Luis was surprisingly close to on time today but the traffic getting to the office was very bad. I was not surprised at this, it being a Monday. All the same we still got to the office reasonably on time by taking yet another completely different route there. Some of the students were not on time but we waited a little bit before getting started. They had to continue with where we left off on Friday so it was pretty much get set and go. We did start off without a couple of the students arriving yet but they caught up pretty quick. Luis had to go to the dentist so left right after dropping me off. Cesar came in a few minutes after that to help out the class with translations and questions. Completing what we had not yet finished carried us through to lunch time.
Luis took me to Pardos Chicken down by the beach in Barranco for lunch. They are a grilled chicken chain that I have seen in quite a few places around the city. He chose the beach I am sure for the nice air and view. He ordered us appetizers of beef heart and chicken skewers which came with fried yellow potatoes and small cobs of the local white corn with its giant kernels. I also ordered my first every Inca Cola which used to be the national drink of Peru before it was bought by a Chilean company (or so Luis says). It was sweet and had a strange flavor sort of like bubble gum. It is yellow and not at all flavored like we would think cola is. We swapped one skewer each. The beef heart really wasn't bad at all though at points it had a strange bitter taste where it was more well done. One of the pieces of chicken in my skewer was a bit under cooked and I opted for safety in this instance and did not eat it. We also each got a quarter chicken meal which had a small green salad, french fries and in my case a breast of chicken on the bone. It was actually very moist and juicy and properly cooked and I enjoyed it quite a bit though with the skewers it was a lot of food and I didn't completely finish everything. From there he drove me a more indirect method through the beaches of Barranco and Chorrillos. Chorrillos actually has a small replica of the big Jesus statue from Brazil but I didn't get a good view to take a picture of it. It is in a really poor place and position unless you are going to the district football stadium (yes soccer). It wasn't bad to head back to the office from there.
We restarted the class fairly quickly and got through the material I had hoped to cover before we broke for the day. This is when the students dropped the bomb that they have a holiday on Friday (I think it is the Pope's day or Papal day or something like that which we would never observe in the US). So now they want me to cover all the material that I am supposed to cover in 4 more days (I had not been worried about timing because I thought I had more than I typically do). This means we will have to cram in the rest of the material before Friday and hopefully get it done by the end of Thursday instead. Business trips are for business first but this is going to create some long days and I am sure I am not going to stir any fires under them to make them any quicker. This coupled with the expectation that I was going to help with a service call on Tuesday. I will do what I am asked to do but it does sort of make things awkward.
Luis had to leave early so Cesar took me to the hotel instead. I settled for a bit then headed back to Larcomar (I think I like the walk as much as anything) and went to the TGIFriday's (I know, sad choice but I wanted little effort and a beer otherwise it might have been the Burger King for little effort and no beer). I had a Cuscena Chopp (which means on draft apparently) and bacon cheeseburger. The burger was very good but big and a bit greasy. I guess that isn't surprising with cheese and bacon on it. I didn't manage to finish it. From there I headed back to the hotel for the night. A bit early but I was tired from the long day on Sunday and wanted the longer night's sleep.
The pictures from today can be found here.
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