Thanksgiving / Lady Gaga / Nicaragua

For Thanksgiving, Mariza and I drove across town for a 27lb turkey and only discovered this week that there is an open-air market right here in our neighborhood with very fine looking fresh turkey in addition to any other meat you want (including guinea pig, rabbit, hoof). The night prior, we had a little confusion about the turkey being frozen not fresh, and doubted it would thaw in time. Then Jen struggled to pull out the frozen, embedded neck...only to scream when the whole head popped out suddenly. Mariza went to bed and prayed for the turkey to thaw (her prayers were answered) while Jen and I stayed up late having a little prep party just the two of us. Jen even awoke on Thanksgiving with a wee bit of a hangover.

We had invited any Peace Corps volunteers that were in Lima to join us. On Tuesday, we had 15 RSVPs, but by Thanksgiving morning we were up to 30. We rented extra table and chairs at the last minute, easy enough since of course for Peruvians this was just another random Thursday. Many volunteers brought contributions to the meal, clearly managing to find the use of kitchens in Lima. One girl even brought greenbean casserole for which she had even been forced to make the mushroom soup from scratch.

 Jen gets more contact with the volunteers, so for me it was a particular pleasure to meet them. It's fun to be around so much positive, 20-something energy. For our part, it pleased us to be able to share some of the privileges we enjoy here, sometimes something as simple as IBC Diet Root Beer. By the end of the evening, we had volunteers watching football streaming on my computer, several used my free phone to call their families, there was a huge Michael Jackson Dance Party game (note how sweaty the guy in the green shirt is in the photo), and Carter and Julito were thrilled to have several of the guys join them in a huge running nerf gun battle.

The next evening, Jen went with a couple women from the office to see Lady Gaga in concert. Her summation: "It was weird." It took forever for them to get out to the stadium in a sketchy neighborhood, with the taxi not even getting them to within sight of the venue. A female moto-taxi driver came to their aid and they arrived safely only to find that the stadium was only half full. Their seats were too far away to see well, and it was maddening because other sections up towards the stage were empty. Other parts of the show were strange too, but at least Jen was impressed by Lady Gaga herself and her clear desire to be true to her fans and put on a good show.

You know what rhymes with Lady Gaga?

Nicaragua!

 Jen's business trip to Nicaragua was back in October, so posting the photos now is a little late. She went to Granada, a historic town on the edge of a huge lake. Her taxi ride to town from the airport was an Odyssey in and of itself, but when she got stranded with a broken down taxi in the torrents of rain, she couldn't help noticing that it was in a beautiful spot with a view of the lake and a little café.

The town is centered on a colonial square and her hotel was situated there as well.

The highlight for her was going out on the lake and seeing monkeys and beautiful jungle lushness.

The pleasures of the visit were in stark contrast with her return trip during which she came down very sick, finding herself getting the shakes in the Panama City airport. The illness lasted several days and had so weakened her by the end that she threw her back out. Is that even possible?