dec. 21

When travelling in a foriegn country there are few things more important to keep track of than your passport. whatever you do, don´t lose your stinkin passport. you´d have to go to the u.s. embassy, fill out a ton of paperwork, pay an enormous amount of money and feel like a complete moron.
yesterday we went to the beach for the first time which is pretty amazing since we´ve been here for over a week and are staying only a few blocks from the giant staircase that leads down to it. well, we went down there and went a little north of where all the people were and found a spot where a peruvian family was enjoying the day as well as a couple of beet red european guys. the water was a wonderfull cool temperature as it usually is here and the beach consisted of tiny little pebbles that made a loud hissing sound as they were sucked back into the ocean by the waves. it was quite pleasant all around and after getting thoroughly roasted by the sun without realizing it, we strolled on back to our place.
that´s when i realized that my passport wasn´t in my pocket. my passport has spent every second of every day in my front left pocket since we´ve been here and i knew perfectly well, could visualize clearly, that it was now sitting amongst the pebbles on the beach. that is, of course, if it hadn´t been found and kept for some nefarious action to be carried out in my name, or washed out to sea, or at the very best, picked up by the europeans who would have had to walk past it and turned over to some authorities in which case who knows if i´d be able to track it down. these and all other possibilities were running through my mind as fast as i was running through the street, down the stairs, up the beach, nooooooooo! It was nowhere to be seen, the europeans were gone, the family was gone, all hope was lost. crap! what a dumbass! i lumbered back up the beach, up the stairs, and back toward home grumbling to myself and halfheartedly looking along the ground as i went. i made it back to our street and when i turned the corner, i swear my eyes popped out of my sockets like in the cartoons and my head spun around a couple of times and i had to keep myself from hugging the cop that was standing outside the hostal next to our front gate holding my passport in his hand. serendipity! he didn´t know that i lived next door and was checking to see if i was staying at the hostal. i walked up right before he left. apparently the europeans came through for me afterall. needless to say, i was thrilled and now have a copy of my passport to carry around and lose at will.

dec 18

we took a microbus to central lima today and walked around for ever. i really wanted to find this black market that i heard about but was unable to, i´m sure we´ll try again. cenatral lima is a much didn´t place than miraflores although it´s only a ten minute bus ride awaqy. tons and tons of peole, traffic like crazy, loud stinky. i really like though, lots of awesome food all over and tasty drinks and snacks galore. interesting place. i got an email from mookie just now saying that he´s in peru. he was supposed to be in bolivia but maybe we´ll get to meet up with him sooner than we thought.

dec. 16

wow! it only took 3 days in lima for my stomach to turn upside down and get extremely pissed off at me for some unknown reason. actually, i´m pretty sure it was that sketchy empanada i ate the day before. damn tempting it was i tell ya. i´ve been holed up in the bathroom and bed room for foor days but the skies are blue again my friends. this happened twice before when i was here and in fact it was much worse so i wasn´t too concerned, just really tired of it. maria has been giving her opinion on solutions to rosa but i´ve had to decide against most of them, one included mixing a bunch of wacky stuff with frosted flakes and making a sort of gruel. went ahead and skipped that. she did pick us up everything neede to make emoliente which is a delicious local tea highly praised for it´s cleansing properties. well, i neede some cleansing and luckily i had rosa to help me out with making it.

dec.11

alright! within 24 hours of our arrival here rosa and i had gotten an ampartment in miraflores rented out for a month. miraflores is the fancier part of lima and thus more tourist friendly and of course a little on the expensive side. our little home for the month cost way more than we intended on spending but it was just too nice to pass up. it´s on the roof of a very swet lady named maria´s house and includes our own little kitchen with running water, bathroom with a hot shower, a bedroom and the rest of the roof top. there´s a nice little table with a few chairs under a canopy and since the weather here is awesome i believe we´ll be spending a lot of time there studying spanish. it´s all around quite quaint.
i´ve found once again that the extent of my spanish diminished signifigantly upon my arrival in a spanish speaking country. i do know enough to get by and am enjoying learning more each day, i still get baffled hearing people talk to each other. how the hell do they understand each other. damn, there´s no question mark on this computer! maria has been patient and helpful with our spanish and in other regards as well. she is a very cheerful lady and is excited to help us learn the area, wants to teach us to cook local foods and even offered to go to the market with us so we can learn the nuances and get the best price.
my brain has been going at a hectic pace for the last few days. i have to really focus on what people say to translate it then i usually throw out some spanish of my own in reply and hope for the best. i´m not as timid with speaking to folks as i used to be, i´ve learned that i have to try new words and phrases or i´ll never get better. if they give me a funny look than i know to try something else and try to remember which one was right. the exchange rate is something that i´m also thinking about a lot. you get a little over three soles for every dollar so it´s actually pretty easy to figure and eventually i won´t really have to think about it. all in all, rosa and i both are really excited to be here, our place is way nicer than what we imagined we´d have and it´s a great oppurtunity to learn. we´re about 5 blocks from the beach and about that same distance from a good market, it´s sunny, warm...... geez, what can i say

i started a blog

well, i guess i started a blog. i don't like that word and havent had the need or desire to use it very often until now. i'll be going to peru very soon and figure this is a way to keep folks who may be interested updated on my travels. really, i just hope to avoid sitting at little internet cafes for very long sending emails. hopefully, i'll keep this thing relatively fresh with posts but i can't make any promises. alright, if your reading this then your probably someone i care about so hello, i hope you are well.