I didn’t think it would be possible to buy a legitimate one, but thanks to some help from Steven I found the only official Apple dealer in Asunción. The lucky part is that it’s across the street from the American embassy, so now I know where I will need to go for paperwork.

I found out that in the mall you can buy real iPods too. I happened upon a store that had a pretty big Apple screen, and they also carry Macbooks and iPods. I went there first because I knew how to get there from my house. But let me back up a bit more.

I left my house expecting to walk to the stop for the bus I knew would take me to the mall. As I left my house, a bus slowed down and beeped at me. I waved it off thinking the driver was asking if I wanted to get on. Then I looked closer and it wasn’t a bus that should be driving down my road. Turned out to be my friend Nestor, who is a driver for one of the lines in town. The second peculiarity was that there was no windshield in this bus. He was driving it from a paint shop to a glass shop to fix that problem, and we happened to find ourselves together at the same time. So he said he’d take me to the mall.

We didn’t quite arrive at the mall like I had expected, but it’s not interesting enough to write about. We did walk a lot though. The place I mentioned in the mall wanted $250 for their 16G iPod. I was like “um…it’s 180 on Mac’s website.” I called the official dealer and asked their price, and it was $209. I understand that they have to pay import taxes and stuff. Needless to say, we hopped on a bus and went to the dealer, and turns out I don’t have to pay their taxes so I got it for $190.

To give my American friends an idea of how far that goes here, I think I spent on one gadget nearly a month’s salary of most of the people here. Let me take this opportunity to remind you how good we have it in North America and ask you to think about how much we take for granted.

-j

I am mad I can’t put thumbtacks in the image to show you exactly where, but this is close.

Where I live…

I live roughly in the middle. There is an intersection where the road that goes through the middle bends slightly to the left, and on the right a side street bends towards the right. I live in the longer house just above that intersection. Across the street, shrouded by trees, you can barely make out Kathy’s house. To the upper left of middle you can see our school and church. The roof looks really bright, almost white, and if you look close you can see the soccer court. The land goes from that corner up to where the buildings that sort of jut up and left end. It’s a big triangle.

So now you know where to stalk me.

-j

As a person of size, this post should come as no surprise. There are several foods that I am looking forward to having again as soon as possible:

• pepperoni pizza
• various pies, including apple and lemon
• real frosting (I suppose I could get used to the egg and sugar one, but it ain’t butter cream
• a constant supply of American peanut butter
• international foods from several countries at easy disposal
• Ham. Like a real Christmas ham ham.
• Doritos
• McDonalds, Hardees, and/or Burger King breakfast foods
• nachos

Obviously all of the foods I miss are terrible for you. I can eat lots of healthy foods here like fruits for cheap and good meats. Here are some things I will definitely miss:

• ham and cheese empanadas
• Blanca and Karen’s sopa
• the freshest cheeses ever
• dulce de guayaba
• dulce de leche
• good yerba for not $10 a bag
• Paraguayan asado
• chorizo Ochsi
• everything from the corner store Ña Teresa

I guess a guy can’t have it all.

-j