Post #2 with authentic photos

I took a walk today and bought a cable (somehow I said la cable even though I totally knew it was el and didn't realize until I left the store that I sounded like an idiot, but at least I won't see the camera shop person again and it will be etched in my brain) and just walked around the busy student neighborhoods.

Walking in La Paz is exhausting, and people walk fast. I thought somehow that people here would walk slowly like in Santiago (yes, silly logic) but La Paz is way hillier than San Francisco, even, lots of streets that are just stairs, and people just go zooming by (me). Schoolkids run laughing and talking up these incredibly steep hills. Not many smokers here either, that I could see, again unlike Santiago. I may not need a futbol game after all.

Also, the graffiti seems really nice: Che Vive! (only once defaced by a "no") si al voto (about the constitutional reform) and shoot, something impressively derogatory about the right that I can't remember. I'll take more pictures of the graffiti when I find my memory card that has more than 6 pictures on it.

Nico and I had lunch together today, although we were only in the same room talking because he rejected my quinoa stir-fry and ate two ham and cheese sandwiches in like 30 seconds instead. We spoke Spanish and bonded over having stayed with conservative families in exchange programs--he was actually kicked out of his program in Switzerland for going out drinking too much, which is kind of amazing, and he was also kicked out of school in Texas on the first day for fighting these guys who were making fun of the word "Cochabamba," but then he became friends with his neighbor who taught him Reiki (the way he said it it almost sounded like a euphemism...) and who he still keeps in touch with. So that was nice; I thought maybe he was resentful/suspicious of me and/or just spoiled, but I think now that he was just working on his art project. He may be spoiled but kind of in a fun way.

I feel much better oriented today, after getting lost a bunch of times and realizing that the Calles Muñoz and Muñoz Cornejo are not the same, even though they are very close together. My face is still tingling from the altitude sickness medication.

More soon.