Primer Viaje parte 2

Ok so second day of the trip starts pretty early and we get in a bus and head back up the mountains. Eventually we get to this place called Colca Canyon where there are condors and it's super gorgeous. On this day it just so happened to be tourist day so there were a ton of people who live in the mountains there selling goods and giving out food and drinks for us to try. The condor isn't always there so we go really lucky when we got to see it a few times flying right by us. What wasn't so lucky is my camera died right before we got there so i could only use my phone to take pictures. After hanging out for a while at this spot we took an hour hike along the canyon which was gorgeous but i got a helluva sunburn which is still here.

From here we ventured on to Arequipa- the white city. Where we got a ton a free time which was nice. We stayed in a hotel which was walking distance to the plaza de armas and we took a few tours while we were there. In the plaza was the government building and a beautiful church which we ended up taking a tour of one day. A few of our other tours were to el convento de Santa Catalina, a llama farm, the mirador de yanahuara, and some famous historic houses.  

the church

the convent

the plaza

mirador 

volcano Misti

llama farm

look out they spit

casa de something

yup i rode a horse. We stopped and you could go to a museum or ride a horse so I chose Marshmallow here. He decided however that it would be fun to take me not to the end point, but to run off with me into the back of the stable thing and a small child had to come rescue me.

After all of these adventures we headed down south even more to a city called Tacna. It's a lot smaller than Arequipa and Lima and is the last real city before you get to Chile. While we were here we also had a bit of free time which i used to go to a black market and buy a really cute purse. There were a few tours that we took here as well to see the city. The main things that are in Tacna are historical sites from this giant war that happened between Chile and Peru which Chile won. I'm pretty sure it was over some land but truthfully i wasn't that interested so i'm not the best person to ask about that. We just saw some houses where some papers were signed and that was all fine and dandy. Besides these places we also went to a train museum, and tried Tacna sour, which is a drink that you can only get in this city. Pisco is a type of alcohol that is made mainly here in Peru but apparently Chile likes to claim it as theirs. Anyway, Pisco sour is like THE alcoholic drink of Peru and the city of Tacna has their own version which we went to go try- with Rotary so it's all good ma. It was pretty good and they didn't make it very strong so it was pretty sweet. Finally we also went to a museum in Tacna where they show old hieroglyphics and where the people used to live. We had to cross this pretty sketchy bridge but it was kinda cool though. I felt like shrek though because it would sway when we walked!

On our second to last day we continued south to Chile. This was mainly to renew our visas but also to see a bit of Chile. We went to a city called Arica and as we walked down the streets we literally ran into a parade! oddly enough a parade of older women dressed as disney characters but we all just kinda jumped in with them and danced and had a really good time. Our tour guide wasn't so happy about the unexpected delay but whatever  it was super fun :)  After that we had an hour to do some shopping on the streets but everything in Chile is a lot more expensive than in Peru. We also went to a museum there where we saw 300 mummies! (speaking of, I forgot that in Arequipa we saw the mummy Juanita that was found on the mountain where she was sacrificed by the incans-i believe- and her body froze into a mummy.) While we were headed back to the bus to go home I ended up slipping next to a fountain and hitting my head on the fountain and the ground. That was a greeeeeaaaattt time. So i headed off to the hospital and got a ginormous shot of pain killers in my arm and some motrin and pain pills to take for three days. I mostly stayed in bed for our final day of viaje where everyone else had free time but it was ok with me, i was suuupppeeerrr tired. The next day we packed up all of our stuff and headed home :)  A pretty successful first trip if i do say so myself.

Primer Viaje

So here comes a long one after not writing for quite a while. So let's begin September 26th, at 6 in the morning I got on a flight to Arequipa which is a city in the south of Peru. I ended up sitting next to a little girl named Gabriella Alexandra and after watching her set up all of her dolls on her tray in front of her she offered me a little peruvian candy thing and from that moment on I knew that  I wasn't going to be sleeping like I had planned. She was so cute and told me her whole life story as she brushed her dolls hair and asked me to say things in American. At the end of the flight she gave me a huuuge hug and wished me good luck on my trip.

so that was  a sweet way to start off my trip. Ok so from there we drove for quite some time up into the mountains. It was cool to see how different Arequipa and the south of Peru is different from Lima and the north. It definitely seemed like the people were poorer and that a big part of how they made their living was from the tourists that come through. 

