, and we continue to do that every 3 days of the trip. All this, and we're still wearing masks everywhere (including outdoors here in Santiago). 

With the long line, we were done about 12:30...so went back to the room to adjust our packing so we could put bags outside for pickup later tonight.  We debated heading out on the town again...the bad thing about this hotel is that everything is a 15-20 minute cab ride, or a 40 minute walk/metro ride.  So, we decided just to stick near here, enjoy a walk in the sun, and do little other than our wine tasting that was planned.

Hot Dogs...a Chilean specialty?

So, we went looking for food.  When we were looking at foods to not miss in Chile, apparently Hot Dogs was one of the things to try...OK -- why not. They were tasty, but it was more about the toppings than the hot dog itself.  (The dog wasn't hot, and there were a lot of onions on them.  Ehh.)

First course appetizer with White Wine
(I taste flowers!)

By joining the Friends of MO (Mandarin Oriental) group (TY T!), we were able to sign up for a free wine and pairing experience on Monday evening. It was amazing! We don't know if it was because we had a horrible service experience at breakfast (and told the hostess, who was still there at 5PM), so we had a better than normal pairing...but the tasting was great.  We had one white, one red, and one champagne paired with a salmon appetizer, a beef appetizer, and macaroons (the French kind) for dessert.  It was a wonderful way of ending our visit to Santiago!

Second Course - Red wine with stuffed rolled beef

Final course - Macaroons and Champagne

The evening wrapped up with packing, tv, and finishing the oversupply of water!