Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 9

We woke up at 3am to begin our journey through the highlands. We were out the door a little after 4am to be at the airport. It took a bit of time to check our luggage. Peruvian does not do luggage drop off for internet check-in.  After that we screened security and then got hot chocolate at the cafe near our gate.  I think Daniela got juice.  We boarded and the flight left on time and arrived on time but it took forever for our luggage to get through to us.

We took a taxi to the bus station but unfortunately the slow baggage claim kept us from reaching the ideal bus to Puno. So instead we bought tickets for a 10:30 bus that they claimed was direct but was not in actuality we found out later.  In any event we had a couple hours to kill so had breakfast at a small restaurant at the bus station. I had a hamburger and Daniela had a chicken broth.  After we finished we found a place to sit and wait. Daniela bought a sorochi pill because she thought she was feeling the effects of the altitude. Oh yes and we had mate de coca.

The bus was set up with big reclining seats for the ride to Puno. We had the back two. We were both exhausted and fell asleep through most of the ride. Unfortunately we found it made several stops after the fact and what could have been 5 hours direct was instead 7 hours total ride.  We arrived in Puno to the hotel Conde de Lemos by taxi from the bus station.  It was just beginning to get dark and also it started to rain a bit.

We got settled in and then went out for dinner because we hadn't really eaten all day. It started to really pour out and it was a cold rain. The altitude lets the temperatures get down to near zero though I don't think they ever get snow or ice.  We found a restaurant off the main square which was only a couple of blocks downhill. It was called Mojsa which is a Quechua word but I can't recall what it meant.  It was very crowded all the time we were there. We had to wait a few minutes to get seated. All the time more and more people kept pouring in. It must be the most popular restaurant in town.   I had rocoto rellenos which are stuffed spicy peppers. The stuffing is beef with raisins, olives, peanuts and a few other things that has been slow stewed. They were very good. They came with salad and potatoes with cheese but I really only ate the peppers. Daniela had a quinoa soup. We both had a coca tea infusion which included honey and lemon. By the end of the night I had a fierce headache and totally dehydrated feeling. I am not sure but I think it was a combination of the cold and the altitude all at once. We ended up going to bed early. It stopped raining somewhere in the night.

Pictures from today will again be posted later. The internet speeds up in the high mountains were terribly slow.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 8

Daniela was still not feeling well and I was coming down with it as well by this point so we had a late start for the day just in time to get cleaned up and checked out of the apartment.  The owner of the apartment was very nice and met us on the way out. They apparently live in the same building.  We commented that blackout curtains would help as it gets light at 5 and they have only a sheer curtain which works somewhat when it is dark out but not as soon as the sun comes up.

From the apartment we headed to Daniela's house where I really wanted to just back in bed but they made a family trip to La Punta for seafood. Lucho drove his car there so we didn't have to get a taxi.  We chose the restaurant Santa Pesca probably because of the guy handing out business cards on the way into La Punta.  We split an order of ceviche to start and I had chicharon de pescado which is small pieces of fried fish.  They had a guy singing live entertainment at the restaurant and when he learned it was my mother-in-law's birthday he made sure to mention her every song and he also had a fake cake and sang happy birthday in English and in Spanish.  We split lemonade pitchers and everyone ordered their own dishes.  The food was really good.  After we finished eating we drove back to the house where I hoped to get in bed for some time but it was not to be.

Daniela and I went out to Minka to do some shopping for her mother and to get our airplane tickets printed and some money changed.  This took a while and by the time we got back I was given maybe 20 minutes of nap before everyone came over for her mother's birthday. Donna cooked the food except the cake which her mother made herself. Donna made spaghetti with tomato sauce and leftover turkey.  We had a couple pisco drinks and a bottle of wine. The attendees were Daniela's family and Yanina and her mother.  It was a nice night and there was some dancing and stuff like that.  We finished up somewhere past midnight and I went to bed almost immediately but we had to wake up at 3am anyway so really I didn't get much sleep.

