It was
the best of times, it was the worst of times. So my 1st full day in Lima, got
up ready! figuring out this will be the day! Go downstairs for breakfast and I
open the door to verify the iPhone weather which called for partly sunny skies
and some clouds, to my horror it gray and drizzling....aka Seattle
weather...boomer! No sweat I think this is adventure if I get fix, cup of
coffee, things will start rolling in the right direction. I have my breakfast
coffee and an egg sandwich. I have no soles, aka Peruvian dinero, so I head out
in search for a bank to perform the dollar conversion. After walking for about
half an hour I spot a bank and go over ask for the conversion rate and it is
3.065 soles to the dollar, I walk over to the next bank and it is 3.075. So I
make the change and as I walk back to pick my backpack I go past a money
changer @ 3.14soles to the dollar. Crap!!!! I cry why didn't I walk this way
1st? oh well! S#@t happens. so I head back to the crib pick my bag and head out
to pick a Matatu aka minibus as part of my transportation. Now mind you, boy
genius here forgot to do his homework and Spanish? nada! so am at the bus stop
and I see the hwy signs with an arrow pointing up ahead and the word LIMA next
to it. so I wait at the bus for about 15mins minibus/bus come and go and none
says Lima,most say Independencia and people are boarding and so yours truly
puts 2 and 2 together and figure this s#$t out. Lima is up ahead most people
are going that way therefore being a work day they must be going to city
center!!! Am smart I can tell myself, so I board the minibus where someone was
shouting Independecia and off we go.
It was
cloudy as we left and as we drive towards Lima the clouds start to left up and
as we get close to "LIMA" rather than the office tower I expect to
see I see a big dirty mountain and am like okay way to go mr smart pants! there
is your Lima city center! gray dirt mountain. At some point I get off the bus
and start walking to where my iphone is telling me the city center is. I try to
get direction but the locals English is equivalent to my Spanish.....something
has to give here I think and sure enough am thinking surely that can't be me. I
find a metro and but the ticket expensively at 10 soles card plus fare. I jump
on the bus in one direction....reason? ...this goes back to world cup, so when
the world was on and I would skip work, I mean while i was sick, I would watch
world cup on the Spanish channels and when the goal keeper kick the ball the
announcer would yell CENTRO!!!!!! and the ball would be in the center of the
field. Now armed with a good memory and trying to find the city center that
shouldn't be a problem the voice in my head announces. so I take the metro and
head to centro and I alight at centro walk around and at this time my stomach
is starting to whine...not sure about what since its only 11...so I ignore it
and keep walking looking for the museum can't find any of them, the sounds
start emanating from the middle of my body. I look for a place to fill the
tummy and as one might recall Spanish is not working for me so I go to
the next best thing Pictures of food! all I have to do here is point at the
picture and say I want that! and I will be fine...so I walking in to a
restaurant by the justice department and point to a picture that looks awesome
combined with the fact that the tummy is whining it look awesome, I take a sit
and the soup comes out, great with hot sauce, then the main dish is presented
at the table....and on boy!!!! am I fuming!!! as it turned out I order FRIED
RICE!!!!! s#$t I can get that back home! Crap!!! so my mouth is really angry
that am in Peru and the brain got fried rice, my tummy just wants my
mouth to get over it and hurry and swallow it.....the soup that was holding the
tummy is now starting to sober the tummy and it wants to get drunk with
the fried rice. so the mouth obliges and in 10mins the compromise is done
(compromise: what everyone gets and nobody wanted).
with
everyone okay, we head out to hunt for the museum again. I come across this
building that look awesome looks great then the MET in NY...I walking and a
security guard stops me and I ask what the build is. To which he responds
something in Spanish and yours truly agrees with it and walks out....I
walk around this beautiful place and look around, great building and as I walk
I see people lining up and as if line for a party or a museum entrance, the
genius in me lines up and when I look closely they all have forms they are filling
out as the line moves, of course in Spanish, I get one and after I look around
and "read" the signs I once again discover my brain is not as smart
as I would like, as it turns out am in a line to register for classes! am on a
campus at the university of Peru!! all in Spanish! At this point I figure
out the local time is 2pm but I just have decided to make it 5pm. The only
problem with that call is that I have to figure my way back to the
temporally crib!.......to be continued!
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