After having a busy few days at camp, my family still had more to show Sarah and I in Lima. And I was finally going to get a cell phone!
We went into downtown Lima to go to the Basilica and Convent of San Francisco. It was incredibly beautiful, and I wish I could have taken pictures, but it's not allowed. I suppose they have that rule out of respect.
After looking around the church, they took us on a tour through the catacombs underneath it. It was so cool, I had never been through something like it before. They said even today, they still put the monks of the convent in the catacombs. There are also many more tunnels that have yet to be discovered and looked through. I wish the tour was slower, because they had little signs in English that you could read through, but there was never time. I should have asked if I could take pictures of them, but I didn't think to do that until we left. The tour guide spoke Spanish, so I couldn't understand much. It's nice that the internet exists, because I could just come home and learn about everything that I saw. There are also plenty of pictures on the internet that I can look at.
After that, we went to go eat at a restaurant called Rocky's, which is a popular chain around here. We got the usual rotisserie chicken and French fries; that's what the restaurant is popular for. It was quite tasty. While walking to the restaurant, we also passed the church where Hillary was baptized, which was neat. It was a beautiful church, like many of the other old Catholic churches around here.
Before heading home, we stopped by the mall. We went to 3 different stores before finding a phone for a decent price. My host dad had to use his military discount for me to get it at the price that I did, which was surprisingly a very large discount. I ended up paying s/304, which is about $93 USD. I was hoping to pay less than that just because I heard phones here are cheap. The brand is Huawei, which is popular around South America. So far, the phone functions, but it also makes me appreciate my tablet a little more, which is saying something. I use the tablet while I'm at home, and only turn on the phone if we're going out. I'm very happy that I finally got a phone, it makes going out much easier. But at the same time all I ever do is think about if I have my phone or not, and I always check to make sure it's still there. The last thing I need is a stolen phone. While at the mall, we did some more shopping just because we were there and we could. Sarah wanted to get a heavier jacket, since it's way colder here than we expected, so we got that taken care of as well.
The plan for today is to go out to one of the flea markets around here and find a case for the phone. They're a lot cheaper there than places like the mall. I'm excited to go since I hear there's a lot of cool things around, but at the same time those places are a lot more sketch than the safe mall. Either way, it will be a cool experience.
The bascilica looks beautiful. The catacombs sound creepy. But a cool creepy like I want to go there.