Birthday wishes do come true

Even though we've had quite an interesting financial go of Peru, we still found a few pennies in the coffers to treat ourselves to a fish lunch for our birthdays. Pescados Capitales is one of the premier restaurants in Lima, known for its top-quality ceviche and economic prices. So this is where we turned our gaze when we wanted to celebrate the fact that we're getting old.

Cheers to raw fish! (That's right, mom. RAW fish.)

Just your typical expat

Many of my friends here in Lima are pretty impressed by the fact that I drive here. I feel that my Massachusetts driving skills have not altered since I first received my license at 16 (which statement, I am sure, is scaring the bejeezus out of my parents right now), but many people find themselves overwhelmed by the traffic here.

There are so many problems with the commute here that it's difficult to find a starting point, but I will try - I will make a list:

1) Many cars here in Lima would never pass a car inspection - the biggest problem for other drivers on the road is nonfunctional tail and brake lights;
2) The dotted lines demarcating lanes mean nothing - a three-lane highway can and usually will hold five lanes of traffic;
3) Many Peruvian drivers do not believe that traffic laws or common courtesy applies - blocking the box, taking a righthand turn from the left-most lane, gunning it through stop signs, and driving straight through an intersection from the turning lane, among a number of other obnoxious (and frankly dangerous) driving behaviors, are common;
4) Traffic police - many people complain, for example, about the traffic police in DC, but Peruvian traffic police take the cake; they stop traffic at green lights, allow lanes of traffic to fill up to the point that cars are fully blocking the box and causing a four-way traffic jam, and, from personal experience, have a nasty habit of pulling over perfectly appropriate drivers who take lefthand turns when the lefthand arrow turns green and telling them to drive more carefully.

I'm sure this list doesn't accurately explain just how quickly one's blood pressure rises when driving around Lima, but I assure you that when you come to visit, you will understand very quickly that traffic here is like nothing you've ever experienced before.

Thank goodness my quaint New England driving skills prepared me to be the most aggressive SOB on the road!

The kids

If there's any question of whether or not the kids are settling into life here in Peru, this should remove all doubts.

Tis the season...

Thanksgiving came and went, and I didn't once write about it. However, it is my hands-down favorite holiday and I really can't let it slip by without a word or two.

This particular Thanksgiving was special for many reasons, the primary of which is that this was my first Thanksgiving in 29 years not spent in MA with my family. We may have long foregone family Christmas celebrations, but we haven't been able to lose our enthusiasm for a holiday filled with food, food, more food, and the entire wacky, extended family, friends and neighbors who always decorate our table with their smiles, their laughter, and their willingness to put up with us.

So, my Peruvian Thanksgiving was a little diffferent this year, since Anthony decided that we should invite everyone we know and plan an Italian/Southern Thanksgiving feast. That means that we had 24 planned attendees (of which 17 or so showed up) and not a single food item that is ever served at my family's Thanksgiving, except the jellied cranberry sauce by Ocean Spray I was able to uncover in the local grocery store! Instead of a full turkey with the crispy skin, the fat-filled "butt" that I hang around in the kitchen to steal before anyone else gets a chance, and the homemade gravy, we had a 4lb. turkey breast stuffed with Italian sausage. Instead of the mashed potatoes, we had candied yams. Instead of the stuffed artichokes, we had meat and vegetarian lasagnes. And instead of Martinelli's sparkling cider, we had bottles upon bottles of red wine.

Yet the holiday wasn't ruined for me because of the lack of traditional food; instead it was elevated into something new, and something almost as equally fabulous. While I didn't end up eating much (I apparently was too busy drinking wine and setting up the table with the food), I was still surrounded by a wonderful group of friends who I have grown to care about and value since I moved to Peru in July. It has been a difficult transition for both of us, and what seems to help the most is having people who you can laugh with, complain with, and just generally kick back your heels with. In a word, friends.

