First of all, It's very important that you understand the floor system here

To understand the joke, I mean. So when you walk into a building in Latin America (like in many parts of the world), you're not on the first floor. You're on the ground floor. To get to the first floor, you have to go up some stairs. I can't remember what the ground floor is called, but it's two words that are abbreviated "PB." So in the elevator, you push the "PB" button to get to the ground floor. And when I go down, I count down the floors until the elevator displays "PB," at which point I throw up my hands and yell "peanut butter!" (which they don't even have here, and I miss. I did see that nasty PB/jam-together-in-a-jar stuff at the supermercado, but that's about it). Or, if there's someone else in the elevator with me, I mentally throw up my hands and shout inside my head. Yes, I'm a huge dork. But I do seriously think that this whole alternative floor system has important implications for the tradition of not including a 13th floor in American hotels - I mean, which floor is really the 13th? OK, that holds about as much water as a sieve. Slag off.

I now have three interviews lined up, all of which came today: tomorrow, I interview the hydrocarbons expert at CEDLA, an economic think-tank here in La Paz. Friday, I interview the head of the political science graduate program at Universidad Mayor de San Andres, one of the most important universities in Bolivia. And on Monday, I interview an engineer from Yacimientos Petroli­feros Fiscales Bolivianos, the Bolivian state hydrocarbon company. The latter I'm not super excited about, because I think this guys knowledge will be too technical for my uses (he specializes in the liquid components of natural gas, butane and propane. That sounds exciting, right?). But I figure it will be good interview practice, and you never know - maybe he'll have cool stuff to say.

I got the interview with the poli sci guy just by going to the university and explaining who I was (or rather, having Martijn explain who I was. I just stand there. In a way I feel like a dunce, but in a way all pressure is off, and I think Martijn is worth every Boliviano I'm paying him). Once that was done, we were shown to the dean of the school for undergraduate political sciences, who gave us a name of theliaisonn between the executive and the legislative branches of congress, and said to use his name. And if the guy still wouldn't interview, come back to the office and the dean would call himself! The dean was a funny guy, very jovial and outgoing, with a bouncy pomp of curly black hair perched upon his head. We came in and he stood up to shake our hands, and asked como estas?(an informal greeting). He had an animated way of speaking, and, obviously, was really helpful. He called the head of the graduate department for us, and we went to his office, where he immediately suggested an interview this Friday. How cool is that? In America, I would expect the counterparts of the people I'm talking to here to try and find out what kind of angle I'm working before they would want to talk to me. This guy wasn't even too concerned about getting questions beforehand.

So I know I said there weren't lights in the entryway outside my apartment, but I was wrong: they're there, but you have to fish around for a button next to your door to activate them, and then they turn on for maybe 30 seconds. I just didn't realize that there were two doorbells - one for the bell, and one for the lights. It's funny though, because that's the sort of money-saving (for the building owner) inconvenience that we just wouldn't put up with in America. Just leave the lights on all the time, for chrissakes! But you see those things other places, too, like with milk: milk comes in plastic bags, no mater how much you want to buy - and I can't think of why this might be other than that plastic bags are cheaper than jugs. People snip the corner and put the bag into a plastic pitcher; or, if it's a small bag, they just snip the corner and drink from the bag.

Hey, I had this great idea the other day: Weird Al Yankovich should do a spoof on "Where have all the flowers gone?" as "Where have all the toilet seats gone?" because there are seriously hardly any toilet seats in Bolivia or Peru (and sitting on porcelain is not so fun). So somebody who knows him (is he still making music/living?) should tell him my idea so he can buy it from me. That's a sufficiently stupid idea for Weird Al, right? And then we can pay Halliburton $5,000 a seat to supply them down here as part of a USAID program, in return for Bolivia doing every single thing we say concerning coca irradication.

One other thing that's scary about Bolivian driving: if you're on a two-lane, one-way street, and you're in the left lane, and you want to turn right - no problem! Just gun it across the other lane and expect the other person to stop. Maybe use your turn signal, although this is by no means necessary.