Despite how this looks, this is actually a bag of coca leaves. These are chewed while you are climbing altitude to help relieve stomach and head pains. It tastes literally like you're chewing a leaf and the best way to do it is fold it into a little square and just kind of bite it and not actually chew. That way it doesn't break apart and you don't accidentally swallow it. You can also eat lemon flavored candies and those help with stomach aches too, and they taste a lot better than leaves. Later on as you continue to climb the mountain you can stop at various spots and drink mate de coca which is tea made from the coca leaves.  It tastes basically the same as the leaves but i put sugar in it to make it taste better. So our first hotel was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It was stuck in this little valley in the mountains and totally secluded. It's kind of set up like a motel but so much prettier. Theres a little fire pit in the middle of all of the rooms overlooking the river and we had a fire one night but it was veerrrryyyy cold. Also at the hotel was a private alpaca farm and hot springs! They were so cool and when we got free time it was great to go hang out at those places.  

I think this is all i will do for now but I'll continue probably tomorrow in another post :) 

Algunos Pensamientos

It's been quite a while since I've written anything so I thought I'd just write down a few things that have been going on and random stuff sooo enjoy....

-You have to turn on and off the hot water

-Mistura is a giant food festival here that apparently is really cool but I didn't make it

-Yo Soy, Combate, y Esto es Guerra are the major shows here; yo soy is a singer imitator competition and the other two are basically the same just physical competition shows but people love one and hate the other (i was in the audience for Esto es Guerra)

-People ride around on bike carts selling ice cream and bread

-Snapping at waiters is acceptable here

-Karaoke is very Peruvian

-There is workout equipment in parks

-Before military school nearly every day there is "formation" which is super boring

-It really sucks when you forget who people are but they always say hi to you

-Blackberries are the most popular phone

-I got a higher grade on my physics test than some of the real students!!

-Spanglish is starting to be my primary language of thought rather than english so progress

-Being on exchange kind of makes you crazy because you realize you will never see these people again so you can do what you want

-We played jump rope with a broken garden hose at gym today

- There was a mass during formation last week 

-I think I'm going to ask someone about their religion tomorrow

-I eat for breakfast a pear and special k cereal (it's kinda different) snack during school a "sandwich" (bread and american cheese) and a cereal bar, when i get home at 4 something like a piece of chicken, rice, and vegetables and then for dinner either left overs or a tortilla (omelet type thing with tuna) or some bread or something. 

And i think that's it for now :)

Chica y America

Ok so first a few random thoughts about Peru
-when someone wants to ask you if you will share something with them they say invitame which i like cuz it sounds like invite me which is a lot better than hey gimme soma that
-the United States of America is not the only America and I can say I'm American but so is everyone in South AMERICA  so I have to specify that I am from the USA or as they say it here, oosuh.
-those speed bumps that are everywhere, sometimes they just paint the ground to look like a speedbump to make people slow down which is pretty clever and cost effective of Peru so they get points for that (I laugh when a driver gets mad cuz they fool them!)
-I dont know if I have mentioned Chicha Morada yet but its like water here, like they drink it like water but it is made from corn and some other stuff and it tastes like koolaid so I like it but it's like the go to drink here besides Inca Cola.
-Speaking of corn, they have their own type of corn bread here which of course is different but it reminded me of home

ok so now I'm going to talk about the culture of Peru a little bit regarding housekeepers/maids/chicas. Now I know that my opinion is going to differ from peoples obviously and I am in no way criticizing how things are done here I am just expressing my point of view. So in Lima specifically apparently it is very very common to have a girl working in your house doing work like cooking and cleaning and house work type things, and when I arrived in Peru my family had one of these. Her name was Chio and she had been with my family for three years so she knew how things worked and she kind of helped me around. But one day I woke up and she was gone, which now thinking of it they had told me she would be leaving when I first arrived but not being that great with my Spanish yet I didn't fully understand. Anyway she apparently fell in love and went off to be with him and live her life which is all fine and dandy but that left us without a chica in the house for a while so my mom did the work she usually did. Today, however, we went to the airport to pick up a 18 year old girl from a far away city in Peru for her to be the new chica. Her name is Charo and she is literally about 4 and maybe a half feet tall and I just can't help but feel so horribly bad for her. Before we went to the airport to pick her up my mom was talking to me and I think she could tell I was a bit wary about the whole situation because she kept trying to explain to me that this is good for her and that now she would have a good life and she can provide for her family back in her city now but still I can't quite get used to it. The whole car ride back she just kept saying si senora and my mom kept listing off all the things she would have to do daily and I just couldn't believe it. I mean when you look at it I suppose this is an ok life for her, my mom bought her new clothes and shoes and her plane ticket was paid for to get her here and my mom told me that she is getting paid pretty well- twice what she would get working in her old city. But even if this is a good life for her it's just so incredibly sad to me that she had to leave her home so young and go to a far away city with a strange family she doesn't know and now has to work in order for her family back home to have a better life. Something my friend told me though that actually made me feel better was to think about what she would be doing if she didn't have this job. It makes me sad but I guess that's just how things work here and I'mm obviously going to have to get used to it because this is where I'm living and I came here to learn about Peruvian culture and this is what it is. No one is right, no one is wrong, but it's all very different.