I will post all the pictures at a later time.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 7

We got started late because Daniela was fully with a cold by the morning. Still she felt bad about being sick and wanted to get out to a drug store to buy something for it. So after a brief breakfast we rode out on the bicycles in search of lunch and a drug store. This was going fine for a while. It is definitely much safer to ride on the sidewalks here so that is what we tried to do as much as possible. In our efforts to find a drug store we drove past the John Lennon statue and continued on towards San Isidro.  We stopped to get some water and that shop owner explained where there was a drug store and Daniela bought what she needed a couple blocks away from where we were. We were heading on to finding a place for lunch when I misjudged the height of a curb and slid my front tire along it causing me to crash full on into the sidewalk. I spun the handlebars around and knocked the seat out of position. I got road rash on my right knee and my knuckles are all scratched. I severely bruised my right hand around the palm and wrist. I did not hit my face fortunately.  Probably because I damaged my hands instead.  A local helped me get up and helped with the bicycle. We rode back to the lady where Daniela bought water and washed off the worst of the wounds and put a couple bandages on those.  

After cleaning up we decided to continue on to a restaurant and went to La Baguette in San Isidro which was maybe another 15 blocks away from where we were.  I had meat raviolis with meat sauce and Daniela had a Thai salad.  Then we walked across the street and I had a Duet at 4D which is an ice cream shop mainly. The duet is like a large ice cream Oreo with chocolate sauce and caramel.  It was really good.  After that we made a quick stop to change some US money to soles then on to the apartment.

We got in and I made Daniela watch most of Guardians of the Galaxy but she fell asleep during it a few times.  In any event that got us to the point where we needed to get ready to go back to Lima downtown to see Donna act in a play put on by her acting school.  So we got ready and got a taxi. We were expected to be there at 7:30 (as everyone agreed the day before) but we got there around 8. We were the first to get there all the same. The doors didn't open until 8:30 I think. In all including her family and friends 13 people showed up to see Donna.  The play probably started around 9 and was about half an hour long.  I had a hard time following it at all. I can say it was conceptual in nature. Donna did very well and was only one of two women in the troop. The other woman was a sort of narrator which meant that Donna did all the rest of the female parts.  After the play ended we waited out in the courtyard for her for a while as she changed. Everyone pretended like she was a movie star and took pictures of her as she got outside.

We all went to Hotel Bolivar which is a short walk away from where the theater was. This hotel was once the premier place to stay in Lima but has waned a bit since.  They have a huge bar and are credited with being the place that invented the pisco sour.  We went there to have celebratory drinks.  Daniela and I had two pisco sours and some grilled chicken skewers.  While we were there.  There was a bit of confusion on paying the bill and we had a small gathering outside but finally I paid with my credit card and everyone else gave money into the bill to me.  

After all was said and done their friend Jacko drove Daniela and I back to our apartment. It was past 1:30am and we went immediately to bed.

I will publish the pictures from day 7 later.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 6

We woke up fairly late due to the extremely late night/early morning (however you would like to put it). Everyone was up and about and we had a breakfast of panetone and coffee (for me anyway).  I was still full from the evening but everyone else had some Chinese rice and more turkey.  I was not able to eat any more than the one slice of panetone.  After we ate breakfast Daniela wasn't feeling great so we relaxed a bit longer then got cleaned up and headed back to the apartment. Edwin arrived so we were able to get a ride from him.  I took my shower at the apartment because I didn't have a change of clothes but Daniela had showered at the house.

We watched a bit of Monster House (in Spanish) while killing some time. I eventually ate the leftover pizza we had because by then I was hungry also.  When it got to about 5:10 we headed out to Lima downtown because we were going to see The Nutcracker with her whole family and their friend Mechi and her daughter Mishelle who was in our wedding.  We arrived in plenty of time and had a cup of coffee each before the start. Her family and everyone else however was late in arriving and the show was already slightly started before we all got in. Edwin and Donna were the latest of the bunch.  In any event we all got in not too far into the show.

The show was nice. It was the first time I had seen The Nutcracker live. They used children for the first part of the show before the intermission. They played all the rats and some of the soldiers and it was very cute. After the intermission they had all the real professional dancers. I would say the guy who did the Russian dance was probably the best though of course the lead female was excellent as well.

After the show everyone went their own ways. We walked around Lima downtown to find someplace to eat and happened into the cathedral where we found they had a boys choir singing Spanish Christmas carols (South American primarily I am sure).  I took a video of one of the songs.  They were probably mostly done because we only saw about 4 or 5 songs.  Then we walked around a bit further and found a place called the Atlantica and had sandwiches. I had a hamburger and Daniela had a chicken sandwich.  They were kind enough to make us food even though they initially told us the kitchen was closed. After dinner we got a taxi back to the apartment. By the way, the central square had one of the ugliest Christmas trees I've ever seen.

