A long Walk along the Ocean

Not being ones to sit around, Julie and I decided to walk down towards the beach.  It turned into a marathon of over 4 hours.  We knew that there was a cool mall somewhere down the coast but weren't sure we could walk that far.  Nevertheless, we started on our way.

Our hotel (and apartment) are just 1 1/2 blocks from a huge golf course.

You are never far from a little street vendor, be it flowers...

or fruit.

Right at the coast we found the open market for our part of town, San Isidro.

Very clean...

very orderly...

but not very exciting.

Would you like one chicken or two?

Right in the middle of the local cheeses and goodies, what do we see, but a bag of pine nuts from Costco.  Definately not local.

Gas stations are small but tucked away in handy spots all over
 town.  Gas is sold by the gallon...between US$4.50 and 6.50 depending on the grade.

Since it is always overcast in Lima we were surprised to see islands off shore.

We were at the north end of a very long boardwalk (malecon), had not been walking long, so we decided we needed more exercise.  We headed south towards the mall.

I should have taken up surfing when I was younger.

Soccor park...

Strolling park...

Flower park...

Along the way we ran into a couple that was on the plane from Atlanta with us.  (no picture)

We talked for almost an hour.  They gave us some good tips regarding life in Lima.

Kite park...

Sitting park...

Skate park...

more Strolling park...

and more Strolling park...

Lighthouse park...

the Park of Love...

Gee could you tell?

Pretty cool restaurant.  We hear it is pricey, but...

but has a good view of the surfers.  It reminded us of Ruby's (Coronado, San Diego style) on

the Seal Beach pier in California.

We knew we had walked a long way, but there was so much to see along the way to the mall that it did not seem too bad.  (I'm pretty sure we'll never do it again)

Pretty modern stuff.

Tony Romas's, T.G.I.F., Chile's, Dunkin' Donuts and a whole lot more.

Pedicure for the bride.

Nice Italian/Peruvian restaurant

Great company...best of friends!

The New Neighborhood

We finally arrived in Lima, Peru on August 11th.  Because you always arrive in Lima at midnight you are never sure what things look like around town.  The Hotel Libertador, which will be our home until our things are out of Customs, ended up looking pretty nice.

You can see our apartment just down the street.  It is the first white building that you
can see to the right of the hotel.

The hotel room was big enough to enjoy without stepping on our luggage and belongings...


 
which became very important once we started unpacking our bags.

It is amazing what you can get in 6 suitcases and 3 carry-ons.

We had to pack for the unknown.  We did not know if our stay in the hotel would be 2 weeks or 6.  We also had no idea exactly what the weather would be like.  We only knew that we were leaving the hot dry summer of Utah and moving to the damp cool winter of Peru.

We could finally unwind after four months of craziness getting ready for the move!

Our apartment is just up the street from the hotel.  The name of our street is Los Eucaliptos.  It is not very fun to pronounce.  (Los  A-oo-ka-lip-tose)  That is the word for "eucalyptus trees"...but you probably already figured that out.   

This is our stackable washer and dryer in the apartment.

That has made it nice to do laundry while we have been staying in the hotel.

Here is a quick tour of the apartment...often stating the obvious.

"Front" door on the left.  Stairs to the bedrooms on the right.  Livingroom straight ahead.



Balcony off the living room.

View from the balcony.  Our hotel is behind the orange building on the left.  Behind the hotel is the ocean.  Lima is very overcast much of the time so you can only see the ocean once in a while. 

The view from our balcony and front bedrooms.  On a clear day you can see the islands out in the ocean.  The trees in the foreground are in the park just across the street from our apartment.

Guest bath at the bottom of the stairs in entry hallway.

Obviously the kitchen.  We think they could have found a better place for the water heaters.  Normally the only one that would see the kitchen and the water heaters is the hired cook.  In this case that would be Julie. 

Master bedroom

Walk-through closet to get to the bathroom.

Master bathroom...

with jetted- tub!

Back bedroom.  The previous owners left this table and chairs.

Back bedroom closet and...



attatched bathroom.

Small front bedroom...

closet...

and attatched bathroom.

This, and the following pictures, are the park in front of our apartment. 

It will be nice to go outside and enjoy the park once the weather gets warmer as we move into spring and summer.  Right now, in the dead of the Peruvian winter, the temperatures are in the 50's and 60's with plenty of humidity.

You never see raindrops, but the frequent mist helps keep the vegetation green and the sidewalks slippery.

Our park has it's own statue.  We just don't don't know who the hero is.
We will have to Google his name sometime.

Our apartment in the background.

Saying Goodbye to Family

In May Julie and I counted up our possible Saturday workdays and realized that we did not have much time to get the house in shape for renters.  We also wanted to spend as much time as possible with family.  Quite the emotional dilema. Our kind and generous kids offered to drive down from Logan and help us with whatever we needed them to do.  So...we had a great day together scraping and painting.  We got an amazing amount of work done.

We took turns playing with Dax.

Especially Julie.

The next day was Father's Day...

so even more family came to be with us.

Julie's parents.

To save gas travelling back and forth between Logan we combined Tyler's birthday with Father's day.  Lindsey picked out some cool toys for Tyler.

As our departure got closer we took every opportunity to get together in spite of the distances. Julie and I went to Logan a couple of times one week. We just couldn't get enough of our family...

and playtime with Dax.

One of the few times Dax slowed down.  How sweet.

Every Adams get-together has to have some games.  We think that Yspahan is the new family favorite. 

During our last week in Utah, family knew that we just could not get away to visit them so they came by and helped clean, take things to neighbors, bring us lunch or dinner, and just spend time with us, often while we continued to work. Hopefully we did not offend anyone.

Julie's brother Dave.

The Benich Boys

Julies' sister Jamie (mother of the boys)

Julie's mom made her a plastic apron. We will have to wash all our produce in the sink with a little bleach and we have been warned that there is a tendency to ruin a lot of cloths if you don't have an apron.

Julie's friend Angee

Cousin Nancy helped us with the final packing of suitcases and taking things to Julie's parent's house...things that we think we may want to get to before our three years are over.  When we finished about 11:30 she had her guest room ready for us.  Thanks to the many who also offered a place to sleep.  We are blessed to be surrounded by so many loving members of family and friends.

Mike and Julie Grange picked us up at 6:00am and took us to the airport.  Again, thanks to them and all our friends and family for your support and love.