It was my friends who baked me a Thanksgiving/birthday banana pie, friends who stopped at the store last-minute to pick up food for what we thought would be too many people for the amount of food we'd prepared, friends who sang Happy Birthday in both English and Spanish, friends who cheered my health and happiness with a bottle of champagne, and friends who stuck around until 1AM, madly eating the last few crumbs of my first-ever pumpkin pie and debating the relative hotness of Nathalie Portman and Keira Knightley. Thanksgiving just wouldn't have been the same without them.

Therefore, I am eternally grateful to my Peruvian friends for helping to make my first Thanksgiving away from home a happy occassion. And I thank them for leaving me with all these tasty leftovers that I've been inhaling since Thursday. Nothing says post-Thanksgiving happiness like eating banana pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

And Sendero Luminoso continues...

For an update on the Shining Path movement here in Peru, here's some news.

U.S. elections

You already know that Barack Obama won the elections yesterday, and you probably already saw the worldwide reaction to his election on the news this morning, but it still is amazing to me how important this election is to the rest of the world. All of my foreign friends have been following this election (far more closely than I have, if truth be told) and are truly interested in the results. One of my French friends even texted me last night, asking for election night results since she would not have access to the information for most of the evening.

I'm not the most political of people, but I do believe that the U.S. reputation abroad has taken a nose-dive under our current administration and, no matter whether you agree with his politics, at least former President Bill Clinton maintained strong relationships with his counterparts overseas. I sincerely hope that Obama is able to live up to his promise of reinvigorating our reputation and gains the same kind of status our foreign policy team had in 1990s. (That Madeline Albright was pretty darn awesome, wasn't she?)

It always comes back to the food

About 2 months ago, I started emailing a group of women I know here in Peru and asking them to lunch with me on a biweekly basis. I figured we could try a lot of new restaurants that way. Usually, it's a small group, but this past week, we had 9 lovely ladies gathered for a midday break. As always, we had a lovely time.

However, I want to point out 2 things about Peruvian cuisine:

1) it appears that I generally don't like the food here. That's not to say that you won't adore it, but so far I'm unimpressed. Probably my best meals have been fish items (well, except that one incident with the food poisoning), but the 4 bazillion varieties of potatoes (of which they seem to only serve one here in Lima - the papa amarilla) can be tossed out the window. I also haven't become a fan of causa (I generally find this close to tasteless), gallina (too sweet for my taste), or lomo saltado (which I equate to a really boring beef stirfry). The empanadas are decent, and I've really liked some of the crazy fried things you can buy on the street - even if I have no idea what they're called or what's in them. Of course, I usually highlight the fact that Anthony and I cook at home most days and eat out very infrequently, but all the same, nothing has WOWed me (yet). Although I am looking forward to my streetside anticuchos (beef heart on a stick, anyone?) with my dear friend, Sarah. And my Auntie Thomas tells me that cuy (yes, your dearest childhood friend, the guinea pig) is a must-try. Apparently it tastes like chicken.

2) The service has generally been, well, crappy. (That's my highly educated word for it - "crappy.") Especially when we go out for our girls lunches. It appears that a lot of Peruvian mosos (waiters) would really rather we died than to sit at a table and make them do their jobs, the jobs that they actually get paid to do. In the last restaurant, Scena, I thought I could see the guy rolling his eyes every time we caught his attention. In fact, I half expected him to throw our bill at us. Needless to say, it doesn't inspire me to tip well (although, being that I worked in the service industry when I was younger, I can't bring myself to actually follow through - I always give 10% here). Furthermore, if you sit down to eat, many restaurants charge you cubiertos which varies, and covers the cost of using the restaurant's utensils, plates, etc. Then there's the 19% tax (yay government!). So what seems like a deal quickly stops being a deal.

There are a few restaurants that are exceptions to this rule, but they form the minority. Maybe it's just a Lima thing. Since I have yet to leave the city limits, I wouldn't know, but I've been told that people are much friendlier in Arequipa. Perhaps that's where Anthony and I should vacation?