At the apartment Daniela had been coming down sick all day and we just got her some tea and wrapped her up in blankets and called it a night while playing a bit of Fantasia on the computer.

The pictures from today are located here.

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 5

Remembering that Christmas is really Christmas Eve around here. Well it is and it isn't all at once.  The celebration really happens at midnight between the two days. The idea after we woke up was to get cleaned up and head to her house from the apartment where we would drop off some stuff then go out to get a lunch and do some shopping. We originally tried Plaza Aventura which is right near their house but there was no place either of us really wanted to eat so we instead took a taxi to Plaza San Miguel which has better restaurant options.  We ate at Trattoria de la Bodega which had just opened the Friday before. It is a restaurant that we have eaten at before in Miraflores and in Larcomar.  We each got a glass of house wine. Daniela got a bife ala parilla which is grilled steak and I got raviolitos de gallinas which is fusion dish of Italian and Peruvian foods. It was little raviolis of aji de gallina which is a shredded chicken dish. It was served with a sauce made from mild chili peppers and had parmesan and walnuts sprinkled on. It was excellent. The steak was very tough however and Daniela didn't really end up eating much and they took it off the bill.  It is a shame because it looked very nice and even had a good flavor but you had to chew for hours with it cooked to medium.   I tried to eat their apple pie ala mode but I couldn't make it half way through because it was gigantic and there was no way I could finish it even though it was really good.  Daniela had tocino del cielo which is a custard that has coconut and caramel and a strawberry sauce.  That was also huge and made up for her steak.  She had a tea and I had a coffee to go with the dessert.

After eating we spent quite some time shopping through the very crowded mall and even going into a couple other places.  We had to buy a couple small things but it was not easy to find. Most of the stores in the malls are electronics or clothing. We did eventually find what we needed but it was past 7 by the time we finally got back to the house.

Donna was supposed to cook the Christmas turkey dinner for us but was a bit late in arriving. We relaxed for a while until she showed up then Daniela and I helped a bit with the cooking and we also went out and bought some fireworks (though only one thing).  Edwin was around for a little while but left to go to his parents' house before we got back from buying the fireworks.  As with last year the fireworks started around 9 o'clock and gradually progressed until it sounded like a war zone near midnight. We had a prayer then a toast at midnight as the baby was placed into the manger in the nativity set.  Then we swapped our gifts then went out and lit off the fireworks.  By the time we had finished all the tasks it was around 1:30 I think and we were able to start serving the meal. Donna did a great job with turkey. She also made sweet potato puree, "Russian salad" which is mixed vegetables including corn, beets, carrots and green beans, rice that was cooked with an olive puree so it looked purple and steamed potatoes with a green sauce on it.  All the food was excellent but it was really a lot and I was stuffed by the time we had finished. We had brought a bottle of chardonnay but it was not really a hit with everyone and I think only her brother and I finished our glasses.  I didn't much care for it either but I am not a fan of white wine anyway.

We typically were supposed to have panetone for dessert along with hot chocolate but it was late and everyone was stuff so instead we all went to bed for the evening. I had to put my contacts in a couple of glasses of water because I had not prepared to spend the night there.

The pictures from this "day" are located here.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 4

Owing to the large amount of alcohol on the night before we really didn't get moving on the day until it was past noon for certain. Neither of us felt fully right.  We ordered pizza for dinner from Papa John's in San Miguel as lunch then relaxed for most of the day. In the evening we went to the movies and watched Paddington. It was dubbed into Spanish but fortunately since it was a children's movie I was able to understand a lot of what they were saying and I understood the plot. It was cute. Daniela really wanted to see it.  I am sure it is more oriented towards children than adults but it wasn't bad all the same.    After the movie we went to a local restaurant near the theater that sold grilled food and pollo ala brasas.  I had 1/4 chicken and Daniela had anticuchos.  Neither of us finished though the food was nice. I think we were still a little but off from the night before. Also the popcorn in the theater was probably more filling than we thought.  After the movie we did some brief shopping in the Metro and the headed back to the room where Daniela had a bunch of work to do and I went to bed early.

