day one

i arrived in lima at 0430 this morning and it´s been fun so far. there´s so much i could write but a lot of it is just story telling and i can´t hog the computer for that long. so here are some random thoughts so far:

• did you know that lima has a potato research institue? met a guy from the netherlands who was coming to lima to do an internship term at the PRI. apparently it´s a very well known centre within the potato research world. who woulda thunk.
• dallas fort worth (?went) airport is VERY entertaining. my two and half layover flew by. they have five terminals right now (with room to expand to six) that are connected by a sky-train type of deal thing. so i went around the whole thing once. and then walked through each terminal once. and there were SO many food options. had a super tasty yogurt smoothie. good times at the dallas airport.
• the miami airport - not very amusing. was bored out of my brains and not a lot of places to get food. i was not impressed. but finished a book (¨the reader¨ and i can´t remember the author´s name. it was interesting)
• my hostel is in miraflores (just outside of lima). wandered around miraflores for a while. found a sweet bubble tea place (no, nessa, not the one you told me about - i´m gonna look for that one tomorrow). and bbtea was only four sols! that´s like, not even $1.50CDN. SOOO cheap. and yummy. AND the guy who owned the place looked at me and said, ¨ni hao?¨ i was SO excited and chatted with the guy in mandarin for a bit. asked him about chinatown in lima (it´s the biggest one in south america, i think). he told me how much the cab ride there should be and made me promise to leave by 1700 as it gets more dangerous. so i wandered around some more and then found me a cabbie who would take me to barrio chino.
• driving here is INTENSELY crazy and aggressive. i´m tempted to say it´s even a little more crazy than china but it´s been a while since i´ve been in china, so i may just not remember properly. anyways, thought i was going to die a few times.
• some car horn beeps are friendly (i.e. just letting other drivers know you´re there) while others are angry
• using your signal lights is just a gesture. if you really want to change lanes, you just keep inching toward the car you´re trying to cut off and then it becomes a game of chicken
  
• i can jaywalk here and not get ticketed!!!!!!
• slight flaw with plan to just find chinese speakers - there weren´t that many chinese people in chinatown. seriously. i saw MAYBE half a dozen in chinatown today. all i heard was spanish. no chinese. so i was a little choked. wandered around. got lost. but found my way back.
• should remember to bring a map with me on my trips into town instead of just looking at it before and then thinking ¨i should bring this with me¨
• ceviche - a fish dish and the fish is raw! SOOOO yummy. mmmmmm...
• beer is cheaper than water
• i didn´t take as many pictures as i wanted to because i didn´t want to look like a lone tourist and then get jumped (i know, i´m being paranoid, but still...)
• apparently i do blend in quite well here. i had a handful of people start talking to me in spanish and another guy was asking me for help and all i could do was look at him with a regretful look on my face, shrug my shoulders, shake my head and say,¨lo sientos. no espanio.¨
• trying to communicate in a language that you know all of a dozen words in (and not all of them are used together) is super tiring and frustrating. my brain hurts.
  

and that´s it. i was planning on busing it down to arequipa tomorrow but met an irish guy who is stopping by...i can´t remember the name of the town...but some town that was demolished in a recent earthquake. anyways, might join them and help clean the place up or do something. plans aren´t set in stone. so hopefully it works out.

k, someone else needs to computer now. until next time...