Day 9: Catching You Up

These past couple of days, we dropped like flies. First it was me. I know, I know, in the last post I said I was doing better. I was WRONG! The next day it was Javier. But don´t worry, this time we are totally fine (knocking on wood).

We went to a waterpark that was recently built in Lima. It´s actually more of a water-fountain park. There are like 20 fountains built on the park and people walk around and admire them. There are about 2 or 3 big fountains that are interactive and you´ll find all the Peruvian children running around in them. The water jumps around, gets bigger, then smaller etc., etc. When I first walked in, I thought, ¨What a waste of water...¨ It´s a long way away from the days when I came to Peru as a child and there were signs everywhere saying, ¨Conserva cada gota¨(Conserve each drop) or something like that. Once I got over this mental shift I realized what this park really was. It was a big piece of propaganda that the mayer was using to show how much he had improved Lima. Inside of a tunnel in the park, there were many before/after images of all the construction efforts that he had sanctioned. Starting at 7:00 pm. there was a water show that included music, lasers, pictures, and of course water. It was similar to the hydro jet show in front of the Bellagio in Vegas, except this laser show had a lot of Peruvian nationalism in it. At the end of the show the mayers´slogan appeared very simply: ¨Construyendo¨ (constructing) and ¨Cuidad de Lima¨. Then of course followed the many sponsors: Inca Cola, Telefonica, etc. I realize I´m putting an emphasis on the whole propaganda thing, but in all honesty, it´s true. Lima does seem to be getting better, and I guess you need propaganda to get the word out.

I visited my grandma and took some of my family out to lunch as has now become customary. One of my closest cousins in Peru was able to come with her 1 yr old daughter. She is a CUTE baby! I don´t say that too often about babies. Trust me, there are some oogly babies out there. She has her Daddy´s slanted eyes and they each slant downwards at what seems like a 45 degree angle. At one point she was just staring at me and she looked too perfect to be human. I couldn´t figure out where I had seen her eyes before other than on her father. There was someone else she was reminding me of. Then..... I got it!


Cindy Loo Who! From Whoville of course. Separated at birth. Of course, she´s the Peruvian version (Cyndia-Lucia-Ju, De Jubilla) .

After the lunch we went with my cousin and her husband to a place on the beach called La Herradura, where a band called Revolver was playing. They played a mix of music, including English. I decided to film while they covered a song that reminded me of my Dad, originally sung by Los Iracundos. The reason it reminded me of him is because growing up, I was always woken up on my Saturdays and Sundays by either of 2 things: A vacuum that suddenly opened my door and whirled loudly around my room and under my bed (fueled my mom-power of course) and suddenly disappeared, OR the sound of the living room radio BLASTING and I mean BLASTING nostalgic songs from my fathers´past. Now, those songs have indirectly become a part of my past due to the blasting music seeping into my subconsiousness in mid-sleep.

The band sang pretty good, but they butchered the English songs. People in Peru can´t tell if you´re singing the song right. If it sounds good, they must be singing it right. I on the otherhand, knew exactly how bad they were butchering Robbie Williams´¨Lovin´angels instead¨. It´s too bad too. I really liked that song. Now it will always remind me of that time we heard the band Revolver in Peru.

(That´s my newest piece of jewelry. My mother inlaw taught me how to make a necklace designed with a slight curve in the middle. Seems simple enough, but boy is it complicated when you are just learning. Beading seems to be a blend of math and geometry, for me at least.)

English music is extremely common in Peru. Every taxi that I´ve ridden in plays English music. Even when we went to a travel agency to secure our trip to the jungle, they were playing English music. The young lady that helped us with our itinerary was singing along to a Pink song and I couldn´t help but hang on her every word. It was funny. You know when you don´t know the words to a song, it´s funny. But on top of that, when you don´t know the language and have an accent, it´s hilarious. She basically sang like she didn´t know for the entire song.

So we´ve got our itinerary ready. We´re going to the Amazon jungle for 4 days and 3 nights beginning on the 15th. We had a heck of a time trying to pay for it though. They wanted everything in cash, but we´re 9 people. Only two of which are paying for the trip. They charge an 8% fee to use your card. After a lot of back and forth with itinerary, flight, and price adjustments, we were ready to pay and guess what: they only accept Visa. Ugh! Neither of us brought Visas this time. It´s true: Life takes Visa... so does Peru. I won´t go into everything that happened but after running around Lima for awhile we found a way to pay for our trip.

I don´t remember everything on the itinerary right now, but I can tell you that we´re going to see some gray and supposedly pink dolphins, a secluded monkey island, a town that´s built on top of water (kinda like a tribal Venice if you want to make it all romantic), and lots of other stuff. I can´t wait!

