Happy Birthday To Masa!!

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Of course, we got back to Lima just in time to celebrate Masa´s 33rd birthday here yesterday, August 12. Too bad he couldn´t spend it surfing. However, Papou made it a very nice birthday anyway. First, she surprised both of us with a birthday/early wedding present of a cookbook that is put out annually by the women of the American Church here in Lima. It includes lots of Peruvian recipes both in Spanish and English as well as many other recipes for everything from cocktails to desserts. We´d looked at the copy Papou had when we were here before and it was the one souvenir we really did not want to forget to pick up. I can´t wait to get home and try some of the Peruvian recipies for food we have been enjoying here. In the afternoon both of Papou´s daughters Yvette and Denise and their families came for lunch. Denise and family had just come home from a trip to Europe. It was nice to see everyone once again before we leave. We had another surprise in store. After lunch was over Papou came in with a birthday cake complete with candles and “Feliz Dia Masa” in frosting. Everyone sang happy birthday and feliz cumpleaños. It was such a wonderful thing to do and both Masa and I were really touched by all the effort to make his birthday special.

After everyone left Masa and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought it was alright. When it was over, however, Masa and I spent the walk home wondering if Jack Sparrow is actually frozen in Carbonite somewhere. Guess we´ll have to wait till the next film to find out. (also, for the Young Family if you´ve seen it… did you or did you not want to cry out “you should have abajoed!”? I did.)

Yesterday was also marked by a rollercoaster of worry over our return journey. See, Air Canada changed our flight to Toronto from Lima but not our flight from Toronto to LA. The result was that we had a 22 hour layover in Toronto. Not exciting. And when we called Air Canada they said they had nothing to give us and that we´d have to wait standby. Great. So we´d leave at 225AM on Tuesday morning from Lima, arrive in Toronto at 1130am and then spend the night traipsing back and forth through the airport hoping for a flight home. The prospect of 48 hours of wakefulness had me extremely worried. Also we had no way to know when we´d get in so there was no way to arrange for a pick up. After all of that we´d probably have to find a taxi or a bus and get somewhere on our own with all our stuff. Granted, this is not exactly a third world country we´re talking about and after our time with the busses in Peru it should be no sweat but on two days of no or little sleep it had me more than a little anxious. Yeah I worry a lot. Tell me something I don´t know.

Well here is where I voice my wholehearted and sincere THANK YOU to Bill Alkire, Masa´s dad, who made the phone calls to United and Air Canada that we just didn´t have the phone minutes left to make and got us confirmed on a flight out of Toronto Tuesday afternoon. Thank you thank you thank you!!

So that pretty much does it. This will, in all likelihood, be our last entry from beautiful Peru. We´ve really had such a wonderful time here and feel like we´ve gotten to know the country and feel sort of at home here in the last eight weeks. I´m so glad we decided not to spread ourselves too thin over the entire continent, but I most definitely will be back to see more if not the rest.

Well. Catch you where the water swirls the other way!

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Photos

Happy Birthday Masa
From the left there´s Yvette, Denise, Valeria, Michaela, Papou, and me... and of course the birthday boy in the center of it all.