¨Lima Esta Linda¨

Hola!!
I have been in Lima, Peru... to be exact, Miraflores, which is a small town outside of the city limits for about 48 hours now. I have done so much i do not even know where to start so I will give you a brief run down!

Our flight was fairly easy..we left NYC at 6;20 am and arrived in Panama City and then to Lima around 3:30 pm. I want to say that if you find yourself in a Central American airport please note that a "LAST CALL" to board is actually a 30 minute warning. Unfortunately i was starving in Panama City and our flight was in Last Call so i thought i had to board and we rushed to the gate..meanwhile as we board, i find that we are the second people on the plane. We proceed to sit there for 45 minutes before we even take off...sweet. Good thing Copa Airlines serves Ravioli con queso.
And good thing Kevin is the American who goes to the bathroom, returns to his seat at the FRONT of the airplane dragging toilet paper on his shoe! Yes, i captured it on my camera of course!

On our first day we managed to walk for miles down the coast and through the city to find multiple casinos, hundreds of banks, and an american bar! We were searching for some restaurants from our Lonely PLanet guide book and got fed up that we could not find them so we stumbled into an American bar and ordered our very first Peruivan Beer, Cusquena which is absolutely delicious and uber cheap! It is great how far our money goes here, i have been eating like a king and testing all the local dishes such as Tallarin Saltado con Polllo which is grilled noodles with chicken and vegetables, and the Aji De Gallina which is a mixture of fish, cream sauce, potatoes and rice. Of course a dish like this only costs about $4.00 at the most!! Good times for the American dollar down here.

On Friday we went to the Plaza Del Armas where we watched the daily ritual of the changing of the guard. They shut down the entire plaza, and had about 30 guards with machine guns, helmets and shields ready to fire! It was pretty intimdating until i saw guard texting on his phone during the procession! haha.. oh technology.

After this, we thought lets not be such tourists and we crossed a bridge in hopes to find some local fare.. too bad for us because 5 minutes later a security guard came running up to us and said "ingles? cameras? no.. bad here.. peeek pawketers" aka. pick pocketers..coincidentally, i had just mentioned to kevin that i was shocked there were no tourists around!! Well you bet we pulled a quick u-turn and headed right back over the bridge to the safe side.
Not safe for long because we went to the Peruvian China town and proceeded to be the only tourists once again! I m not too sure where people hang out but surely they do not go wandering into local meat markets and China town... so we booked it outta there and headed back to Miraflores.

This is where i tell you that Kevin and i were very cultural and we went to a Peruvian theater to see some tango dancing, singing, and some instrumental music. We got to the show early enough to buy tickets and find a seat, yet the talent walked in a mere 10 minutes before the show started. Then during the show the audience was so disrespectful, phones kept ringing, people came 20 minutes late, 1 hour late, even after intermission!! At one point this lady stood up in the middle of the auditorium and started taking pictures...it truly was an experience.
One thing about Peruvian Theater you should know in case you decide to catch a show, is that apparently they can call their own encores! This Rosemarie lady, a singer, called her own encore because the tango duo before here got an original encore from the audience and I guess she was jealous. Oh Peru!

Although I cannot tell all, there is just too much, i do not want to forget to tell everyone that i took a surfing lesson today!! It was freaking awesome... my instructor, Roberto, who speaks NO english took me out into the waters where he promised me there were no sharks, and just let me have it with the waves! I dont want to toot my own horn or anything but i was pretty good... granted i am disregarding the fact that on my second ride in i yelled "WATCHHH OUTTT" in English of course and this little boy bops his head up and looks at me with a face i will never forget.... I obviously wasn't stopping and i was so proud to be riding this wave that he had to ABORT his board and i surfed right over it!!! It was hilarious... i turned around once i fell and said i was soo sorry and in broken english he gave me a dirty look and said "not a problem".

That is all I can really write for today... my arms hurt terribly and I am sunburnt. More to come... we venture to Pisco tomorrow to work 6 hours a day rebuilding homes and living among the locals. However, I have heard is it bit dangerous for tourists at night so I do not expect many crazy stories.

Until then,