Today I got ready and headed downstairs and was only there a couple minutes when Luis called me to say that he was stuck in traffic and would be 15 minutes late. In Luis time this really means about 25 minutes late. I headed back into the room for a couple minutes then came back downstairs and waited in the lobby for a while. A tour bus filled with Japanese tourists led by a Chinese looking woman with a very loud voice and a heavy Russian accent speaking English arrived and started arguing with the hotel that they were supposed to have reservations there. Meanwhile the hotel had no record of them. It got a bit noisy inside with the Russian sounding woman so I headed back outside to wait and as I guessed Luis was about 25 minutes late. As soon as I got in the car I asked Luis to call the students and have them start working on the labs that they were supposed to be doing so we could save some time. It took us about a half an hour to get to the office and just as I suspected, even though they said they would start they did absolutely nothing in the dead time before my arrival. I can't say I was disappointed, just a bit annoyed at the obvious.
They got started a couple minutes after I got in and worked their way through what they needed to do before I started the next section. This unfortunately was running later than I wanted. The next session also ran into its issues which I guess is to be expected. We broke for lunch rather later for the class to get as far as we could. Luis took me to a restaurant in the San Borja district which is where the office is as well. It was a very short drive to the place. It was called Embarcadero 41 (I assume Pier 41). The specialty is seafood. He ordered us a mixture of tiradito for starter. Tiradito is like ceviche except it uses specific chili sauces (not spicy, unfortunately, probably more means pepper than chili). One is orange and one is yellow. The orange one is a bit spicier. The dish also had a nice pile of marinated octopus which was very tasty. For snack as we got there the waiter gave us some corn that is like popcorn but the shells are not thick enough for it to burst outward. It tastes just like popcorn. I like it because the shells do not get stuck in your teeth. For my lunch I ordered a swordfish tacu tacu. Tacu tacu is a specific local type sauce that is often used with beef tripe I think but in this case it was served with the fish. It was accompanied with potatoes and rice. I find it strange to get both together so often down here. In the US it is either one or the other. Never both. I just had a coca cola to drink with the meal.
After lunch it was back to the office to finish up the few bits of what we had to do and then to start on the next subject to try to get a bit ahead of schedule which basically we were able to do without issue. When we were done with the work I had to take a taxi with some of the students to the old office to meet up with Luis who was doing some contract paperwork to get sent out then we would head pretty much right back across the street from the new office to install an upgrade to a site. I was already prepared for it to be a long day. The old office was rather amusing in that it (like the new office) was obviously a repurposed house. The office Luis was in and therefore I ended up in for the short time I was there was a kitchen where they had removed the range but not the over the stove fan. Repurposed but not really remodeled. We were there maybe for half an hour to 45 minutes. Then Luis, Hubert and myself packed into Luis' car and headed over to the site. We got going as soon as we could when we got in pretty much went nonstop until we were done. I would say we got there at 6:30 or so. We ended up leaving at 11:15. This involved performing 2 upgrades and all the necessary calibrations. Everything basically went really well until we discovered an issue at the very end. It was a relatively bad issue but we formed a solution for it before calling it a night.
With no traffic on the roads it was fast back to the hotel and I got into the room at about 11:30 or so. Amazing how different driving around Lima is when all the cars are parked somewhere. I didn't manage a dinner of any sort today. It was a very long day.
The couple pictures of food are located here.
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