Peru: Day 6 (Casually Cuddling the Cathedrals)

Well, day six is here and the week is coming to a close. For the sake of the clinically curious, I am wearing sandals, jeans, a volleyball T, a scarf, and a touque. The last few days have been jam-packed with tons of different trips to different parts of town on, quite possibly, one hundred and thirteen buses. Maybe not that many. I have ridden somewhere close to six buses per day, with a couple days topping eight rides. Even today, I was gone to Pisco (South of Lima) all day and I still managed to get on four buses. It would´ve been six if I had gone to church tonight, but alas, my legs can carry me no farther.
Tuesday.
Tuesday was a very informative day as I partook on a journey to Molina Plaza. We stopped at Plazavea, a superstoresque complex, and took a look at the grocery shopping situation. We left. We, is Becky, Mary, and I. I´ll show you some pictures. Back to the groceries though. I have yet to actually fully shop for groceries. When we were at Molina Plaza, all that I picked up were some buns and a potato. The buns are amazing here, and amazingly cheap. They are about S/. 5-7, ¡PER KILO! Which is roughly $1.90-2.40ish. ¡PER KILOGRAM! Definitely a great deal. Anyways, after looking around Molina Plaza, and calling my grandma from a pretty cheap internet/long distance phone cafe, we returned home for some tea and a movie. Tuesday evening was probably the most relaxed I have been this week.
Wednesday.
On Wednesday, we went to Yogi Plaza. It is a large mall filled with many stores. Similar to the malls you have back home, actually. We saw the only ice rink in Lima at this plaza. (It is winter here, after all). We saw the star and hand prints of none other than Enrique Iglesias at Lima´s Walk of Fame, in Yogi Plaza. Now, this next part of the day is quite interesting. Believe it or not, a girl in the mall tried to pick this guy up. I was walking in the mall, waiting for Mary and Becky to come out of another store, and a Peruvian girl about my age walked by. She asked me something in Spanish, and I said that I didn´t know any Spanish. I turned to walk away, and she called me back, in English. She said she was going to school in Oklahoma and asked if I was hungry and wanted to go eat with her. I said no thanks, and she said she wanted to talk with me, see what I was doing in Peru, and, once again, eat lunch with me. This went on for a couple minutes, and then I left, because I needed to find Mary and Becky. So, I was an attempt at a pickup that failed. I was pretty impressed, but Mary and Becky said we should probably get outside because my head was going to be too big to stay in the mall. It was pretty fun.
Anyways....Thursday.
Miss Elizabeth, my boss, decided it would be nice to take Becky and I to Centra Lima, or downtown Lima. It was definitely a good idea. Our first stop was Al Museo del Converto de San Francisco, or The Franciscan Monastary and Museum. It is a huge cathedral which still has Mass every sunday, but part of which has been turned into an amazing museum. It is mostly paintings and tributes to mother mary, but some of the paintings were painted in the 1600´s, which is so incredible that they have lasted this long. The church was full of beautiful wood carving and architecture. The pulpit area is insanely detailed in the woodwork with the Twelve Apostles even having veins carved in their arms. The next place we went was a place called Jerry´s, actually. We paid S./ 12 and were stuffed from the amazing Peruvian food. I had huevo a la rusa, and trucha, which is basically a potato salad with a Russian egg, and fried fish. Delicious. After Jerry´s, we went to the Basilica Catedral de Lima. Another cathedral. In this cathedral, were the catacumbas, or catacombs. These catacombs held thousands and thousands of bones from Jewish and Protestant people. These people were tortured and then killed in these catacombs, right below the Catholic church. They were tortured for anything that disagreed with the Catholic church. I just want to say, that it is one thing to read about thousands of people dying, or being killed, but to actually see these bones was a very chilling and stirring experience. Other than the catacombs, the church was stunning. It was massive and very colorful inside and out. I´ll throw some pictures in here before I go into Friday and today, Saturday.