Dos semanas de colegio

Ok so first you need to know that I wrote this on Friday in class so I hadn't had the weekend yet.... you'll understand.
I survived two weeks of school!!! It's still not too bad, I'm actually going to a classmate's birthday party this weekend so it should be fun. Usually communication with people isnt too difficult but sometimes I'll still not hear or understand something and usually I act like I do but if they ask a question and I don't understand it's fun to watch them all try to figure out how to explain it. I have a few actual friends here like of course MaFe my neighbor but also in school Mayra, Olenka, and Ishiro, but really everyone is nice to me. That's another weird thing, everyone is nice to each other here, I mean sure they still have their little groups but there's not really people that are more popular than others and no girls hate each other. (at least in my salon/classroom) It's nice, but kinda strange. Salons, by the way, are like in fifth grade when everyone got split into two separate rooms but here there's like 5 different rooms for one grade. Well in other news, lately my mom has been really overprotective, like she wont let me go spend the night at another exchange student's house (which everyone does) or meet people at a specific park because they sell drugs there and it's apparently close to a nightclub that lets in all teenagers regardless of age. She is letting me go to the birthday party though so I can't really complain and it could seriously be a lot worse.

So an update on this information, the party pretty much sucked because everyone was talking so fast and it was late so my brain was tired but it was something I suppose. I also went to a friends house to watch a movie with a few exchange students and it was awesome. uhmmmm I'm pretty sure that because of my mom there is now a new list of rules and I'm pretty upset about that because they're ridiculous, like the sleepover rule is real now, along with we are forbidden to surf without written information and stupid stuff like this! ugh  well also today is monday and i had a long weekend so i was *ahem* sick and my mom ended up calling a doctor to the house! which i guess is normal here but still!!! i told her it was just something i ate and i had a stomach ache but ever since her daughter had appendicitis she freaks out about abdomen pain apparently.  I found myth busters and the big bang theory on my tv so i guess today wasn't entirely horrid.  This week i think is just a normal week which is weird to think, like I'm kinda living a normal life here. Getting used to my life in Peru :)

Campamento

this weekend was rotary camp!!! It was so much fun!!! except for the fact that it was on the most intense incline ever and i nearly died daily. We went about an hour outside of lima and up into some small mountains. We were all amazed instantly because it was like summer time there!!! We finally got to wear shorts and even swim in a pool!! The nights were especially awesome, on the first night we just sat on the patios of our bungalow things looking at the stars and the lit up houses on the side of the mountain, it was sooooo beautiful. The other night we had a little discoteca party thing and that was a bunch of fun too. We also learned how to dance salsa and a short little choreographed dance which was awesome. There was a talent show before the dance which was amazing and i was gonna sing but two other girls and i decided to do an acrobatic thing instead. Everyone's act was so good and we just had so much fun. The daytimes kind of sucked though because they were full of lectures that we all had to fight to stay awake during but i think we learned some important stuff. We went over some customs that are important so we dont offend anyone such as always greeting adults and telling EVERYONE happy______ whatever holiday it is, how to stay safe in lima and during our travels or in the event of earthquake/tsunami. I feel a lot better knowing these things and more confident in like what i should do so i don't feel quite so lost now. Just hanging out during the day with the other exchange students was so much fun though! we spent most of our time in the pool just hanging out and going down the waterslide. there was also a high ropes course with no safety mechanisms at all (sorry mom) and I did like half of that which was a good and scary time. After this weekend im so sore!!!! From climbing the hill 5 million times, swimming and playing in a pool, the ropes course, and a very violent game that left me with giant bruises on each arm I'm ready to go to bed!! yay school tomorrow :P

