A Typical Week in Peru

Sunday, April 26, 2009 00:57
My house in Lima

A bit more of what I do on a daily basis...if its boring, keep scrolling!

Monday

In International Trade and Negotiation, we presented a case study debate style on the Brazil vs. United States cotton case in the World Trade Organization. After learning about the Indigenísmo art movement in our Peruvian culture class, my night was free and I was set on getting out of the house. Since I’m one of the few people that don’t have a roommate and my host mom and I often have very different schedules, I feel a little lonely at times. Not really bad, but I just get the itch to hang out with other people. A group of us ended up at a café to hang out for a bit and then to a shop that sells really cheap DVDs.

Tuesday

I really enjoy my Spanish class, today we learned words that only women used. Most of them referred to emotions or polite exclamations. Apparently, all the words for guys that women weren’t supposed to use are all the curse words, but that is changing a bit so that women use them. At our weekly ISA meeting we learned about all the upcoming events and tried several different Peruvian pastries to culturally immerse us, of course. I love the program here! I ate lunch at the cafeteria at school, where the daily menu is between S/. 4.50 and S/. 5.50 and includes drink, appetizer, main meal, and dessert! Delicious and costs only about $1.50.

After class, some of us watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas at Lindsey’s house (highly recommend, although very sad) It’s so great that we are allowed to hang out at each other’s houses, unlike in Buenos Aires. Apparently today was Japanese day or something at our university because during the day they had martial arts demonstrations and Japanese character tattoos and at night they had free sushi, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We decided that we were going to put ourselves out there and meet some Peruvian students, although Alex’s attempt to sit in the middle of the school’s courtyard with a sign that said “Amigas, Por fa” (“Friends - of the girl variety - please”) were unsuccessful. We finally just went up to a group of girls as we were leaving the school and said “We only have American friends, will you be our friends?” Though they probably should have ran in the other direction, they were more than happy to talk with us and make several playdates in the upcoming future. We deserve pats on the back for that one.

My late night activities consisted of going to Parque Kennedy with a group and wandering aimlessly. After heading to a club and dancing for a bit, we called it a night. By the way, superlative for weirdest English translation of a drink goes to: “Pisco, juice of lemon, clear of egg, rubber syrup, bitter ice, and bitter of narrowness.” Mmmm, how appetizing.

Wednesday

We keep up our routine of heading to beach Wikiki to lay out on the rocks/surf before classes in the afternoon. At night, Kara, Hannah, Lindsey, and I met up with 5 or 6 Peruvians that we had met through our first Intercambio at the oldest bodega (winery) in Lima and chatted for a while. We then went to English Pub, where they were having a private party for international students from the biggest universities in Lima.

Thursday

Daytime = classes. In Spanish class we did more translation work and learned that “simpatico”, which generally means “nice” has the connotation of “good-looking” in Perú. We laughed about how we’ve been describing people as nice while our host family and other people must have thought we were calling them cute. At night, Henry, Alex, Ashley, and I went to salsa lessons with Lucia (from ISA) and a couple Intercambio friends. I had a blast afterwards when we went to Son de Cuba salsa club and tried out the few new moves we had learned. The two story club had an awesome atmosphere, and all the music was courtesy of a live ten-person Cuban band! We spent a while just listening to them play, it was ¡regio! (great!)

Friday

At night, ISA planned another Intercambio for us and fifteen Peruvians at a bowling alley in the huge Jockey Plaza. It was a lot of fun and I was actually able to teach several Peruvians in Spanish how to bowl because it was the first time for many of them. Afterwards we headed to this amazing ice cream place called 4D, where they had giant colorful mounds of the most delectable-looking ice cream. I ended up calling it an early night after that but had spent a great night conversing with many Peruvians.

Saturday

After spending the day getting papers done, I danced the night away at a birthday party for one of the guys from the Intercambio and all his friends that we’ve been hanging out with. The house we went to was super nice, most of our university friends are definitely from a higher socioeconomic status.

Sunday

Got up early for Caballo a Paso, a horse show that is held once a year. We didn’t really understand how big it was until our ISA program directors literally were mobbed when trying to sell their extra tickets to people waiting in the sold-out line. I had never really been to a horse show before and I wasn’t sure what to expect from today. The horses, called pasos, are a special breed from this area and supposedly have the smoothest gait in the world. They walk as though they were marching and kicking their feet out haphazardly. It’s a very weird gait but it looked like they were keeping in time to the music. The coolest part of the day was when the horsemen would dance around the arena in their traditional costumes while their partner steered their horse around so that it appeared it was dancing too.

Well, there you have a week out of my life in Lima. It was nice to stay put for a weekend! Coli