The Menu

The 7 Sol Lunch ($2.50):

The 12 Sol Lunch ($4.25):

Diving into the bureaucracy pool

Tomorrow we start getting the stuff needed to get residency status. I hate all bureaucracies. We will be using a recommended person to run interference for us. Along with that we also need to see a lawyer as to what is needed in renting and or buying apartments. Sort of the do's and don't so we don't get burnt. The joys of "getting settled".
Standing in a line to find out which line to go to.

Weather

58 degrees here at 8 am. May have to go back to New Hampshire to get warm-it's 10 degrees warmer up there this morning-same as in San Jose!

Ceviche & Pisco Sour

Feels good to be back in Lima

Our Home for A While

By popular request - here's our apartment for the next month or so. Teensy & cute - with huge terraza overlooking the city. Fun!And yes, that really is a fireplace in the corner of the bedroom, but I'm thinking it doesn't really work. There is, however, a working parilla on the terraza.

Graffiti with Heart

Apartment Hunting

over morning coffee with empanada

Sushi Time

Today Gene got a sim card for his cell phone, so we're sort of like grown-ups, with a real cell phone and everything.
Tonight we went out for some great sushi - and lots of it. The walk to the sushi restaurant from our apartment is 4 blocks. In those 4 blocks, I saw 6 mom & pop grocery stores (mini-supers in Costa Rica; bodegas in Peru) still open Saturday evening.
Still feels like everything is going very well, in spite of the fact that I was pretty wiped out today and took a nap and we still have the earth-shattering non-stop screeching sound when the hot water is turned on.
Eventually I will have more pictures to post. I love that some of our friends are following our blog. We miss you!

Morning Weather Report

It's 60 degrees with 82 % humidity at 8:15 am.That's compared to
Union             75 Deg     73% Humid
San Jose        66 Deg    100% Humid
Olympia         46 Deg     93% Humid
Hollywood      82 Deg     81% Humid
Supposedly Union and Olympia have sunshine while the rest of us are at least damp.

Amazing First Day in Our New City

I guess the most amazing thing about our first day in Lima is that we opened a bank account! We walked to the bank 2 blocks from our apartment and with nothing but our passports and one other picture ID were able to open a bank account. No utility receipt, no reference from a citizen, not even any blood drawn. We have a  Peruvian bank account! And there was no one there who spoke English, so I didn't get to wimp out, but had to do the whole thing in Spanish. And by the way there was no guy with an M16 wanting to go through my purse before entering. Refreshing. So that was our big accomplishment for the day.
It was brisk and refreshing during the day. We wore sweaters and jackets. Felt nice. Tonight it was damp and misty in addition to chilly - and we decided to stay in, which is not bad in our cute little apartment. Our apartment is about half the size of our terrace, which is perfect. We have a teensy little kitchen area with a counter-top 2-burner stove, a dorm fridge and hot running water, which produces a god-awful screech when turned on. Hopefully we will figure out eventually what we're doing wrong and be able to use the hot water without waking the dead.
Getting here was quite a trip. Sue and Snooky drove us to the airport in Portland, Maine Wednesday morning. It was good to have one last chance to visit with them. On the way, we stopped at the hospital in Kittery to let them draw Gene's blood to be sent on to the Mayo Clinic to make sure he's not one of the ones infected by Hepititis C from their big employee disaster which you may have heard about on the news, and about which we only heard the night before we were leaving, which was pretty weird.
In Orlando Wednesday night we had a nice dinner at Tony Roma, where fortunately we shared a meal instead of trying to eat one each of their huge portions. It was a "special" with small pieces of steak and some sort of lobster thing. Good. Thursday morning we actually went to a bank in Orlando to cash a check so that we wouldn't have to constantly hit up the ATM machines for our "stqrt-up" expenses here. This banking thing is sort of a long story and I don't think you want to hear about it. So let me just say that we are still married.
Tomorrow we will see if we can get a sim card for the cell phone, but it's Saturday, so I'm not sure. At any rate, we will probably do some walking around looking for vacant apartments. We have this one til the end of October, but need to try to get a "permanant" address as soon as possible to give to the shipping company to send our things down from Costa Rica.
We are happy to be here. And a little tired tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day for picture taking and my reporting will be a little more exciting. I will be thinking about my friends and wondering what is being discussed in Conversation Group in Heredia.

We Made It!

 

Apartment for the 1st month in Lima  

Arrived last night around mid-night. Love our temporary apartment. Now gotta go find one for longer term. Happy to be here. More later!

Flash forward to Sept 24th

 NEWS FLASH...
The Edgeclinger n Tallguy have landed! Slept in our Lima apartment last night, woke up refreshed this morning and took a walk to our favorite place Buen Gusto for cofe and quiche.
(more to follow...pictures and words from Laurie.)  

New Hampshire: Amazing Sites

Scenes from Gene's Morning Walk

Day Trip to the Maine Beaches

Morning Walk in New Hampshire

Where is the River???

