Lima: day two

Another day has flown by!

Today we left the apartment fairly early, after a delicious breakfast of eggs mixed with "typical Peruvian sausage" and fruit/yogurt.

On our way to our tour bus, Patrick made a new friend at the bank.


The place we are staying is in a great location,


close to so many restaurants as well as parque kennedy, where the city tour began. We made it to the tour bus just in time.


We had a great time getting to see the miraflores district where we are staying, as well as downtown Lima.

















During the bus tour, we visited the Cathedral de Lima, which is the oldest cathedral in all of south America!





No cathedral is complete without some skulls and baby coffins.






Also in the cathedral square, we met a dog wearing glasses...


... a lady selling galletas (but I wasn't allowed to stop and buy one:( )



And lots and lots of postcards.





Later, we found the "park of love" complete with dozens of lovestruck teens kissing in the corners.





There were tons of hangliders and surfers at the beach. Although it was pretty overcast today, it is always gorgeous at la playa!





Overall, a fabulous day!

The most fabulous part, you ask? The food of course!! And here you thought this post was finally almost over.

Ever had a chicharron sandwich and a naranja, limon, & manzanita jugo? No? Well I HIGHLY recommend it. Incredible!








But say you are still hungry. Maybe a stop at pescados capitals for some world famous ceviche? Okay, okay, fine. (so fresh and flavorful!)


And for dinner? Let's just say we were adventurous.

Beef heart anticuchos and 21-day-old crispy suckling pig, followed by crema volteada (like flan but 100x better)









Happy hubby. Seriously such incredible food.



Oh yes, and a limonada por mi.




So now I'm stuffed, tired and ready for our next adventure. We head to cusco in the morning to begin our journey to macchu pichu! Wish us luck (still not totally sure we have plane tickets) and that we don't get altitude sickness!

Location:Bellavista,Lima District,Peru

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

holy cow

Looks like somebody needs to learn how to deal with curveballs over here.

I had lots of great plans for our latest move to so cal. So many.

But Patrick got in to the University of Texas yesterday. That's not in California, folks.

But it is in Austin! And by golly if I have to move to Texas, that's the one place I'm excited to move to.

Never thought I'd call myself a texan.
(still praying for a usc acceptance though. Admissions gods, I'd be real into that)

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Pt Reyes Adventure

Continuing with our New Year's goal to get out and enjoy the Bay Area, Klarissa and I snatched up Groupons for horseback riding in Pt. Reyes National Park.

We're so lucky that Abe and Klarissa are always willing to come along on our bizarre-but-fun outings (like driving all the way to Sac-town for cheeseburgers. I don't care what you say, Squeeze Inn was SO worth it.). It's not every day that you make friends who are so "go-with-the-flow" and you actually enjoy being with for 12+ hours.

We started out the day with a stop for the "best glazed donuts in SF". And then made our way across the bridge and up the coast for our horseback ride.

The ride was gorgeous. Our tour guide was a bit strange, but it added to the "charm" of the outing. That, and Patrick's midget horse who wouldn't (couldn't?) canter to save it's life.
(Do you see how far behind me he is?! ha.)

After the ride, we went to a cute little restaurant in Pt. Reyes - where Abe and Patrick got cornered by the President of the Bay Area Porsche club (pronounced Porsh-A mind you. Got corrected on that thrice). We also had the freshest oysters ever. WOW. So delicious. Tasted just like the beach.

Since we were already so far north, we decided to make the most of it and drive up to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. Have you been yet?? It was incredible. So So So beautiful!!
(Working off the lunch and donuts. Soo many stairs!! Over 300 steps each way.)
Plus we just so happened to time our adventure perfectly with the arrival of the Elephant seals. Who knew! It was so cool to see them waddle around the beach.After long drive home, successfully avoiding car-sickness on the winding PCH, we finished the evening watching the BYU game. I may not like sports (and the screaming that goes along with it) but I do love to watch Patrick and Abe get so excited. Presh.

Baby Shower for Diana Hulme

I've somehow avoided throwing a baby shower for the 4 years we've lived in SF, but when my dear friend Diana announced she was having a baby (And moving to NYC!), I knew it was time for me to pull it together and host a NYC-themed par-tay.

I'm full of great "ideas" but I'm not real good at the execution part. That, coupled with the fact that Diana is the queen of cute (seriously. check out her blog and you will want to hate her too. But you can't because she is so sweet) was some serious pressure.

