LA CIUDAD, CON MI FAMILIA

To my satisfaction, I got to sleep until I woke up this morning. After rolling out of bed, Mom and I went out to look for breakfast while Dad and Joey went on a run. Mom and I found fruit, croissants, bread, smoothies, and coffee. It was the perfect snack to get us started. We took a low-key start to the day by catching up on some blogs and planning the rest of our trip. We all needed a little break.

Ready to show Mom, Dad, and Joey the city, I had the perfect plan. Go to Makaela and I's favorite market, get empanadas, juices, and other lunch items. Then, we would take the boat out to the island for a picnic lunch. However, we found that the market is closed on Sundays, like almost everything else. Turning to plan B, we tried to just walk down the beach and find a restaurant. It can be difficult to find restaurants with vegetarian options though, so we turned to plan C. Dad typed into his phone "vegetarian restaurants," and, sure enough, several popped up. Not having used any maps in three weeks, I only had the landmarks in my head, so Dad decided to google map it. Turns out, it was a really cute restaurant that Makaela and I had walked passed thousands of times, always saying how adorable it looked. It was absolutely delicious. There were tons of vegetarian options, hummus, and vegetables. I have been wanting hummus for three weeks, and it did not disappoint. Mom had a thai vegetable salad that I ended up taking a good portion of because it was so good.

Replenished, Mom showed us the way to La Cunza since we were right by the bridge that went over there. Mom had walked it on google maps, so I let her see if she actually knew the way. She did, and I was impressed. Dad then walked around a little in search for some more vegetarian restaurants that he had found in the area on his phone. They were more difficult to find in the real world I guess, because we never found them. I know of one up above the school that a teacher from La Cunza recommended though, so maybe we will go there tomorrow.

Since we were right by it, I took everyone up to the top of the building I went up on my very first day here. There's a good view of the city, and it is easy to get to.

From there, we headed down to the water to buy tickets for a boat ride to the island. It comes every half hour, and one had just left. That meant we had time to sit for a bit, something Mom wasn't complaining about. When the boat arrived we hopped on. Tired, Mom leaned on Dad, I leaned on Mom, and Joey leaned on me. One of the boat conductors briefly made fun of us, and I found it hilarious. We're all exhausted even after a sleep in morning.

Pulling up to the island, I noticed it looked different. It was high tide. The beach was completely gone, and the water came up way higher on the dock. Walking around to the top of the island, I noticed the rocks I had jumped off of when kayaking on Thursday were covered with water. It went to show how big of a difference there is here between high tide and low tide. We all walked around the island for awhile to see the views. Then, we found a nice picnic bench to sit on and play cards. It was peaceful. There weren't nearly as many people here as last time I'd come. I stood up to take a picture of Mom, Dad, and Joey, and I saw Joey flash me her cards in the picture. I immediately started laughing, wondering why she did that. She responded, "I thought it would be funny to look back in the future and see that I had a six, a two, and a four...oh shoot." She affectively told everyone her cards. We had a good time though.

Two hands in, we looked at the time and realized we better head down to the boat. Sure enough the boat was there, loading up. We made it on and headed back for the city.

Mom, Dad, and Joey hadn't been to old town yet, and that is where one of my favorite places is: the crepe place. We entered through "the door to the ocean". It is an arc that faces the ocean. We walked through the busy streets where I showed them the church and, exactly one kilometer away, the cathedral. Joey needed postcards and stamps, so we headed to the store I had gotten stamps from earlier. Next, we went into the old bull plaza. There were several people there today, music playing, and flags waving. We deduced that it was a soccer team, but we don't know what they were doing exactly. Moving on, we went to the crepe place, and order teas, crepes, and smoothies. They were as good as all the times before.

Dad had found a few spots on his phone that he wanted to check out, so we followed him to those. It had begun to rain, so the umbrellas were broken out shortly. Hungry and not wanting to do much more walking, we went to the Indian place. Mom and Dad hadn't been there before, and Joey and I both loved it. We ordered a few things and shared. We ordered prawns as an appetizer, and the waiter came by to ask Joey if she liked them. She responded, "no hablo carne." Everyone starting laughing, seeing as she said, "I don't speak meat." She meant to say "como," eat. The waiter was amused and so were all of us. From there, we just had to cross the street and hop on the bus back to the apartment. I had returned to that area from town several times, so we didn't get lost.

Mi mama y los rocas

Juegos de cartas

Un restaurante mono

Hummus!

La plaza de los torros

Crepes