 The River - Before

We awoke up this morning in wonderful Union NH to find that the river that was behind the house was now a trickling brook! That's not good. No fire protection for the town. What happened? Seems some state official opened the dam down stream. Laurie says the dams have been here for a couple hundreds years she thinks. The mills, that used the water power for running their machinery, are no longer in operation. But the the reservoir of water, needed for the town, is gone.
I'm sure that the towns people will solve the problem some how. But to be at a place and see a possible change happen. more to follow...

 The River - After

Gramma's Poetry

Things I Love ~ Poems from the Maine Woods

~ by Eva Bonney Ridlon

One of my latest projects: Publishing my Gramma's poetry.

The books have turned out to be fabulous gifts for family members
I haven't been able to see for all these years.

Another Great Day in New Hampshire

Another wonderful day. Our cousin Patty and her mom Phyllis drove down to visit and have lunch with us. I had not seen Patty since we were kids, so catching up was great! The gorgeous guy in the middle is the adorable Aaron, Sister Sue's grandson, who she gets to have here on Tuesdays, her day off.
What's really cool is that Patty and I both have sons named Aaron and Sue has a grandson Aaron! (Mine was first!)

The Covered Bridge

The Durgin Bridge in Sandwich, New Hampshire was first built in 1820. The sign tells us that the first three bridges here were destroyed by "freshets." Turns out a freshet is a "sudden rise in the level of a stream, or a flood, caused by heavy rains or the rapid melting of snow and ice." The bridge was named for James Holmes Durgin, who ran a nearby grist mill and drove stage from Sandwich to Farmington and was a link in the underground slave railroad from Sandwich to Conway. Remember ever seeing it, Linda?

Morning, Glory!

sunday stuff...

 Sunday morning...
If all goes well we will have pictures of a covered bridge. The weather is cool but nice. A good day for a walk. (I'm hoping to find an ATM machine somewhere along the way.)
to be continued...
The artist

The Mushroom

Walking Around

Believe it or not...

this is what a walk around the neighborhood looks like at my sister's! Actually these were all taken from her yard.

Walks Thru a New Hampshire Village

Whoops! Time for Clams Again!

Day Trip to Maine

Trip to Maine to meet our long-lost cousin Bob Bonney, who we had never known existed. Sue & I had been wanting to meet Bob, who has done an incredible amount of genealogical research on our family back to the Mayflower and beyond!  Snooky and Gene came with us and we made it into a nice drive up the the Fryeburg Fair Grounds where Bob and his wife Laurali are camping out with a few hundred Good Sam people. We ended up talking for over 3 hours and exchanging family information and memories. Pretty cool day!

Having a good time...

As you can see, if you scroll back a few days, that we are enjoying our visit in New Hampshire. Today we are enjoying seeing our Great Nephew  Aaron. I even shared my blueberry muffin with Aaron this morning. We are now great friends.
The Artist

Spagetti Dinner at Sue's

Gail & Tony meet Sue & Snooky and we all enjoy Laurie's spaghetti dinner!

We Made it to New Hampshire!

Here we are in New Hampshire! It's beautiful, cool bracing air. It's great seeing my sister. And Gail is here, too! She and Tony are "camping" in their beautiful new RV down at Milton Three Ponds! I am so happy to finally be here.

Packing Light

Laurie writes: A backpack weighing about 12 pounds is ideal. It can weigh up to 20 pounds and still be manageable. If it weighs 20 pounds (like mine does) and you then add a day pack weighing another 10 pounds or so to the equation, you will be uncomfortable. Removing a third or so of whatever you are carrying would be a good idea.  If you are like some people we know who start out with a 20 pound backpack, then add a 40 pound suitcase, you are probably in trouble from the beginning. If you then have to add a very heavy computer case and a couple of other things, you are setting yourself up for an extremely difficult trip and probably should re-analyze your luggage management / planning. Whatever you are carrying, try to envision yourself getting to your 3rd floor hotel room, carrying all your stuff because you're not sure it's safe to leave it and return to carry it up in several trips. You may discover there are some things you can leave behind.

Finally - Today's the Day!

Laurie writes: Today we will finally make it to New England! I wanted to visit my sister in May and it didn't work out, but now I will finally get to visit with my sister. And as a bonus, as things work out, my best friend Gail (from Florida) is motor homing in the area and I'll get to see her, too. I realize that there are those who are confused, but to me it's perfectly logical to travel from Costa Rica to Peru via Houston, Texas, Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida, Portland, Maine, Union, New Hampshire, Baltimore, Maryland, Orlando, Houston, finally arriving in Lima. Will post more later, hopefully after I've had my fixed of fried clams with bellies!

Need a Compass ...

 (from Orlando, FL)
If we are going further South...why are we flying North to Maine today? I know that if we keep going North we will eventually be going South again. What ever. This is too difficult to think about at 6:50 am.
We might as well visit with Laurie's sister Sue and Snooky while in Maine/NH. It should be nice up there this time of the year.
The Artist