(Okay, just to warn you-these blog entries are going to be misdated because I’m writing them on my internetless laptop and taking them to internet cafes to post)
Well, I’ve been in Lima for two days now and it certainly feels loooooooonger. I keep saying things like yesterday morning when it was actually this morning! The reason the days feel so long is that we don’t have a lot of structured things that have to get done here in Lima. Yesterday was a long day because I got in Lima at 5:20am and didn’t go to bed ‘till 8pm. I was picked up at the airport by John & Cindy Kreider who are missionaries in Cusco. They took me to our hotel, the Hostal Happy which is not bad even if they charge us too much for water and iit’s more of a hotel than a hostel!
This has been an interesting couple of days riding around in taxis, finding food and filling our days. Yesterday we went to a huge church -120,000 where the pastor’s vision is to reach 900,000 people in Lima in this next year!!! Wow! It was a great service and afterwards we got to talk to the pastor a little because his church uses a model of church growth called G12 that is being implemented in Cusco. I think the big thing for the Cusco church is translating an urban model into rural settings. We also went to visit a big shopping center in Miraflores, a section of Cusco right by the ocean.
Today (Monday)we went to get the papers signed and started for getting my Peru residencial visa. It didn’t take very long so afterwards Cindy and I went to an area where there are lots of tourist shops and wandered around for a while trying to find a large nativity scene that didn’t include a nursing Mary! We saw so many touristy trinkets and bought nothing! We also went to a Metro (like a walmart) and a place to get photos for my visa stuff.
One of the best parts of today was a taxi ride. We take taxis all around the city but this one guy was so funny. He ran red lights, he beeped at any and everyone, passed people when there was no passing lane and narrowly missed lots of cars, etc. All awhile he was listening to his musica folkerica (like the traditional old Latin music). It was so funny!
Anyway, tomorrow we have to go to Interpol where I’ll get my fingerprints taken, my teeth x-rayed and all sorts of things to check me out to make sure that I’m not a horrible deported criminal escaped from the US. Then I’ll have to take a trip in a couple of months to Chile and back to Lima in order to get my resident´s card.
I’ve had lots of time to get to know John & Cindy (who are both pretty laid back and more introverted people) and it’s great to experience some of Lima. I cannot wait for the slower pace of Cusco! Lima is so modernized (we ate at a Chilis!)that sometimes I forget that I’m not in some US city – well some things stand out as different (the language, the bathrooms, the food). Cindy says that once you see Lima, you are glad that you are living in Cusco. Yay for Cusco!
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