Lima: day one

Dear(South American) Diary,

Well, we finally made it to Lima! After delays at every airport, I wasn't too sure if we would actually ever arrive.

While in Lima we are staying with a "host family" that we connected with through Patrick's best friend from High school, Jon. Jon lived in Lima for two(?) years and lived with the Alvarez family when he first arrived. We figured, for the same price as a hostel, why not get an "experiencia autentica"!

We were greeted at the airport by Edwin, which was fabulous because we were accosted by taxi drivers as soon as we walked out of customs so I was grateful that we didn't have to deal with negotiating a fare.

Patrick sat in the front and brushed up on his Spanish while I took some blurry shots of the drive.



























Can't escape the chains. That would be a burger king, IFC, and pizza hut all in a row.


Lots of Casinos too!

Today was election day so there were signs for the two candidates everywhere!








Unfortunately for our host family, keiko did not win.

We spent some time visiting before eating a delicious home cooked dinner of arroz con pollo (chancho for Mr. Allergic to chicken). And then, of course, we headed out to find the best fried dough in town for dessert. Don't act surprised.














According to my research, that would be the picarones in parque kennedy. Sweet potato donuts, smothered in honey. Someone's a fan...


Delicioso!


Pardon the ijustgotofftheairplaneandlooklikecrap smile.

First impressions: it's much cleaner than we expected, the Alvarez fam is fantastic and our room is great, and I'm falling more in love with Patrick every time he opens his mouth and starts to speak Spanish. It's a whole side if him that I've never seen before and it is so fun.

Clearly I'm exhausted, i just got super cheesy. we are off to bed! Tomorrow we are taking a city tour and hopefully meeting up with Meredith Jones Hendricks sister for dinner!

Xoxo

Location:Bellavista,Lima District,Peru