we woke up this morning after three hours sleep. three hours. misery.

we had breakfast, watched CNN en espaniol & then david picked us up & took us to the national museum of peru. which, i love. LOVE! we paid a tour guide $5 for a tour of the museum in english, a history of peru from 6000 years ago through today. it was intense. she told us about a terrorism exhibit the museum has going on right now, so my mom & i spent the better part of three hours walking around, reading the stories, looking at pictures, listening to witness testimony…

i am blown away by how much has happened so recently in this city & even in our little neighborhood of miraflores that i had NO idea about. maybe i’m just a self-centered asshole (probably) but i knew next to nothing about the terrorism & the kidnappings & murders that went on here until just recently. thousands of people killed by the sendero luminoso & MRTA & then thousands of people missing or killed by police & the government in retaliation. it makes me want to learn more & more & more about lima & what went on here.

after we finished at the museum, david picked us up & we drove through downtown lima. BEAUTIFUL. i want to write love letters to lima. i’m enamored with it. it’s hectic & loud & people don’t hesitate to pound on the hood of your car if you get stuck in the crosswalk. cars honk to let you know that they’re turning, they honk to tell you that you’re in their lane, cabs honk to let pedestrians know that they’re available for a pick up, they honk when they’re frustrated with how slow traffic is moving, they honk effing constantly.

i took lots of video driving through the streets, which are probably only really interesting to me, but i’m putting them on my facebook anyway.

we went to a massive indoor electronics market, two city blocks long, full of vendors selling digital cameras, printer ink, mini-computers, black market DVDs & CDs…

after that, i dozed off in the car for a minute & woke up at the beach. the beaches are rocky, so when the waves pull back, the rocks slam together & it sounds exactly like a jet going by overhead. repeatedly. i love it.

we ate at a little restaurant on the beach. david set us up with five different courses of typical peruvian food. ceviche first. i never want to eat anything other than ceviche as long as i live. pretty sure i could eat ceviche three meals a day for the rest of my life & be completely happy. after that, there were lots of potatoes in different sauces, all different kinds of rice, chicken, peppers, spices, pastes, a fruit called tuna, a desert called ‘the classic’ with some kind of chicha jelly stuff & fruit with pits & rice pudding, chicha morada to drink… & i (unknowingly) ate beef intestine (“cau cau”).

david drove us up a mountain that overlooks the beach in barranca & bought me a lucuna & vanilla ice cream (DELISHIN). just up the mountain from that spot is a giant cross constructed from the metal of a radio tower that the shining path (sendero luminoso) bombed. apparently, says mom, the cross was put there as a message to the terrorists that they couldn’t fuck with the people of lima. sooo that was cool to see since we’d just seen a picture in the national museum exhibit of the radio tower right after it was destroyed.

david took us back to the hotel & just now my mom left with him to go visit his brother, so i’m here catching up. apparently after my mom gets back we’re walking to a bar down the street called billy bob’s… huh.

this is a long entry. wow.

anyway, all this to say: i love lima. love it. i am in love with it. it’s beautiful & loud & there are kids yelling outside of my window right now & i almost got run over a couple times & david almost got in a few car accidents & i just love it. everything.