7 Quick Takes (Vol 252) The I’m Back From Traveling Edition

I’m BACK! The rejoicing may begin.

You did miss me right?

Right?

Hello?

I haven’t been gone long enough for you to forget your Quick Takes orders. When you are done soaking up the blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of drivers in Lima ignoring the rules of the road, over to Conversion Diary to see what has been going on.

Blather that can withstand even the Peruvian Pepper of Death.

1.
Folks it is SO good to take a small break from blogging.

OK so I did blog, twice, while I was in Peru. I still say that I took a break from blogging because I didn’t have to blog if I didn’t want to.

FINE! So I don’t have to blog at home either, if I don’t want to. Stop being so picky. I am back now, my blog batteries all charged up and ready to go. You should see the list of things I want to talk about. A bunch of them might be Peru travel related.

Yes Bonny, I am going to tell you about Grocery Shopping, Peruvian Style. With pictures and everything. We won’t even talk about the looks I got as I was wandering around the grocery store with my iPhone up and snapping away.

But I am refreshed and ready and raring to go so you have been warned. There are words and pictures on the way!

2.
I did not get sick while in Lima.

Those are the eight words I like to say the most once I get back to Chez Knit after the every other year trip.

I. Did. Not. Get. Sick. In. Lima.

That means that the tap water didn’t try to kill me. And the salads that I ate didn’t try to murder me. And the fish that I ate all agreed with me. And the fruit that I ingested was all happy happy joy joy.

Believe me when I tell you this…..it is a good thing when I do not get sick while in Lima. That has not always been the case my friends.

Lima 2006 was a VERY BAD YEAR. Who knew that I could both throw up AND have diarrhea all at the same time. For 36 hours straight. Before finally acquiescing to Alberto’s plea to get me something from the pharmacy. I resisted Alberto’s entreaties so long because I feared Peruvian medications that, you know, were Peruvian. And what they turned out to be was Cipro, which I might have figured out earlier if I hadn’t been, you know, scaring the downstairs neighbors with the force of my bodily emissions.

Thank goodness this time was fine.

Sorry for the talk of bodily emissions. I just couldn’t stop myself….now or then.

3.
There were also no travel disasters. These are six words that also make me very happy.

Nothing like this for instance.

All our flights left on time. All our flights arrived on time. All our luggage arrived when it was supposed to. Our driver, Jose, was there to pick us up as he always is. The worst thing that happened was that yesterday morning, sitting in the Houston airport waiting for our connection, I spilled 1/3 of my precious cup of coffee down my front.

That was pretty much a disaster because it was coffee, which should NEVER be wasted, especially since I had just come off of an overnight flight where despite my best efforts AND flying business class (more on that next week) I did not manage to get any great sleep. And now I would smell like coffee for many more hours and be slightly damp around the edges. Well, more than slightly damp because I didn’t just dribble that coffee, I did a Niagara Falls deluge down my front. And jeans are one of those pesky fabrics that take FOREVER to dry. No matter how many paper towels you use in the airport bathroom trying to mop up you are still going to be slightly damp. Thank goodness I had remembered to pack an extra shirt in my carry on. Otherwise I would have had to wear the coffee stained shirt. And it would have reminded me of the time that HHBL and I had to check into the Ritz Carleton Naples hotel, on a Saturday night, with everyone else wandering around the hotel lobby in suits and ties and fancy dresses, and we had just spent the day at Disney World which meant that we had shorts and tee shirts on, and I had managed to spill half of a chocolate ice cream cone down my entire front.

All I could hear in my head at that moment was the Sesame Street song, ‘One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

No travel disasters is a very good thing.

4.
Another set of words that I really like when I arrive home from vacation.

I did not gain a single pound.

Yes, I actually did get on the scale last night.

And yes, I ate quite a bit on vacation. I ate a bakery’s worth of bread every morning. But I also walked 2+ miles most days.

So it seems to have all come out even.

5.
I took WAY more iPhone photos that photos with Big Bertha. That is not because I have any less love for her. It is just that lugging her around is both a pain and in some instances a bit of a security risk. My FiL, Alberto, really don’t like it when I have her prominently displayed around my neck as we are wandering the Surquillo Market (more on that in the grocery shopping post to come). It is just easier to whip out the iPhone and take a picture.

That must be why Dropbox just spent an hour downloading all the photos from iPhone to computer.

6.
I had to actually make my own breakfast this morning. There was no Ruperto.

It was a rude awakening.

Ruperto the Awesome is my in-laws houseman/dog walker/driver/man of all possibilities. He works steadily in the background of the day making sure that things run smoothly, that laundry is done, that dishes are washed, that Carinio the Boston Terrier has her daily play date with her boyfriend, Baxter, that none of us is killed by Lima traffic and that breakfast is ready and waiting.

This morning there was no cut up fruit for me. There was no coffee already made and waiting. There was no perfectly toasted Pan Integral waiting to be slathered with butter and orange marmalade.

This is the one thing I do not like about coming home.

I had to make my own oatmeal.

7.
Here are a few Instagram pictures from the past week.