Roosters, stray dogs, and ceviche... My first day in Lima

I went to bed this morning around 5:30am, right after Foghorn Leghorn stopped crowing only to have him start crowing again at 6:15am! Yay!

I reached into my still well packed backpack, threw everything onto the floor, and found my earplugs. WHEW! Thank God I picked those up 2 days before I left!

When I woke up, it

was 1pm. I praised myself for getting a single room with in suite bathroom and took my first hostel shower. Not bad... the water was luke warm, but it was clean and it got the job done. Now time to explore the hostel and beyond.

The hostel is small, maybe 5 rooms, all with multiple beds. Mine was booked as a "private room" even though there's a set of bunk beds in the room along my double bed. The colors on the walls are REALLY bright

and colorful, with soccer jerseys hanging on them, so I guess that's its theme, if it has one. What's cool are the amenities: hammocks, BBQ, and foosball table on the roof, free internet and computer usage, free homemade breakfast every morning, movie room, and pool table/activity room. All of this for $25 a night!

Sadly, nobody else had gone to bed while the rooster was crowing this morning, so there were no people waking up in the afternoon with me... I was alone. I got a handwritten map from the front desk guy, and I set out to explore.

What were the first things I noticed? 1. This area of Lima -- near the airport -- not so fun. 2. There are TONS of stray dogs all over the place! Most of you know I am a huge dog lover, and I am missing my dog Ringo so much right now. :( Seeing these stray dogs was bizarre. I swear, they are smarter than most people -- they looked both ways before they crossed the street to hang out in the median! I'm not kidding. It was only when I saw one ripping into a bag of garbage that my desire to pet them all subsided.

However, when I saw the dog ripping into the garbage bag, I also realized I was starving and

needed to stop and get something to eat. Choices, choices... Does one go into the clearly catering to English speaking crowd or instead does one go to a local establishment with no signs of English speakers? I choose option 2, and sat down at a table.

What follows is hilarious but I don't need to write it all out. Basically, my Spanish sucks big time and also I will never again order something I am 97% sure I won't like just because it is local and I don't want to look like a closed-minded American. Ceviche is not something I want to eat again... I picked at it, really trying to enjoy it. But when the server came by and I asked for the check, she looked at my 3/4 full plate with a look that said, "Wow, you're a terrible wasteful person."

That's ok. I paid my bill and walked back to the hostel. "Next time I'll hang out with the dogs and eat garbage with them," I thought.