Whoah! I can't believe I'm really here in Lima. It seems so surreal right now. The trip here has been pretty crazy long. Basically two full days of traveling with little sleep, albeit by my own choice.

After pretty much staying up all night Thursday in the Miami airport, I slept the entire 3.5 hour plane ride to Bogotá and most of the 3 hour layover, but it wasn't super restful. I was pretty surprised to see a duty-free store in the Bogotá airport that sold high-end sony digital cameras and even Mac laptops and iPods! I was wishing the carried Canon stuff since I need to find a charger :-P

The flight from Bogotá to Lima was a relatively quick 2.5 hours and I stayed awake just long enough to eat the lunch that was served on board (semi-decent pollo con arroz... I have to say, airline food in Latin America is better than what we get on domestic flights, but not by a whole lot)

I arrived at Jorge Chavez International Airport about 4:30pm local time (which also happens to be the same as central time!) and made it relatively quickly through customs and baggage claim. Fortunately on this trip, there was no loss of luggage and everything made it through OK. I was greeted at the airport by my friend Rocío, whom I'd met on my last trip to the country in May. She's been a huge help in assisting me with negotiating and securing my apartment in Miraflores.

After about a 45 minute taxi ride we finally made it to Miraflores and my apartment. Señor Alva, the apartment's owner was there waiting for me and gave us a quick tour and I took care of payment and all that fun stuff.

Then it was time for me to wash the two days of travel off while we waited for our other friend, Alex (also a participant in the program that I was previously here for) to arrive before we went to dinner.

Finally freshened up, Alex arrived not too long after and we headed out to grab a bite to eat. The first order of business, however, was for me to get some dollars changed into local currency (soles). Unfortunately, the dollar has dropped a bit recently and so the exchange rate was only 2.84:1 rather than the recent 3:1 that I was hoping to enjoy. Oh well...still not too bad.

With soles in pocket, we then walked about 10 or so blocks west to the well known shopping district called Larcomar. If it weren't for all the Spanish, you would hardly know you were not in the United States. We opted to hit up Pardos Chicken, a local restaurant tucked in near a Tony Roma's and Starbucks. I went for the grilled chicken with papas fritas and a nice little side of carrots and avocados. Tasty!

By the end of dinner I was just about asleep (how I'm still up writing this I'm not sure :P), so we made the 5 minute back to my apartment and all parted ways for the evening.

Now I'm sitting at the dining table typing away to the sounds of blaring taxi horns and the busy Peruvian night. Can't wait to get to sleep and I know I'll sleep well!

Sunday was really an incredible day.

For those reading that may not know, for "church" I attend a non-denominational, fellowship-type group that usually meets in homes. Our ministers (or workers as we generally call them) leave all their natural possessions/friends/family behind to preach the Gospel (making every attempt to adhere to the way Jesus sent out his apostles), in the U.S. and throughout the world. When there are workers in an area, then we'll have larger Gospel services where many of the smaller home meetings will come along with any folks who just want to listen. We also have yearly retreats; we call them Conventions in the States or Annual Meetings abroad as I've discovered. There are over 450 conventions throughout the world in many different countries. 14 in Perú alone!

Anyway, to continue my story... this Sunday I had the privilege of attending a Sunday morning fellowship meeting held here in a woman's home in an outer northern district of Lima.

Trevor, one of the workers that is here in Lima, stopped by my apartment at about 7:45am to pick me up. This way I wouldn't have to try and find the home on my own as that would have been quite difficult! We took a short taxi ride across Miraflores to another apartment where we picked up a young lady who was in town from Ecuador. Then the 3 of us took the bus out to where the meeting was, about a 45 minute in the extremely light Sunday morning traffic.

There were about 20 people there. It was really an amazing and special experience to be so far away from my normal fellowship, be listening/speaking in a different language, yet still feel the exact same Spirit and love for Christ.

It is so reassuring to know that the work of God in the heart's and lives of individuals, no matter their country/language/race etc, is the same. I'm reminded of the verse where we are cautioned to "not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%204:1&version=NIV)

So after the meeting I was welcomed to stay for lunch with the family, the two workers that were in the meeting (Juan Leon and Trevor Loechel) and the lady Ecuador (I'm totally spacing out on her name at the moment!). It was a wonderful lunch of fried rice with various vegetables, chicken and sausage, along with a salad. Very typical dish, though I'm not sure if there is a name for it.