Colegio

First day of school!!!! Gosh so much to say..... I'll start at the beginning. So I had to wake up and all that fun stuff and to school I wore the gym uniform because I couldn't buy the real one yet cuz the lady was on vacation and blah blah whatever. But there's two uniforms, the normal (blouse, skirt, knee socks, sweater) and the gym (basically a track suit and a certain color T shirt depending on your class (I'm orange!)) because every class has a 2 hour gym class one day of the week. I got put into class E and lucky me gym was today. But I'll start back at the beginning again, I get to school by basically short bus. It's kinda like a carpool in the type of van they use like at surfing or canoeing places to get everyone to the drop point. Today Diana came with me but on a normal day there's me, Gonzalo (he's in my grade), Angel (he was born in America and is half peruvian half argentinian), Alfredo (don't know much about him yet but he's nice), Gustavo (adorable 12 year old), and I think that's everyone- if not I'll fix it later. When we got to school everyone was kind of hanging out in a common courtyard and Diana, the other exchange student from Belgium -Colin- ended up in the headmaster's office. We waited there while some kind of ceremony was being held outside and when it was over we were taken outside and introduced in front of the whole 5th year (senior class). It was kinda weird and  embarrassing especially when people started shouting begging for us to be in their class but when it was over we all split off into out classrooms. When I went to my class I got introduced another time in front of everyone and some lady kept taking my picture. After this our classes started and the first one was physics. Whoo. It wasn't too difficult of a concept so I understood pretty easily but not having the work packet was an interesting challenge. After this was a 10 minute break during which I ordered my uniform (I get it Saturday!) and then English class!! The teacher got a buncha stuff wrong but whatever! My brain got an hour break and we read about Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean so I was content. Then lovely history during which we got assigned a group project which I decided my group mates can do the majority of :) and we talked about WWII.  After this we got a 20 minute break so I ate my sandwich and found the bathrooms. Since this only took like five minutes I started to wander around for a bit and then people started calling me over to meet their friends. I do not remember a single name. The campus of the school is pretty cool though and you can see mountains in the distance. You can kinda see them in this picture but I'll get a better one another day.

Anyway, after this break was the oh so wonderful gym class which started in the classroom for attendance and then we went out to the track. Yes, track. As in running. We did some stretches and half hearted sit-up type things and then we were told to get in groups of four and run a certain distance while the teacher timed us. Now running is horrible enough but when there's also boys standing on the sides of the track whistling at the girls as they run you can imagine my excitement. While we were waiting to take our turn it was fun just sitting talking with a bunch of people about America and Peru and everything. I did inevitably get asked if I have a boyfriend and all anyone was talking about was the prom coming up in December and who was going with who. I got asked like twenty times who I was going with and if it was Colin (the Belgian) and I just kept reminding them that it's my first day, I didn't even know where the bathrooms were let alone who I'm going to the prom with! This was also my response to the three boys who asked me to go with them. When it finally came our turn to go run we were all lined up and ready to go when a girl who ran the last time came back from the end and told me the teacher said that I didn't have to run if I didn't want to, to which I replied adios! and sat right back on down. I'm not a runner, but I am a gringa and if that get's me out of running I will embrace that with every speck of my being! I did do some physical exercise though, I played volleyball for like an hour with some girls. We got to choose between basketball (all the guys did that), volleyball (most girls did that), or nothing (everyone else). Be proud mom, I didn't choose nothing! But seriously, I actually had a lot of fun playing volleyball with them, I just had to remember to say afuera instead of out. And that's the end of the day! After this we had to go line up like apparently they do in the mornings and wait to leave the campus in a group. I had no trouble finding the bus so I felt pretty accomplished and was like the third one there. While we were waiting on the rest of the people though Angel got pooped on by a bird which apparently is good luck but if you ask me that's just gross. I saved the day with my little kleenex pack and I'm pretty sure that earned me some points with them so yay! Now Diana wasn't with me at this point, she left after we ordered my uniform to finish getting ready to leave for Germany tomorrow, but she was with me on the ride to school. What this means is the whole ride to school I said maybe two words the whole time because 1 Diana knew them and was reminiscing, 2 it was freaking early in the morning, 3 I was too busy looking at the ocean to talk. So it's safe to say they were pretty surprised when they realized I have the ability to speak when I was fine with talking on the way home. It was actually pretty fun talking to them all and I think that could be one of my favorite parts of my day.  

So there's a few other random things that may be worth mentioning, 

-The English teacher thinks you can say twenty oh three for 2003 and the seventeen of June.

-Nobody expects me to know ANY Spanish

-Actually no one expects anything from me (gym for an example)

-People think I'm white now cuz of my face but I keep saying wait till summer......

-Nobody believes that my eyes are real because they're blue and NOBODY has blue eyes here (it's super fun explaining that yes I do in fact wear contacts cuz I'm blind but no really I swear they're not colored, these are my real eyeballs)

-People really enjoy touching my hair but try to do it in secret, they fail

  And I think that's it! But besides my school stuff today I also have to mention that this is Diana's last night in Peru :(  I'm gonna miss her so much! She really has been like a real sister to me and there's no way I would be doing so great here without her. I don't know how I'm gonna do this without her!!!! I'll forever remember all the fun we had with our movie nights and spanish/english lessons <3 Love you so much Diana, good luck with your adventure!