What A Weekend

A wonderful weekend was what I had spent with my host family as well as my friends from my first school. I had been wanting to spend time with them again for a long time. I always miss them so much but never get to see them because they live so far away from me.

My parents will be really happy to read this blog post- I went to the optometrist. That was what I did all Saturday with my host parents. We ate breakfast together, which I always like having with the 2 of them because they have so many cute stories to tell of being young and in love up to now. Somehow, my lazy eye got brought up in conversation and my glasses, which I occasionally would wear depending on the day. So, we went out to get my eyes checked out again and to get my glasses fixed. The lens had a big smudge on it that kept me from even seeing out of it, which I think was another reason I didn't like wearing my glasses so much.

So we go to a bunch of roadside shops to get my eyes checked by various people until we find a place that is reasonably priced and will fix my glasses. And they did. And all of the people we went to told me things that I had already known my almost whole life when it came to my eyes and vision. Except he told my host mom I had to wear my glasses ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. Huh? Back in the US I just have to wear them when I'm driving or need to see out of 2 eyes. Well darn.

So we go out to eat while they change out the lenses in my glasses. They gave me a new prescription so now I have correction in both eyes, as before I didn't have it in my right eye. It was delicious! It was a patty of meat, I got chicken, with different toppings on it to accompany it. I got the Mexican one and it was delicious. It made me so happy. Once we were finished, we picked up my host mom and I's glasses. Thus begun the wearing the glasses all day, every day, and getting accustomed to a new prescription. Oh boy.

My super tasty taco-looking chicken!

We then went home, and I got ready to go meet my friend Claudia. I was so excited to see her! We were just going to hang out for a little bit. My plan was to meet her around 5:30 and I didn't et there until 7. And it all started with taking one wrong bus. It's so easy to get lost around here. And I ended up getting myself in one of the most stressful transportation situations ever.

I called Claudia to tell her what had happened and that I was having a hard time because for some reason my location on my phone wasn't working. I somehow got myself right in the smack dab middle of the Lima district of Lima. So Lima is the capital city of Peru, but then there's the district of Lima in Lima which is where all of the government stuff and real capital is. Confusing, right? I know. So I was in a very busy metropolitan area and it was dark outside. Fun. We finally decided the best and most easy way for me to get to her now would be for me to go by Metropolitano. The Metropolitano is the big train-like bus that goes all the way through Lima from north to south. I was going basically all the way from the north to the south. When I lived in south Lima in Chorrillos, I used the Metropolitano all the time to get everywhere and I would always use my host parents Metropolitano card. So now for the few times I use it, I just ask people if I can borrow their card and give them my money to pay for my bus fare. Sounds easy enough. Except this time, that would not work for some reason.

After I FINALLY found the bus station (it took me forever and walking like a clueless foreigner all over to find it because it's underground), I got to the card money thingamabob. And I started asking people if I could borrow their cards. Well, it was difficult, because I didn't have exact change, and no one else I had change they could make for me. Or they just ignored me, that happens too. Seeing that this wasn't going to work out unless I had exact change, I went to one of the little stores in the station. This station was different than any other Metropolitano station I had been to because it literally looked like an airport and was ginormous. Most of the stations are little things in the middle of the road. This was literally like an underground train station. So I go to the store and ask them to make change for me, and the lady just gives me a look and says that "that's not how they do it around here." Oh, ok then, well thank you so much for nicely helping the stressed out lost foreigner who is literally about to cry from this fiasco.

I really didn't know what to do at this point. I had 5 soles, and it costs 2.50for the bus fare. Then I find one of the machines where I can buy my own card. And it's 5 soles! I think yes, this will solve all of my problems, I will just buy my own card. So I do that. And then I think, oh wait, I have the card now, but there's nothing on it... Now what? I hadn't completely thought this through. I still had a bill of 50 soles on me, that I only carry in case of emergency, and I figured this might be an emergency. I'll have to spend it to break it up into change. Which I don't like doing, because I always end up spending the change too. Surprise surprise, I spent it all by the end of the night, but at this point the end of my night was still 8 hours away.

I went to a Dunkin Donuts because I figured that would be the cheapest place I could get a soda without having to go back to that one store with the rude lady. I got an Inka Kola, and it wasn't expensive so I had plenty of change to fill up my card with my bus fare. I also had an Inka Kola, which was well needed at this point. I now no longer have to ask around to nice looking people while using the Metropolitano because I have my own card now. Phew.

I then go the machine to put money in my card, I do that, and I go pass the little machines and pay to get on the bus. And then I wait. I look at the map to see which bus I have to take to get to the station I want, and there was only one bus of the 10 that went there. Well shucks. This then meant a very long time of waiting. Finally one came around, but I couldn't get on it because I had to run to it to get to it before it left, it was already super full, and as I tried to get in the automatic doors closed right on top of me. There was a guy behind me who gave me the most judgmental "really?" look as I was already about ready to start crying. Who knew how long it would be before another B bus came around. It wasn't too long before another one did come around that was less full, PRAISE THE LORD. I got on their with my headphones in my ears and country music turned up all the way, happy and relieved as can be. It had taken literally an hour to do something that should have taken 5 minutes between finding the bus station to getting on the bus.

I wasn't on the bus for very long before I arrived to the bus station, and I was a happy child. I got off and started walking to Claudia's house. She ended up having to leave her house to come find me, but I wasn't far, I was really close! From there, we took another bus to the mall.

When we got to the mall, we started looking around for a place we wanted to get something. I wasn't very hungry, so I got a little Starbucks drink while we got something at Pizza Hut for her. It was really nice just being able to sit down and talk for a while and catch up on everything that had been going on in life since the last time we had done something together. Which was only about 2 weeks before, but a lot can happen in 2 weeks. We then walked around the mall and did some window shopping. It wasn't before long that it was getting late, and I had a class reunion to go to in the military village. So from there, I took off in a bus to the military village. We gave each other lots of hugs while knowing we'd see each other soon.

After a while in the bus, I arrived in the military village and was so excited to be there again. It's so far away for me and all of my school friends are in university now and we're all busy living lives apart from each other, so it's not often that we get together to catch up again and hang out. I ran into my friend Fernanda while I was walking to my friend Daniela's house, where the reunion was, and made sure to make sure she was coming. I met up with my friend Marcelo in a park nearby because we were one of the first ones there, and also ran into my friend Ana Paula once we got to her house. It had been so long since I had seen either of them, and I was so excited to get together with them again.

My friend Daniela and I

We got inside and for the next hour more people started coming in. It made me really happy for us to have a fun night together again like we used to have before. In total we were less than 10, but that was absolutely fine. I was just happy to be there and see everybody again.

I ended up being there for about 2 hours before it was time to go home. I shared a taxi with my friend Frezia. When I finally got home, I was ready to go to sleep and crashed.

It had been a long and busy day, but it had been a great day. Besides some little bumps in the road. But the good well outdid the bad.

The next day was Sunday, a day to rest. I certainly took advantage of it. I got pollo a la brasa for lunch with my host family and hung out with them some, so that just really topped off the weekend on top of the rest I was getting. Everything I had over the weekend was well-needed and made me happy.