I received the most highly anticipated birthday gift of my life a few weeks ago. That's right, my birthday is in April and six months later my birthday package full of lots of goodies arrived, sent from my brother and sis-in-law.


You see, they sent it way back when I was living in Santiago. We waited and waited for it to come and it never showed. Eventually I left Santiago, but still called my apartment building every week to see if it had arrived. Nope. It never came and I eventually stopped calling. About 5 months later I get an email from my previous landlady. She said the building had called her and told her they had a package for me! You can imagine how surprised I was to hear this. Not only that it had ever arrived, but that they made the effort to try and get it to me. She told me they would give it to any gringo that came to ask for it. So I called on my very helpful friends in Santiago to pick it up for me. I had no idea how I would ever get it from them but at least I would know where it was. They got it for me and a few weeks later they had a friend traveling to Concepcion who brought it down. He ended up leaving it at his hotel for me to pick up.


So six months later my package, passed through who knows how many hands, finally arrived. It had the tape all around it that lets you know customs opened it so they must have been the ones who slowed things down. Shannon thinks she put velveeta cheese in the package and maybe that is what they stopped it for. It was not in the package but we will never really know.


When I finally got to open it I was so thrilled. There were so many great goodies inside including the highly prized hand made converse all star house shoes. Those of you who know my sis-in-law will not be surprised at how cute they are but really, they are so adorable and I almost don't want to wear them for fear of messing them up.


Thanks for the birthday gifts. You better go ahead and send my gifts for next year now! :)