Today we decided to go to the beach with the fams. We went to Asia... no silly, not that Asia. A town called Asia that is an hour and a 1/2 away from Lima on bus. It´s supposedly a very popular tourist area known for beaches and clubs at night. Ehhh, cosi-cosi, mas-o-menos, so-so, whatever language you say it in: it was OK.

First of all, we got off the bus too early..... don´t even get me started. Then we asked a street vendor lady where the beaches are. She proceeds to tell us that here all the beaches are private and they will not let you in unless you are a resident. Then a taxi comes by and tells us that it´s not private and he can take us there for 4 soles (The current exchange rate is roughly 3 soles for every 1 dollar). Then the lady tells us he´s lying to get 4 soles, then another taxi comes to argue with the first taxi yelling, ¨Why would you lie to these tourist for 4 soles, man... blah blah blah¨ What a scene.

Anyway, somehow the second taxi got us to go with him just ¨check it out¨. I saw a BIG sign at the entrance that spelled out ¨Residentes¨. After some discussion with the police officer at the gate (us being tourists and my father inlaw being a retired police officer). They let us in. It was kinda cold, really windy, and they didn´t let you bring food or use the ¨resident´s umbrellas¨. Like I said, ehhh. But there you go.

So that´s what I´ve been up to.

Ciao for now!

Day 5: Paint Ball and Jewelry Making

My stomach is feeling much, much better these days. I let my mother inlaw know that I was not feeling well, and I blamed the Coca candy to spare her feelings about food. Honestly, I´m not sure what was doing me in, but I think it was the Caldo de Gallina from Mi Caracochita. Anyway, it never got bad enough to need meds, so I just ate lightly for a day & 1/2.
I suggested to my husband that he take his son to play some paintball. I thought it would be great for father/son bonding. Unfortunately, they dragged me along too. But not to worry... I didn´t actually play. Instead I donned a helmet and entered the fighting ring like the media in Iraq... just to take photos and document the event. Don´t get me wrong, I still did my share of running and dodging (they didn´t give me the army fatigues, so I was protecting my cute outfit.) It was hard to see clearly with that helmet on, so as I captured some footage, I noticed in the viewfinder of my camera, that my husband´s riffle was starting to point to me, inch-by-inch. I was so into filming, that I hadn´t noticed that his son had run behind me for protection.

¨Don´t shoot! Don´t shoot! ¨ I screamed as I threw my hands up in the air.

Thank God my husband knew what was best for him, and he did not pull his trigger.

By the time we got home I was dying because of a blister on my foot. Because I am not a heavy sandal wearer, I tend to blister easily if I don´t wear socks. All the walking, running, and ducking took it´s toll on my foot. I realized when I got home, that I did not bring any band aids. That is the first item that I forgot to pack. You know you´re always going to forget to pack something. For me so far it is: band aids, night cream, a nail clipper (my nails look horrible), tweezers and enough shorts. Other than those few items, I´m doing OK. I don´t know what I´m going to do about the tweezers though. I don´t want my brows getting bushy. If it comes down to it, I think I´ll give threading a go. One of the many things that I´ve learned to do because of Youtube.

This morning I awoke to the house being practically empty. They were all going to the hospital again and I stayed this time because it didn´t make any sense for me to wait for them outside again. Alone in the house I was able to get some stolen moments with my addiction: Youtube. Ahhh. I was able to get my fix and catch up with a few of my subscriptions before everyone got back.

When they finally got back it was lunch time and again with the large portions. My mother inlaw cooked Escabeche de Pollo (A chicken with sliced red onions in vinegar and a purplish chili) This is one of my favorite plates so I didn´t have a problem with it, though it took me some time to finish.

Afterwards, I decided to work on perfecting my tan. Man, it was a hot day. When I´d had too much sun, I sat in the shade and my mother inlaw brought out her jewelry making arsenal. She had noticed a necklace I had been wearing on the first day and told me that she had enrolled in a class to learn how to make jewelry. Though I mostly work with wire, any kind of jewelry making fascinates me so today she taught me how to make bracelets. Here are the two that I made. What do you think?

The wooden one is more my style. I think that when I get home, I can mix this techique and wire together to make some awesome jewelry combinations. I asked my mother inlaw to show me how to make that orange ring last. She said it was the most complicated. Therefore, after I make a ring, I will have graduated!

Day 3: Hospitals and Mosquitos

I woke up pretty early this morning... or should I say that I was awoken early today. 6:00 am Peruvian time, which means 3:00 am American time. I still have my watch set to American time, so I don´t forget my roots. Sometime around 3:00 am Peruvian time (12 am American) I was battling it out with a mosquito that had infiltrated the bedroom. The mosquito won and I think it is still hanging out in our bedroom. When we got up, my husband had been attacked three times. As for me, not once. I think the mosquito doesn´t like blood sugar infused with McDonalds. I don´t know what else it could have against me and my blood. But if that is the case, I´ll have to eat some more Mickie D´s.

