Field Trip. I bade see-you-tomorrow to Fiona’s two kids and Housekeeper Sylvia and hopped into an $11 cab to Miraflores for the night.
Side note: I’ve never lived in a place with a full-time housekeeper before. It’s really the way to go! Imagine leaving all your dirty breakfast dishes in the sink as you rush off to work every morning. Then, when you get home every evening, your entire place is clean, clothes are washed / ironed and dinner is waiting, nice and warm on the stove. Genius!
Pariwana Hostel. I checked in to the Pariwana Hostel at Parque Kennedy (the one with all the feral cats.) At a glance, I thought it was “Peruana” which means Peruvian. But as this mural in the entryway describes:
I headed to the large rooftop area where a few dozen people were talking, eating, smoking, reading to write this blog post describing this French guy:
And the rooftop itself. Here are two pics I didn’t share in the Person/Place/Thing post:
Brrr! Because I’m so rarely out and about at night, I forgot that – desert that it is – Lima gets chilly at night, 50’s/60’s F. After a half hour, I finally broke down and bought a this hoodie from the 6-floor department store across the street. The cheapest one I found was this child’s size 12 for $16:
Bonus!! While walking around the store, I spotted this woman holding an entire envelope in her mouth, while rummaging through a table of t-shirts, further disproving my theory that only Americans hold things by mouth, treating the lips/teeth as a kind of third hand…
Back to the roof. With my new large-child’s-sized hoodie to keep me warm, I reclaimed my spot on the rooftop to round out my observations on the French guy. Thankfully, he was still up there, nose buried in his laptop while he sucked down cigarettes.
Quiet Time? Everyone on the rooftop was doing their own thing (including myself.) After awhile it was looking like I may not speak to anyone else (which would be fine. Just quiet.) This changed as soon as I met Sarah-From-Norway while taking this picture of our 6-person dorm room. (You can see her name on the right, written on the side of her assigned bed, #1.) That’s her with the blonde hair…
[Pariwana adventure continued here.]
O hi, Asia! 