Random Comments

First, my apologies for the sporadic and very limited posts. Most of the places we´re staying don´t have internet, so we have to go out and find internet places, which isn´t hard, but it is a time commitment, as is typing detailed accounts of everything I´m doing. There will be a few more posts yet though!

Cards- I've taught my fellow travelers how to play Rummy, which we have down solidly and have played while waiting for every meal recently, Scratch, which is still new but quite successful and will probably be our game of choice for the rest of the trip (because it is great and doesn't require much table space) and Euchre, which may have been a bit too complicated for a late-night (10 pm) card game session, but I'm still hopeful! Since meals take FOREVER to come here, playing cards is great. It's also a lot of fun after dinner when it's still to early for bed but it's also dark and cold outside.

Temperature-Beautiful during the day and shorts and a t-shirt would be fine except that it's often windy, so I tend to wear a layer or two more. At night, it's cold. It is winter here, after all. I have fleece pants, two fleece jackets, and a beanie, and I've been wearing all of them every day. I can't wait to do laundry! Also, the pants and one of the jackets were a total of $10 max at Value Village. Definitely one of my best investments.

Restaurant service- Not like the US. You might get your tea two minutes before your entree, which comes 40 minutes after ordering, which was 20 minutes after coming in the restaurant. Or, you might have pretty speedy service, but don't count on it.
Dogs-they are everywhere. I've concluded that they must survive off garbage, because no one appears to treat them nicely and yet they don't appear malnourished. This brings me to my next point:

Garbage- Good lord! You'd think the people here had never heard of a garbage can. It is disgusting. There are wrappers and bottles and paper everywhere. Also, stormwater systems are combined with sewer at best, and often seem to just flow into a convenient body of water (say, Lake Titicaca), so that could be improved.

Transportation- My next post will touch more on this after an adventure we had, but basically, the transportation system here blows my mind. For the most part, everybody who lives here knows how the transportation system works but foreigners have no idea and have to ask how to do everything. Also, they seem to have all routes optimized quite well by number of departures and size of vehicles. For example, we´re currently in Sorata, which you get to by minibus, (technically an 11 seater vehicle I think, although often they have a fair few more people than that) and it seems like everybody knows that obviously you take a minibus rather than a big bus to get there, and obviously they don´t leave from the bus station, they leave from a different part of La Paz called The Graveyard. No joke. Somehow, they seem to fill every bus up but there are never huge waits, eigher for more people to fill the bus or for more buses since they´re all full.
Also, the people selling you tickets will tell you whatever you want to hear to sell you the ticket (rounding down the time the journey will take, for example). This doesn´t suprise me, though.
Finally, I think gringos like us finance plenty of the transporation system since we´re always paying more than other passengers going the same distance. We only have so much bargaining power, though, and at some point you just have to accept this because we do have so much more money than most people here, and paying a few, or even B$10 more is less than $2 USD more, so it´s not that big a deal.

Jobs- And I don´t use the word career here intentionally. I have NO idea how most people here make a living. It seems like half of the country sells candy, crackers, soda, and alcohol in little tiny shops/booths, and every places sells the exact same products. Then you´ve got hundreds of women who sell either cups with jello, or a bowlfull of beans, or potatoes. a) Their wares are dirt cheap, and b) there are so many people who sell the same thing, in the same place, so they don´t even have the advance of a scarce product. I think the option of a career for a future is pretty unlikely for most people (judging by the infrastructure and construction we´ve seen here, there certainly are not very many construction, geotech, structural, or general civil engineers here! we´ve definitley been enjoying gawking at the styrofoam and chickenwire/newspaper used in building construction here. Almost makes me thankful for ASCE7. Almost.