PRESENTATIONS

My classes seem to be getting more creative each day at El Sol. Today for example, we made clay replicas of tumis. A tumi was used by the ancient civilization, Chimu, during sacred rituals and sacrifices. My partner Ralzaly and I, spent at least thirty minutes making our tumi...and then class was over..!

Per usual, we then went to UNIFÉ as part of our cultural exchange. We broke off into small groups to talk about the theme of the day: dating. As a group of ten or so single women, we quickly decided to change the topic. Instead, we asked the girls about the night life in Lima. Apparently, our program has been taking us to all the "old people" bars. This makes sense when I look back on the places we have gone. The girls told us to go to: The Help, Muaw, and Bizarro. They all sound like they could be part of an SNL skit.

After chatting with the students and learning about the Republic of Perú, it was time for us to give our own history lesson. One by one, we presented various aspects of Peruvian history and culture based off our findings from the program's assigned readings. As we presented in Spanish, translation students translated our words to English. I didn't actually present today, I'll be in the last group to go.

You know what they say, save the best for last!!!

((Also PPK won the presidential election))

LUNAHUANÁ

Another Sunday, another early morning. We woke up at 5:00 to beat the morning traffic. Surprisingly everyone showed up on time and we were able to make the trek to the small town of Lunahuaná in under four hours. We all poured out of the bus and into the water for a white water rafting adventure. Because Peru is currently in its dry season, the river was relatively low. Although the water was low, the rapids were still pretty strong, strong enough to knock one of the girls off our raft! Luckily our guide, Jorge was able to pull her back in by the life vest.

After rafting, we took a walking tour of the town. Everything was going fine until all of a sudden these invisible bugs started attacking everyone's legs. Luckily, I was wearing pants so only my feet got bit, but it was still pretty painful. By the end of the day, some people's bites swelled to the size of cherry tomatoes.

The best cure for bug bites is of course...pisco! We walked to a large bodega to sample various wines and piscos. On the ride home, we stopped at a small honey farm right along the river. The area is definitely in my top ten most beautiful places I've seen!

Beautiful!

GOVERNMENT PALACE

I was happy to be visiting La Plaza Mayor again today, this time to see the government palace. We were only able to tour 5 of the rooms because the president lives there and could not be bothered by the tourists. Understandable. After the palace tour, we went next door to explore the Cathedral of Lima. I usually don't find churches to be that interesting but this one was pretty cool! Because Lima is located on the ring of fire, it experiences very strong earthquakes. Therefore, much of the cathedral is made of wood, but is painted to look like marble or stone. This was also due to the fact that marble is much more expensive than wood. I wasn't able to spot the difference until our tour guide pointed it out.

In other news, the presidential election is tomorrow! Although the race has been 50/50 between Keiko and PPK, it seems that most people believe Keiko will win. Stay tuned!

OUR SECOND FREE DAY

A free day? How unusual! Even more unusual, we took shots in our culture class today. We spent the last part of class preparing and drinking Pisco Sours. Our professor Rosa, told us that she likes her drinks especially strong and then proceeded to add a whole cup worth more of the called for pisco. To my surprise, they were the best Pisco Sours Iv'e tried yet.

After class we went to Papachos, a famous hamburger restaurant in Perú. I got a classic American cheeseburger with avocado and onion rings (on top of the burger, not on the side). It was so big that I had to cut it into to quarters to eat. After eating there, I think Papachos may do an American burger
better than any restaurant I've been to in America.

The rest of the day I walked around the city with a few friends. Later tonight, a bunch of us are going bowling. We may even get a surprise visit from Monica! I wonder if heeled bowling shoes exist. If they do, she definitely needs a pair.

SALSA AND FRIENDS

 We had a great day at UNIFÉ today! It was finally sunny in Lima so we all sat around outside and  talked with the students. The first 20 minutes we spoke in Spanish, which was not as hard as I  thought it was going to be. Yay, improvement! The last 10 minutes we were able to speak in English.  We talked about Peruvian nightlife, boyfriends, and politics. An interesting mix, but still very cool to  learn about. After chatting with the girls, we went to our culture class. Today's topic was Peruvian  Independence. Each day, I'm able to understand about ~10% more of our lecture. So I think I'm at  about 75%...a solid C...