After enlisting help from some amazing girls, we pulled it off. And it was so fun!!

Although I can't say I wasn't happy when it was all over, (Especially after Ashley and I stayed up all night trying to make caramel apples for the party favors and failed MISERABLY, resulting in an emergency plan b - a stop in our PJ's at the infamous Bob's Donuts at 2am with all the bar-hoppers.) I had a great time and am so excited for Baby Hulme!!!

A few lessons learned for next time:
-Don't attempt caramel apples for the first time the night before the party because you will fail. -Don't put cheesecake out 2 hours before a party bcs it will melt,
-Taisja is a genius and can solve any problem you have before your meltdown starts (including how to get sugar on the rims of plastic martini glasses - honey- duh.)
-Creepy "baby" pictures are hilarious.
-Delegating to people who are more talented than you is ESSENTIAL to a good party.
-There's always someone who's already had the same idea as you and has executed it better than you will. Just get over it and steal their ideas.
-Hand-cutting frilly streamers takes a LOT of time and gives you hand cramps. But even if your husband says it isn't worth it, ignore him because it totally is.

Link to a better re-cap than I can provide:
"Baby in the Big Apple"

p.s. especially special thanks to Klarissa for designing the cutest invite EVER.
p.p.s. all pics stolen from Diana's blog. Thank goodness for friends with nice cameras!

kind of a big deal

Someone is at BYU this weekend "Guest Lecturing" and giving Advertising students tips. (Also seeing Jimmer's last home game. How convenient).

I keep getting calls/texts/emails from friends about how their cousin's sister's best friend is interviewing with some hot guy from San Francisco (confession: I made that part up, they are all referring to him as Patrick) so I guess that means he's making a good impression. Duh.

Movers and shakers over here.

I won't talk about the fact that I've just sluffed around at the apt watching "Bethenny ever after" while he's gone.

It's depressing (and COLD) when you're home alone. But you get to have girl time! I went to the Ballet last night and am having a sleepover tonight. So looks like we're both having fun :)

Love

I interrupt my white-sand-clear-turquoise-water-lounging to make a public display of love for Mr Larsen.

I especially love him when we're on vacation. So this Valentine's Day is especially sweet. How could you not be more in love with someone when your days consist of sleeping in, rubbing sunscreen on his cute sunburned back (poor see-through lover boy) and heading out to play with Sting Rays?


Anyways.

Patrick, you are the cutest husband in the world. I am obsessed with you and I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of us, but I don't care. They are specifically sick of the photo love shrine I have accidentally created at the office. My desk is surrounded by pictures of you, and then when you come by to say hello (since we work together! so ideal!), it is like Patrick overload!! i.e. my dream come true. I joke that it is sometimes too much, but we both know I can't get enough.

I am so proud of all of your accomplishments and hard work. I love how sweet and devoted you are. I can't wait until our next grand adventure. Because with you, it's always 100 times better than I could imagine.

love love love love love love love love love.

Time for more Vacation

It's true. We leave for Grand Cayman a week from today.

I love vacation.

I love that we are going to play with dolphins, swim with Sting Rays, kayak in bioluminescent caves and go horseback riding on the beach (my sly attempt to remind Patrick that he promised me a horseback ride on the beach).

I don't love that I threw my "get ready for the beach" plan out the window on Jan 14th. I gave it a solid two weeks, but alas there is just TOO MUCH GOOD FOOD here.

I need to move to the suburbs.

Counting down the minutes. I haven't been this ready to go somewhere since Christmas!! (You can smack me now).

Guilt Trip...

I've been bugging Patrick for a few weeks about taking me on a date. Like a real "pick you up at 6, wear something cute" type date.

I'm tired of being in charge of planning EVERYTHING. (Minus picking where we eat, he always gets to pick where we eat).

I mean, I know I've got it good and I'm lucky that we even have time to hang out regardless of who's planning, but does anyone else feel like this has happened to them?

Seems like a boy's favorite part about being married is not having to pony up with creative date-nights anymore. (ok his second favorite part). But I'm putting my foot down.

Take me to mini-golf OR ELSE!

p.s. someone made the point that I need to differentiate between FB posts and blog posts; just because I can now post from my phone doesn't mean I have to every time I think about it. Duly noted.