La vida de Lima

So I wanted to share a little about what life in Lima is like.
Let’s see, driving is a nightmare! Every driver kinda just makes up his or her own lane. The lines mean nothing. It is illegal to right on a red light. But it is permissible to turn right if you are in the far left lane of a three lane highway. You just make your way across the other lanes. There are ladies that sit in boxes at some intersections to direct traffic. Now these intersections have stoplights, so I’m not sure why they don’t use them. When you come to an intersection and sit there for 10 minutes, you know a lady in a box is directing cars. The way they direct makes no sense, and actually makes traffic worse! And if there are intersections close together with lady directors, they do not work together. This makes things interesting to say the least.
I will be getting my driver’s license eventually, but I must say I am nervous to drive here! I usually walk, or take taxis right now. Oh, and there are constant horns honking. It’s not necessarily an angry honk. Many times, drivers just honk to let another driver know they are there – don’t change lanes. They are just talking to each other. Taxis honk at walkers, letting them know an empty taxi is coming if you want one.
Lima is a very cloudy city. They just don’t get much sun. It’s partly due to the terrible pollution, but mostly due to the location. There is only sun a couple months out of the year, during the summer, which will be here soon. It’s actually trying to come out early this year. We’ve had some nice partly sunny days here the last few days. And I hear, that as soon as you get outside of Lima, the weather is always gorgeous and sunny. Kind of depressing, but at least I’ll be able to travel quite a bit.
I live in a fairly nice part of Lima, which means more upper class Peruvians live here as well. Almost every dog I see in this part of town wears a sweater. Big dogs, bitty dogs, ugly dogs (and there are some ugly dogs here!) – they all wear sweaters. I find it amusing!
And there are guards, guarding houses and businesses just about every block or two. What a boring job! They just stand there allllll day. But at least safety is a priority!
Hmmm, what else? Food – any kind of American box food is expensive here, very expensive. I’m talking I bought a box of cereal the other day for $7. A small box, but it was the only healthy one I could find! It’s the same with peanut butter, muffins, brownie mixes, frozen dinners. So, this may come as a shock to many, but I am learning how to cook, from scratch! I have to! I can’t afford to buy package stuff on a regular basis. It’s much cheaper to cook from scratch. So that has kind of become one of my goals while I’m here – to get good at cooking. I must say, a few of the dished I’ve made so far have been delicious! I will keep you posted on this goal!