One last hurrah with the gang

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Back "home" in the 5-star hotel Las Americas, in the snazzy upscale neighborhood of Miraflores, I was looking forward to an easy day on Friday. We had an unscheduled mandatory visit to the navy lab NAMRID in Lima which destroyed my fantasy of sleeping until 10 and leisurely getting some stuff done. First I trekked down the street to drop off my laundry. I finally got to wash the amazon out of my clothes. I feel bad for whoever had to open that bag! So cheap for perfectly folded and very clean clothes. I wish we had something like that in the states -- I would have opened an account during college. The kicker was that because of the schedule, I had to get up early to walk down there to drop it off so it would be ready later that day.

The lab at NAMRID wasn´t all that exciting -- not much to write about. I didn´t even get to see monkeys (my whole trip here and never saw any monkeys!). After that we pretty much scattered. Dropped off back at the hotel, then to the 4 winds. A few of us ventured out for lunch at a pretty amazing Lebanese place. Café Beirut had some of the best middle eastern food I´ve ever had. I´m bummed I couldn´t finish it (my mouth is watering now thinking about it). Walking distance from the hotel (almost everything was -- very nice!), the place was complete with hookahs. If my cold hadn´t migrated to my lungs I was definitely considering it... Yeah, did I mention? I´m now coughing up green stuff. I have a layer of mucus covering my entire lung surface. I stayed a little longer and group hopped (a couple other people from our group sat down while we were leaving). We all went to the art market (which, now that I´m in Cusco writing this, there is definitely no shortage of!!). It´s really just a few vendors lining the street selling local pieces of art. Not bad, but very distinct. Time seemed to be dwindling fast. Most of the group was leaving that night at 7pm (off to the airport, and by now are home in their own beds). I met everyone down in the lobby for a tearful fairwell (ok, not tearful, but still kinda sad). It was such a great group of people to travel with. I feel blessed that every trip I´ve been on so far (with the possible exception of one a while back), it has been with a really good mix of people, and I´ve made some great friends along the way.

After they all left, I headed down to central Lima with Edwin and Paul (who flew out Sat morning instead, so had some time to kill). We went with the express purpose of picking up our customized leather jackets. I can´t remember if I wrote about it or not, so I´ll just quickly recap. On Tues we wandered into this place (Paul knew about it from a previous trip). They have a bunch of leather jackets for sale, but also custom make any leather jacket you want. Tailored, and with any detail you want. And pretty cheap (around $100). Quality too, with a nice liner. We both ordered one (I had intended to just look around, but it was so cool I couldn´t resist). Edwin ordered this really awesome jacket, and I ordered a brown leather jacket with a few details. The finished product was a little different though... Mine was very custom fit (which is ok since I´ll be losing 20lbs soon haha), and Edwin´s was made with leather that was either a green or gold tint. Couldn´t say for sure in the lights in the store. It was definitely different material than when we ordered. However, it still looked awesome. He might have it dyed when we get back to the states because it would look awesome in brown (like it was supposed to be). Overall, I think we´re both happy. And now we have brand-new custom made leather jackets from Peru.

By the time we got back, I had just enough energy to pack and fall asleep. You´d think I´d sleep like a rock with so much ongoing sleep deprivation (and no matter how bad internship got, I somehow managed to get more sleep than I´m getting on this trip). However, again I woke up in the middle of the night. Not as bad as before, and at least this time I was able to get a good 5 hours of broken sleep. If I could just get one night of 9 hours I think I´d shake my gripa. Maybe tomorrow night, because it´s not happening tonight either. (But I´m gonna try to get close!)

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