Well we got up early to run a few errands with my father in law. He is a cancer survivor and though his cancer is in remission, he still feels the effects from the quimo-therapy (I´m sure that I spelled that so wrong). So we were off to Lima´s most renound hospital for cancer: Something something Neoplasticas... My father in-law didn´t want me to enter the hospital because he was afraid of the germs so I waited outside with my brother in-law and I guess you can call him my step-son, though we are more like friends, and I can never consider myself a step-mom. It took at least 2 hours for my father in-law to get back and in that time I saw many faces walking by. A lot of people that walked by had signifant hairloss and were therefore wearing fashionable headwraps. What hit me most was when I saw toddlers with the same look. The old-fashioned, typical Peruvian look is the chola look as seen here:

Many cholas walked by as well. A definitive feature of the chola is her 2 long braids. Sadly, one chola that walked by had completely lost her braids. Hanging out at the hospital is never a fun experience.

After leaving the hospital having acheived nothing other than losing 2 hours of our morning, we had some lunch at a famous chain restaurant called ¨Mi Caracochita¨. I wasn´t that hungry because here they feed me like crazy so I thought I´d order something light. A ¨Caldo de Gallina¨ (hen soup, basically chicken soup). To my surprise the bowl was big enough for a family size portion so I had no resolve but to eat the entire thing.

We continued to run errands and along the way I saw a Qori (golden retriever) and thought about my sweetums for a bit. Though, I hear he is fine and ate yet another 2 cans of dog food! I also hear his master bathroom remodel is complete (the backyard fence) so now he´s livin large.

We bought an Aloe plant and honey because the witch doctor told us that a concoction using these items would bring better health to my father in law. My husband proceeded to make POUNDS of this concoction. He tends to go a little overboard with these kind of things. I think we will all be drinking this stuff for days to come. We bought the Aloe plant in some place called Ägraria¨. It probably translates to agrarian, which in turn means farming. There they sell many cultivated products including many natural herbs and natural healing medicines. When my husband came back with the Aloe plant, he handed us each a piece of candy that he bought. It was Coca Candy. Made from the cocaine leaf. I had to spit it out after just a few seconds. I can drink the Coca tea, but this candy was just too gross.

We didn´t ride in any taxis today because my brother in law was available to take us out and about. He honks too. And I noticed another thing: Instead of intersections, most sub-districts enlist the use of what they call an övalo¨ which is a big round-about with 4 tangent exits on each side. As mentioned in the previous blog, to exit on the right, they somehow miraculously come from a few lanes over from the left while space and time is running out. I am still studying this phenominon and how it is that few accidents occur. To the foreign eye, the round about seems like one big circle of confusion, chaos, and disorder, but somehow they all make it work. Here is a picture of the övalo¨nearest to the house:

Apart from these round-abouts being a big waste of space, notice anything familiar? There is a Starbucks, Chilis, Burger King, AND a McDonalds on the corner of this övalo¨. I took a picture of the McDonalds because it had the McCafe that my sister raved on and on about while she was in Italy. Looks like Peru even has one too. I wonder why these are not popular in the US? Is Starbucks too much competition?

Sorry for the poor quality, but it´s hard to take good photography while on the road in Peru. Also, it doesn´t help that people keep warning you that your nice camera can get stolen right from the window of the car... sheesh.

I also went to a nice mall and from afar, I saw a MAC counter! We had to leave, but I´m left wondering what the prices are like here. You would think that you can get stuff cheaper in Peru, but apparently brand names actually cost you more! Still... I´m left wondering... What if... What if it is cheaper.

I will have to check it out when I go back there. For now, it´s 7 pm here in Peru and I hope that they don´t feed me again. I remember the first trip here to my inlaws was horrible. Well, only in respect to the food. They fed me so much and so often that I didn´t have a chance to get hungry. By the middle of the trip, I swear I wanted to become vegetarian. Veggies just seemed lighter than what I was eating. I almost got that feeling again today. My stomache is starting to get affected. I plan on just having some tea and taking it easy. But I wouldn´t be surprised if I´m told that the solution to this is a glass of Aloe concoction and a piece of Coca Candy...

Missing my baby...