The picture from today is here.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 3

After we woke up we got the water ready to shower. Apparently we were supposed to turn on the water heater for 30 minutes before we start to use it. I am not sure why that would be but that was the owner's request. In any event we got cleaned up and after sorting out being in the apartment a bit better we decided to take the bikes the owner got for us for a ride and get lunch. Ironically the restaurant we chose to eat at was right around the corner but we rode around for a while first anyway.  Daniela had not ridden a bike in something like 15 years and was a bit nervous about it so we gave her the chance to get more comfortable.

The restaurant was named Mi Propiedad Privada which means My Private Property and is apparently in reference to a song of the same name.  The singer of the song marks her man as her private property with her own blood to warn all the other women looking at him.  The staff had US flags on their shirts along with Peruvian flags and we found out that meant they have another restaurant in the US in Miami in The Breakers.  They are a seafood restaurant. Daniela ordered Leche de Pantera to start (it is a citrusy fish broth from making a form of ceviche that has shellfish and other things in it.  It is very black looking. Leche de Tigre is similar but is white.  I ordered a Corvina a la Isla which in English was referred to as croaker. I do not recall eating croaker before but it was nice. It was served with cream and parsley sauces and had bacon and mushrooms. I quite liked the dish.  Daniela had tacu tacu de mariscos which is a seafood rice dish focusing on shellfish.  We each had a beer. Then for dessert we tried the tempura helado which is fried ice cream. It was served with something like a fried cake around it.  The ice cream was strawberry. They gave strawberries and peaches along with chocolate sauce on it. It was quite good but there was far too much especially after the meal and we fell to just eating the ice cream out of the middle.  The restaurant was having a Christmas party for a company so all the employees were there exchanging their secret Santa gifts as we were leaving.  They had a band also and were being served tons of beer. Apparently the company does not invite spouses to these parties like they might in the US so it was only the employees.  

After we left the restaurant we rode the bicycles further out to the John Lennon park which has a statue of John Lennon and a skate park.  Daniela said the guy that put up the park took a lot of criticism for doing it. I think it is an odd thing to have in Peru also.  But we really only were there for a couple minutes then we rode back to the apartment. She was much more comfortable riding the bicycle by the end of the ride.  

When we got back to the apartment we had received a reply from the students I had in training that are from Hologic's authorized dealer in Peru, IDISAC. I had told them I would be in town and they said they could meet up with us that night. We got cleaned up and met them for drinks and piqueos (snacks, bar food if you will).  Daniela had a last minute sale so she had a lot of stuff to do while we were getting ready and taking the taxi and even when we were at the mall where we went to Cafe News.  She had to run out after we sat down and buy some bus tickets for a passenger but she wasn't long.  We had several drinks and I had Chilcanos rather than beer. I think I should have had beer though.  We had a BBQ plate that had wings, chicken fingers and ribs.  The food was good.  However the drinks were very strong. I had a good time. We talked about a lot of different things both work related and not. I think we spent a couple hours there. By the time we left and all of that though I don't have a total recollection of what happened. I know now why I typically stay with beer most of the time. Four beers would not do to me what these four drinks did.  In any event I had a good time even if I don't know how I got to bed...

The pictures from today are located here.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 2

We woke up sort of late because of the late to bed time. Still I had my typical difficulty sleeping past a certain point and lay in bed for a bit of time before we got moving. We got cleaned up and immediately headed to Makro where it was crazy crowded but we had to buy some wine to drop off as gifts on a couple visits. Fortunately the fast line was not too big. Callao market where Daniela dropped off a pair of pants to be rehemmed because they were too long for her (I suspect this happens a lot). After dropping off the pants at a tailor we got breakfast by way of the market as well. We had pan con chicharon with fresh juice. In this market all the chicharron is made by Chinese people it appears. There are several stalls but one of them was really busy and that is the one we went to. Apparently they have been there for a long time and everyone loves their. I should remind that chicharron is pork that has bee deep fried and cut into bits and is served in a roll with a slice of sweet potato on it. I was expecting I wouldn't like the sweet potato on it but it was good.  I had fresh pineapple juice and she had a mixto which had a bunch of stuff in it.  They were good too.  After the breakfast we traveled further into the market to look for a dress for Daniela for New Years but didn't find what she was looking for there.

