Matriculé

New things to report, of course. 1. Happy birthday to my borther Ian!!, 2. I successfully did laundry and 3. I enrolled in a Spanish class. My class meets every weekday morning for 4 weeks at the Peruvian-NorthAmerican Cultural Institute. It's mostly a place where Peruvians take English classes so I am definitely the one who sticks out, go figure. There are ten of us in the class and the overwhelming majority are Chinese. I have only had two classes and so far it's slow going. I understand what's going on in class and my pronunciation is swell, but I really need practice speaking and I am not getting it there. But luckily this was a pretty inexpensive course, so I am not gonna sweat it.

Thus far, I have been researching some places to volunteer and am hoping to get something going by next week. I still have a lot of exploring to do around Lima, I haven't even been to the center of town where all the museums are because that involves taking a bus. The buses are a bit disorganized and Peruvians I have met don't even like taking them, so I am currently avoiding them. No shame.

Last but not least, I leave for Cuzco Friday morning, Mark left early this morning. I am really excited to see another part of Perú other than the grey coastline. I've been reading up about altitude sickness and I plan on resting as soon as I get there. Mark will finish up working the evening and then I hope we'll be able to walk around a bit and explore the city (slowly). Saturday is up in the air, we might go to Machu Picchu or Sacsayhuamán. I would be thrilled to do either! Ok, back to dubbed sitcoms, lunch, and changing money. Hasta pronto.

I forget how to speak Spanish...

Well, here I am in Lima. In the last three days I have gone through a myriad of emotions: overhwhelmed, excited, scared, confident, and everything in between. I have really only seen one part of the city so far, which is a neighborhood called Miraflores (literally means Look at Flowers). It has its nice looking parts and its industrial aspects as well. The picture of me near the water is definitely my favorite part!

So far the weather has been better than I thought. It is pretty cloudy but I've seen worse. And the day time temp has been in the 60s. It gets colder the closer you get to the water. It's really windy near the ocean and there are constantly people paragliding, which looks like a lot of fun.

I had a good first weekend walking around the city with Mark, my personal translator (and novio). We have hopped into little cafes, sipped on pisco sours, and even saw the new Indiana Jones movive Friday night. We both agreed that it didn't compare to the originals. Until last night we'd been staying with a co-worker of Mark's named Victor. He has been so hospitable. And like most middle-upper class folks in Lima, he has a maid who cooks us breakfast and dinner and makes fresh fruit drinks for us, etc. At first I felt weird, but I realized it was a commonplace thing here. Plus I really loved her cooking!

Now, after a LOT of searching (Mark by himself and us together this past weeknd), we found an apartment. It is really cute and only a few blocks from the ocean. The following are pictures from the kitchen/living room and then fomr the bedroom. It's nothing big but it's perfect for just two people. There's also a walk-in closet. And the condo/apt building has lots of amenities like the internet room I am currently using and the rooftop pool, sauna, grill, not to mention view of the entire city! I will post pics of the view on a sunnier day.

Today is my first day without Mark since he's at work. I went grocery shopping and that pretty much wore me out, at least mentally. We live near the Peruvian equivalent of whole foods called Vivanda. It was nice and I got most of what we need to start off including some weird looking laundry detergent. That is another task for today... figuring out the laundry in the basement.

Here's our new address where you can send us mail! I am no positive how to write it yet, so let me confirm before everyone sends all the letters that they wrote over the weekend, haha.

28 de Julio 887
Dpto. 404
Lima,Peru

The street is "28 deJulio" which is Peru's independence day. It also happens to be my dad's brithday which is pretty cool. Alright, time to go practice more Spanish.

p.s. Mark leaves for Cusco on Wednesday for a work trip. Since they will be done on Friday evening, I am flying to Cusco Friday morning and we are spending the weekend there. We might even go to Machu Picchu on Saturday. Hopefully I will post again before the weekend :)