I woke up a bit late for me today at 6am but that was mostly because I got in wicked late from the flight and I was very tired. Coupled with the fact that Peru does not do daylight savings time I think I squeaked out a couple extra hours of sleep. The late wake up was fine because Luis was to pick me up at 8:30 so I knew I would have plenty of time to get ready. Breakfast is not included with my hotel stay so I will not bother to try to find it for the trip. Fortunately I have a 4 cup coffee pot in my room and a lot of coffee to make. After taking my time getting sorted out where I did not the night before I got cleaned up and ready and headed down a few minutes before 8:30. Luis arrived maybe 5 minutes late but it was obviously because of the traffic. The ride was obviously not that far from the hotel to their new office (they just purchased it 2 weeks ago apparently) but the traffic is fairly rough and reminded a lot of driving through Palermo. I am very glad I did not have to rent a car here. My sanity would not have made it unscathed. Palermo was bad but I was on my own schedule. To try to get somewhere on time during the rush hour in Lima would basically break me I am sure. I am very surprised more cars are not dented.
We were supposed to be to the new office for 9am but were probably about 10 minutes late. They are going to move from the old office to the where we are having class but as of yet it has been too short a time so they figured the new office would be a great place to have the training. Honestly the ceilings feel a bit low but it is a nice place complete with serious bars on the doors and windows giving a solid compound-like feel. Since nothing else had really been moved in yet there was plenty of room to get the class equipment in. Happily they had a new projector and a series of desks for everyone but we were only using the wall for the screen which was still relatively ok. They had 2 systems to work with for the labs and they are both brand new. Better equipment than I have every taught with (though we did find we have a compression issue on one of them and will have to fix that before the class is done). They said that one of the systems might be going to a customer and one of them is probably going to remain in their office for a test system.
The students, there are 6 of them, do not really speak English well and even though I am speaking slowly I do not think that most of them are getting a lot out of the lecture time except when either Cesar or Luis translates for them. The minor problem with that is that both Luis or Cesar could be on calls at any point during the day. Still, both of them are helping as much as they can. The owners of the company here, IDISAC, showed up to see what was going on and take pictures for the government to prove they were actually getting the training. I hadn't realized how soon they needed the training. They have their visit soon, possibly during the class. They were very nice and offered any help I might need.
Cesar took me by taxi to a cevicheria somewhere a moderate distance away for lunch. They offered a buffet and I tried most everything on the bar. I had a couple different types of cold seafood salads, a crab and potato thing, 2 types of ceviche and 2 dishes similar to ceviche in concept but I didn't get the name properly. All were very good. Unfortunately I forgot both my cell phone and my camera for the lunch visit. Cesar took a picture of my first dish with his cell phone. Hopefully I get the picture from him before the class is over.
The class went well enough for day 1 considering the language barrier and the hastily put together setting. When we finished Luis drove me back to the hotel where I sat for a few minutes before taking a quick spin around the neighborhood. Unfortunately it gets dark at around 6pm here in the winter so I figured I would not stray too far. I walked up and down the area and decided I would eat dinner at the hotel. I ended up eating at the bar as they restaurants open at 6:30 and 8:30 respectively and it was about 6:10 when I got there. The bartender said he served all day. It made sense. I had a couple Cuscena beers. They were the same as I remembered them from my previous trip. Not a beer to write home about but not bad really. For a meal I ordered their chicken creole which was interesting. It was supposed to be a Peruvian style dish. I am sure it uses a name other than creole on the Spanish menu. In any event I don't think I would have to eat it again, it wasn't near as flavorful as all the fish from lunch. All the same it was filling so I can't complain. After dinner I just basically headed back up to the room to relax for the rest of the night and hopefully get to bed a bit earlier.
The weather here is apparently going to be grey and overcast for the entire stay according to Luis and Cesar. I won't get my hopes up on seeing sun but the temperature is not so bad. The problem is it is very humid and there was even a fairly constant mist going all day. I do not mind so much as this is a work trip and I am not going to be outdoors for the majority of my time here but it does make things feel a bit dismal.
My room is very noisy with the traffic here. The locals use the horn to say hello, good-bye, some curses and pretty much everything else. Even though I am on the 7th floor the traffic noise is fairly constant and the horns are pretty much non-stop if from varying distances. It felt like they were noisy as I slept too but that may have been flight induced hallucinations. Night 2 will provide a better idea of that concept.
The few pictures from today are here. There aren't going to be many during class days of course.
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