Today I am in a bad mood so whatever I say about Lima will probably be more negative than positive. I became extremly frusterated after I went for my first run here, I made it no more than 5 minutes and my chest and lungs became tight and hurt.

When you are leaving the Jorge Chavez airport there is a sign that reads ¨Lima, Cuidad de los Reyes¨, this is not a place of kings. From what I have seen, Lima is a filthy, smoggy, decrepid city that has some very strong and attractive parts but for the most part is littered with garbage, grafatti, broken down cars that somehow are still running that spew smog out of their tailpipes. I tried to go running here and my lungs hurt within 5 minutes no joke. When I got home I was so angry I broke down and cried about it, this was due to the fact that running is something I NEED to do every day, I am a runner, it is part of my identity, it is a way for me to calm down, to release tension and negative enegry, etc etc. Without running I just don't feel right. And I don't. Walking is not the same, not the same pace, not the same release, not the same at all, it will NOT fill that void, it just won't, and while walking you are still inhaling the unbreathable air, choking on pollution, smog and dust and dirt.

I am feeling like being a women here is very isolating. In my experiences, unless you know them other women will not talk to you, this is hard for me especially since I lived in Newfoundland for the past month and everyone talks to everyone. Another reason I feel that being a woman is isolating is because it is ¨not safe/secure¨for me to go anywhere by myself, I can do little things like go to the store during the day and early evening but not much else. I can't take a cab by myself, I can't take a bus by myelf, I can't go out at night to meet someone by myself. This is choking me, I value my alone time and independence so this is very frsuterating for me, I feel like I am not able to taste life and thus am bound to the house. This cannot go on for 6 months, it just can't. I need to make friends, establish a social circle, hang out, I can't be bound to the house. It is not me so much having a fear but all of my counter parts insisting that it's not safe, telling story after story about the extrenjero who got driven to another city, killed, raped, you name it by a taxi driver, or dumped somewhere unknown off the kombi.

All in all it is making me angry and depressed. This is compounded by the fact that I can't get a release from running either.

I hate and love the food, it's good but soooooo greasy! It's funny because they say how unhealthy the food is in North America, well in North America I have never experienced such rich and heavy food as I have here! I would hate to see the nutritional value of what I am eating here, I would probably never eat again. EVERYTHING is soaked with lard or oil, everything. Dishes I have eaten include roto de aji which is a spicy bell pepper stuffed with beef (?), onions, spices and 2-3 rasins, an olive and a hardboiled egg. This is then smothered with cheese and served with potatoes. My favorite is pollo a brasa which is just rotissery chicken but it's really good, I smother it with chimmichurry sauce or crema de aji. My coworkers say that have never seen an extranjero use as much aji as I do! They are surprised I don't think their food is too spicy, it's not though. None of the resturaunts have sal and pepper on the tables which sorta sucks because I like pepper a lot. What else ave I eaten? I have had many chicken dishes they keep forcing fish at me but I dunno, the fish sketches me out. The food is great but everything is soooooo greasy! I was eating some chicken last night with my hands and had an impossible time getting the grease, lard, whatever off. My upstairs neighbor bought cuy (guinea pig) for us to eat today but I am scared to death to eat it, he asked me if I would eat it and I said yeah sometime in the furutre I would, but I didn't think it would come so fast! Anyway, it is in the fridge, I will let everyone know how it is when I get the guts to eat it. Note to vegetarians, it's totally impossible to be one here, you would die, actually die, the veggies are pretty s***ty and the bread is awful and they don't have resturaunts that are veg friendsly except maybe in the parts of Miraflores that are ritzy places for forgieners. Many of the Chifa resturaunts say they are vegetarian but then have fish, seafood and pork. I have not tried Chifa yet, it is supposed to be pretty good, butI don't really trust Chinese food in general because of a bad food poisioning experience I had in Half Moon Bay, damn Moon Bay Chinese!

The sweets are pretty gross, like candies and cookies and such. They sell them EVERYWHERE they are highly processed and overall lack flavor, the only ones I enjoy are Doña Pepa and I think what I actually enjoy about those is the packaging, it makes me laugh every time. The bread is absolutely horrid, I have head rumors of an Italian bakery and I am trying not to get too excited because the bread I have had so far is so bad. As for drinks... there is NO decent coffee, most of it is instant which violates my religion (haha, well no but I only drink gooood coffee, Iwon't drink Tim Horton's either, barf) someone told me there was a Starbucks in Miraflores so I have my eyes open for it yet haven't been lucky yet, I know some of you will say this and that about Starbucks but whatever man, yes it is a staunch symbol of globalization and yes they put other businesses out of busines BUT there are no other cafes or coffee here so I think that makes it ok.

There sems to be no fresh milk here which dosen't bother me much since I don't drink it but it seems a bit odd, you can only get real juice at homeowned stores/resturaunts and thats if your lucky, most of the time it is artificial punches, gross, the water is sick even if you boil it but I have found a brand of botteled I like so it isn't too bad, the sodas are better because they use sugar and no fructos but I am not a huge soda fan myself, I tried InkaKola which is really popular here, it is bright yellow and tastes like bubble gum needless to say gross, the beers are ok, nto great, they mostly have red wines but they are usually on the sweeter side whereas I prefer dry but hey I guess you can't have everything. Men don't speak to me directly and when I have to buy something in a small store, which there are millions of opperating from peoples garages, people won't ask what I would like they just talk on, talk about me, etc and finally when I start saying ¨Por favor... por favor... ¡POR FAVOR!'they finally acknowledge me and act like I am putting them out by ringing me in! I am boycotting the store directly across the street from me because the woman is so rude to me!

They sell olives here super cheap, which is great because I love olives. The other day I heard a commotion outside and found it was a man driving an old station wagoe with a speaker mounted on the top who was selling huge pails of olives out of the back! We bought some but not a whole pail like I wanted. I met a man who comes into the office pretty much every day who speaks Quechua which is pretty neat, I am going to learn basics, like ¨Hi, how are you, I'm good thank you¨which should come in handy when I go into the Andes.

I am planning on hitting the Inka Trail to Manchu Pichuu within the next month, month and a half, I have to get there before the rainy season starts. I am also planning a trip to Iquitos, it is a city on the edge of the amazon, you can see real native tribes and they have some psychadelic tourism where you can drink hayawasca (don't know if I spelt it right) with a shaman, it's a hallusinagen and you trip out in the Amazon and find your spirit animal and all that. It's not illegal here and my boss did it when he was 18 or something, this was just a couple years after he became completly blind and said it was an amazing experience. I asked him if he would do it again and he said yes, so I said if he would let us have a long weekend I would make the travel arrangements. He agreed! I don't know whether that was the wine talking or what but I am making him keep his word!

Thats all for right now friends.