We enjoyed great conversation and it was another opportunity to practice my Spanish. Already I'm getting better at understanding things at conversation speeds and being able to participate!

Not too long after lunch, a Gospel meeting was held in the same house. Again, for those that might not know, this is more like a traditional church service w/ a sermon type format (different from the fellowship meeting where we all share thoughts from what we've been reading in the Bible/experiencing/thinking about in the past week). The messages from Juan and Trevor (whom the local friends here seem to affectionately call Juanito) were wonderful. I particular remember Trevor reminding us that Word of God is water than can give ever-lasting life, and Jesus is the Bread of Life.

Well after the meeting it was then time to head home. I left with a small group of folks and we walked a few blocks to the main road where we each caught a bus our separate ways. Mine was the number 18 bus to Miraflores.

I hopped on and took a seat in the back where I could have a bit more leg room. The seats are pretty cramped and I don't generally fit too well in most seats! As seems to be the custom, the guy who stands in the door of the bus shouting the different destinations to standers-by, came back a few minutes later to collect my fare. Turned out it was S/3 (about $1). Pretty cheap for 20ish mile, 1.5 hour bus ride!

The road most of the way back was fairly rough, and there are LOTS of stops along any bus route here... thus the 1.5hr trip. After the long day and the long bus ride I was extremely tired, so I pretty much just ate dinner and went to bed!

I am really grateful for the opportunity to have fellowship here in Peru. Definitely looking forward to the Bible study this Wednesday night (Psalms 120-122) and next Sunday as well. I think Trevor is going to give me directions to a meeting a bit closer to my apartment.

Well I haven't posted in a few days... and that's because there hasn't been much to post! I've been back to work since Monday and to be honest, it's not much different than working back home in Texas!

Long hours at my computer in the apartment here, break for lunch, break for dinner.. busy busy!! There is just more background noised since I'm in the middle of a huge city :-)

Today though I did take a break and took a walk down to Larcomar again. Did a little window shopping (everything was too expensive for me :-P) and then made my way back.

Walking anywhere here is always quite an adventure. You either have taxis honking at you constantly in an attempt to "earn" you business, or they are about to run you over! There is no such thing as pedestrian right-of-way here in Peru. Heck, there are barely traffic laws (and even more rare is a car that follows them!)

La frase es, "Corre of muere!!" (Run or die!)

Anyway, I took a quick little video while down at Larcomar. Check it out below!

Have a few plans for the weekend, so we'll see how that pans out. Monday I leave for Sao Paulo for Rails Summit, a conference I'm attending for work. Lots of fun stuff ahead!

So I had it all planned out... Rails Summit (A Ruby on Rails Conference) would be happening in Brazil while I am here in Peru and I convinced Squeejee it would be worthwhile for me to go and represent the company there. (Ironically we had just recently been contacted by a Brazilian company about a potential contract).

Everything was in order... plane tickets, hotel reservations, travel docs... everything.... or so I thought.

I got to the airport on Monday and began the normal check in process. I started to get the feeling something wasn't right after I handed the lady my passport and then it started to take a while... pretty soon she called over someone else and they were speaking in Portuguese so I couldn't really understand them... but they were looking pretty closely at my passport. Not long after another phone call was made and soon these two dudes in suits showed up at the counter. They told me that there was some issue with my Brazilian visa and I needed to come with them to get it worked out.

To make a long story short... basically I was in this office for like 3 hours, getting asked questions about my travel, my passport, where I got the visa, etc etc etc.. It was nuts... one official actually accused me of forging the thing?!?! So, I missed my flight... and at the end of the night they told me I would have to go to the Brazilian embassy in the morning to get it worked out. THANKS!

So Tuesday to the embassy I go... more 'round and 'round in circles... 3 officials, countless questions... no answers.. no help. At the end of it all they could only tell me that there was "some mistake with my visa and it would need to be reprocessed." They would do me a special favor and do it in 5 days rather than the normal 15. THANKS AGAIN!

So, no conference for Bradley... still trying to get refunds on stuff but haven't been too successful so far.

I guess I should have just tried to slip someone a fiddy or a c-note or something :-P