Everything went so fast: Christmas, New Years, and now it´s January 3rd and I´m in Peru... This was very difficult for me at first. I just didn´t want to leave Qori behind for 3 whole weeks. Eventhough he´s being taken care of by his aunt, and even though he is hanging out with his best friend Mokee, and even though nothing is changing for him other than my absence... I was in total despair before my flight. I cried and hugged him, told him that I would be back soon and how much I would miss him...caressing his golden face while he slept like an angel on the bed. I was quiet at the airport, sullen through the checkpoint, and reflective at the gate... But I´m much much better now... His aunt sent me her blog entry. He ate two cans of dog food, went to the best dog park in town, and woke up to his aunt scratching his belly. I realize that I overreacted... And according to his aunt... the blog entry was supposed to help me ¨chillax¨. I can´t help it though. I´m turning more and more into my mother every day.

So now that I´m here in Peru, it is so HOT. It´s nice to leave behind winter. I´m going to be lounging by the pool tomorrow. Yup, those are my plans. We went to see a witch doctor today...just for a consultation (the sister of my husband´s Peruvian friend in the US). My husband was thinking about a ¨cleansing¨. He told her it would be for the 2 of us and his parents. I was a bit surprised. I never thought about what my stand would be on witch doctors. I thought about it some as the witch doctor blabbed on with her hokey song and dance. So I decided it might be fun... But if we do it, I will only do it if no animals are harmed. (I have no idea what it entails, but when I think of it for some reason animal sacrifices come to my mind. That would not be a cleansing for me... to the contrary, I would feel tainted.)

We´ve also been in a lot of taxis today. I realized that in order to operate a motor vehicle in Peru, it is mandatory that you honk your horn for every little thing. In turn, there is a lot less road rage in Peru because you already KNOW that you´re going to get honked at, so you don´t get offended and flip someone the bird. I´ve been studying the art of taxi manuevering in Peru by observing the Peruvian taxi man in his natural environment, and here´s what I found that they use their horn for:
to warn when:
-they are coming up to a blind intersection
-they are coming up to an intersection and do not plan on observing the stop sign (they just roll right through every time!)
-they are planning to run a red light
-they are going to make a right turn from the 3rd left lane over while going super duper fast and there is not much road left (everyone does this... I don´t know how there are no accidents!)
-there is a pedestrian in the road that they could possibly hit (they don´t slow down... they expect the pedestrian to walk faster)
-they are about to move 1/3rd into the other guy´s lane (while the other guy is still in that lane!)Then they simultaneously drive together in the same lane within 12 inches of each other. All the while the other guy is perfectly fine with this.

There´s more but I don´t want to bore you. In regards to that last bullet though... I think I´ve figured it out. Though I think more studies are in order. I´ve decided that in Peru, there is no such thing as lanes. Those white dashes on the ground are merely ¨guidance marks¨. Thus allowing Peruvian taxis to optimize a conventional American three-lane road into a Peruvian four-lane road (where each guy is 1/3rd into the other guy´s lane)and a faux extra lane is created. This is just my theory though.

Well, it´s been a long day. More Peru updates later. And sorry if this is written poorly or doesn´t make sense. I was dozing off at the witch doctor´s (and I wondered if she had done something to me) so I´m pretty tired. Also, it´s kinda hard to type on Peruvian keyboards. You would think it´s the same, but there are subtle differences that keep messing me up!

Which is Cuter?

It's that time of year again.... Time to take Christmas photos. Since my sister is a photographer (not of the paparazzi kind), I get to take free, semi-professional photos. They usually consist of me, my husband, and fuzzy Qori.

So this year, I thought I'd be a little festive and wear a Santa Hat. Then I thought, "Well, since I have a Santa Hat, Qori is going to need something too!" So I thought about some reindeer antlers, but Mokee already did that (and he pulled it off better than Qori could because Mokee looked like a Moose). So I went with an Elf outfit. But as we were trying on our new outfits I realized, Qori could pull either off. Although the Christmas photo will have Qori as an Elf (because that tiny hat won't fit on my head), I was wondering.... Which do you think is cuter?

Please take a moment to vote on the poll in the side bar, even if you're just stopping by on this blog.

Bye!

Turkey Anyone?

While in the Oakland Hills today, I stumbled upon a unique sight. From our parked car, I noticed a turkey calmly walking down the hill. He seemed stunned from the flash of my camera at first, but it didn't stop him from walking right by my car (all while keeping his left turkey eye on me of course).
In fact, even when a car came racing up the hill, do you think it deterred this turkey? Hecks no! He kept his model-like posture (I think it was his long legs) and cocked his head and gobbled as the car past him by, as if to be saying, "Gobble Gobble you're getting a little too close there, buddy... Gobble...!"

Verification

I just started my first blog and had to do the word verification. Is it just me, or do you feel like you're taking a test that you may fail? Doesn't it look like there's an extra letter between the "p" and the "z"? Perhaps an "i"?

Not to fear, I passed the test for your blog-reading pleasure...