We then took a taxi to the port in Callao and went to the submarine museum.  We got there just in time for the next presentation with only a short wait of a couple minutes. The tour starts with a short video about the Peruvian armed forces, mainly the navy and marines. The video is really just demonstrations of their equipment without narration but set to music.  It was only a few minutes long but it was fairly cool.  After that you get to go into the submarine itself which is a German made sub that I think was commissioned in the mid to late 60s.  It is still seaworthy and can be moved out and turned around to the docks each year but cannot submerge anymore.  They have made it into a museum but still it is basically functional. The guide spoke only in Spanish but I did understand a portion of it. Daniela translated some other stuff. I think there were about 10 people on the tour or so including some kids.  I took a ton of pictures including some in the red light.  It was interesting to climb in and out through the ladders and everything. There were a couple of Colombians on the tour and the guy asked a ton about the torpedoes according to Daniela.  I had a hard time understanding him.

After the tour we got back in a taxi to the market and picked up the pants. We walked to Yanina's house an made a brief visit to drop off the wine, say hello and give a belated (not Daniela's fault) birthday gift to Yani.  We tried to walk to another friend's house but she was not home so we took another taxi to Plaza San Miguel and met her friend Gina briefly to give another gift and make a second attempt at dress shopping.  Still we failed.  We got one more taxi to her house where we were expecting to have lunch (at 4pm) but they were doing Christmas decorations. We helped with the decorating for a couple hours. I think it was 7:30 by the time we were done. There was an incident where her brother bought a pizza from a lost delivery guy who could not find the actual purchaser. We had a slice each of that along the way. Then we all got into Edwin's car and rode out to try to eat at a specific Italian restaurant which was closed of course. So we tried another place around the corner. I had fettucini alla pesto. Most everyone had pasta. Edwin had a pizza and Daniela's mother had a salad?!  After dinner we drove back to the house and immediately got to packing and took another cab to our apartment for the first week.

This apartment is in San Miguel which is closer to Callao than Miraflores but still near the water. We met the renters at the place and they gave us a tour and the rules.  We settled in after they left and not long after called it a night.

The pictures from day 2 are located here.  By the way there were no pictures from day 1.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Peru Christmas 2014 Day 1

My flight was at 11:15 or so which meant I woke up around 5:30am (because that is typically when I wake up) and then spent a slowish morning getting ready and cleaned up and all that. We left the house around 8am to get to the airport. Having silver level premier access on United meant that I didn't really have too much issue getting my check in done and getting TSA Pre check also meant that I had a breeze through the security line (though even the standard security line was not too crowded). The guy at the check in desk said they were really busy at 3am but it was not bad at 8:30. I walked around the gates for a bit then bought a coffee and blueberry glazed donut from Dunkin Donuts and found a place to sit near my gate. Gate 22 is at a stupid location for normal seats but it is near where the free charging stations and has a bunch of seats at bar style desks with high stools to sit on. I chose one of those locations and got to killing time. Obviously with the initial check in and security being a breeze I had a lot of time to kill. I wrote some portion of this as well as played a couple stupid casual games waiting for the plane to arrive and deplane.  The first flight would be an Airbus A320 to Houston. I was not 100% convinced I should take this route with what happened on my last trip through this way but I had to use United mileage to get the flight without spending something like $2500 or more to get there reasonably.

We boarded on time and departed a few minutes late because they needed to load two dogs into the rear heated cargo area.  I slept through the majority of the flight. There was no food service and no entertainment at all which I thought was strange for an over 4 hour flight. I would have expected at least the singular overhead movie but not even that.  The plane landed a few minutes early but being seated way in the back it took a while to get off. Fortunately in Houston we landed and departed in the same terminal not too far away. I got Subway on the way to the plane and ate it on the plane because they were already boarding when I got there. I don't tend to like airplane food except for maybe my couple business class trips so I was hedging my bets (correctly).  The plane also boarded on time and even maybe pushed back a minute or two early.  It was a 767-300 and again I was way in the back. Since it was an international flight they had in seat entertainment. I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, Dawn of Planet of the Apes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in succession until the flight was over. I had a bottle of wine and only the extra food from the tray. I think it was supposed to be chicken and pasta but the smell made me not want to even open it.  I will say that I liked all three movies enough. Guardians of the Galaxy was the most enjoyable of the three.

We landed half an hour early and it took a while to get off the plane. Immigration was quick but it took forever and a day to get the bag before getting through customs. Daniela was waiting for me outside and after a very happy greeting we took a taxi to her house then to get some food which turned out to be at a Norky's because the restaurant she wanted to go to was not closed but the cook left. We had nuggets and fries and some sangria that tasted like medicine.  After we were done we went to her house to spend the night.