Solid C face

After Class, we took the stage for a salsa lesson! We were all feeling pretty confident until the UNIFÉ students gathered to watch us. As soon as we moved past the basic step and attempted to do a spinning move, the girls began to video us. Many laughs were had. We pushed on! Some even joined us! Maybe out of pity? Regardless, it was a fun time.

Later that night a group of us went to a bar in Barronco called Ayahuasca. We then proceeded to do Ayahuasca!! Just kidding. The place was recommended to us by a lot of professors/UNIFÉ students and I can see why. Once a colonial mansion, the bar had three stories and over fourteen rooms. Each room had some aspect of ancient Peruvian culture in it. Therefore, every walk to the bathroom was a little history lesson. So fun and educational!

BRINGING FRISBEE TO PERÚ...?

Frisbee is not very popular here :( . For the past 2.5 weeks, I have been stopping in every sports store trying to complete my quest for a frisbee. After the first few failed attempts, I started to ask my host mom, my teachers and random people on the street if they knew where I could buy one. My favorite (but also the most painful) answer I've received so far was, "try the pet store." I haven't actually looked yet, but I highly doubt a frisbee at a pet store would be up to regulation standards. Might have to settle for a cloth one or something...

I did bring one frisbee to Perú to give to my host mom. Although it was a gift, I've been using it. That's how presents work, right??

As part of our exchange program at UNIFÉ, some of us volunteered to talk about an aspect of our lives specific to the states while a student translated what we said into Spanish. When Monica asked for volunteers, I was envisioning a very laid back exercise in which we spoke to a small group of UNIFÉ students. So I volunteered!

Upon arrival, we were shuffled into a large conference room with a podium and microphone aka not a laid back setting. Turns out, each of us were going to speak in front of the entire college of translation. I was the last of the four to speak. I was getting a little nervous as I saw that some of my peers stood behind the podium with notes and that I had barely thought about what i was going to say. As they presented, I brainstormed a few of the things I would talk about. Things like; the tryout process; spirit of the game; the rules; tournaments; social aspects etc..

However, when it was my turn, I somehow managed to talk about none of these! Instead, I went on and on about a Halloween tournament in which all of us dress up as bananas or cows and play frisbee. I tend to kind of black out during presentations so that's about all I remember saying. At the end, I threw a frisbee to my friend Lexi who was sitting in the audience. Although we were only a few feet apart, she proceeded to rocket the frisbee straight toward the woman who was translating my speech. 

Overall, a very inaccurate representation of ultimate frisbee...

TALKS AND ROCKS

Today during our grammar class, we spent less time focusing on sentence structure/vocab/conjugations and more time on discussing the relevant issues in Lima and the US. The two hour class flew by!! We spent the majority of the period talking about environmental issues which I was very happy about. Unfortunately, Perú doesn't have many environmental policies or regulations in place. I think I've seen a total of 4 recycling bins in the past 2.5 weeks. Our teacher, Romeo, says this is a result of poor education and the fact that Perú faces more eminent problems than climate change. Hopefully, the next president (election day is on Sunday!!) will focus more on environmental issues. 

After class, we headed to UNIFÉ for a lesson in Peruvian Literature. I had been feeling pretty sick in the morning from accidentally drinking the water or something so I honestly didn't catch much of the discussion. I spent most of the lecture planning out various escape routes in case I was going to puke. I found that my best option was to just lean my head out of the window next to my desk (although we our classroom was on the third floor). Luckily, I didn't end up throwing up!

Still feeling a little strange, I boarded the bus with my program to explore El Museo de Oro y Armas (museum of gold and weapons). I'm not a huge fan of guns and knives so this museum was así así.

Around 6:00pm, our program's activities came to an end. A couple of us decided we wanted to continue the day with a visit to the rock gym. Although it took us a little over than an hour of walking in and out of the back alleys of Miraflores, we all had a great time climbing. It was especially cool because the entire gym was outside! I guess they can do that here considering it hasn't rained in Lima in 47 years.