Last weekend I went to Barranco for the first time. Barranco is a district of Lima that has quite the night life. On Friday night I went with my friends Kallee and Sarah and we ate at a cute restaurant called El Hornito. I was very excited to order pizza and pleasantly surprised that it tasted pretty good (Peruvian pizza generally doesn't compare to american pizza). After dinner we walked through a little artisan fair near the restaurant and one of the vendors started talking to me about politics and would not stop talking! He had some very interesting ideas (for example, he thinks that Cusco should be the capital of Peru).
Saturday, some Peruvian friends from my history class invited me a to a party. I met up with Jazmin at the university around 6:30pm and we took a taxi to Gaby's house in Surquillo. At Gaby's we got all ready for the party; Gaby's mom did my makeup, which was interesting because I usually don't wear any makeup ever. Around 10:00pm we left the house and went to pick up Gaby's friend Juancho and from there we went to a birthday party for a friend of one of Gaby's best friends, or something like that. This party basically consisted of a bunch of people I did not know drinking and smoking (I hate smoking, but it is super common in Lima so I have gotten somewhat used to being around it), and American music playing but no one dancing. After a little while at that party, we left and took a taxi to Barranco for some other party in an abandoned house. I found this party a bit sketchy and the music playing there was awful - nothing I could dance too. From there we walked into down town Barranco a couple blocks away and went into some "pubs" to dance, but the music there still wasn't good! I wanted some good Peruvian music to dance to! A guy made me dance with him when we were in one of the pubs, which was a little bit fun and a lot awkward. He was sort of a shady character if you ask me, but I figure nothing much could come of a few minutes of dancing, other than me feeling uncomfortable. Haha. Later we returned to the party at the abandoned house to await Gaby's parents who were coming to pick us up at 2:30am, but they did not get there until 3:30! We returned to Gaby's house at 4:00am and got ready for bed. I was more than a little exhausted by that time but Gaby and Jazmin didn't want to sleep, so I tried to stay awake to talk with them, but I fell asleep pretty fast.
Sunday when I got home, my host parents had gone out somewhere, so Juanca and Blanca were the only ones home and they invited me to go to lunch with them. We went to a restaurant called Huancawasi, which was tasty and afterward we checked out the shopping center called polvos azules which is in the center of Lima. It supposedly has really cheap stuff, but I bought 3 pairs of socks for the equivalent of $4 which does not seem very cheap to me. Polvos azules is CRAZY! The first part that we walked through was just shoe store after shoe store and I can easily say that I have never seen so many different kinds of shoes in my life, nor such a large quantity of shoes in one place!
This week I had my first "control de lectura," which is like a test, for my history class. Basically, I had a reading that I had to do and then in class I had to demonstrate my understanding through two short essay questions. It turned out to be pretty easy because I studied the reading really well and the questions were clearly answered in the reading. We'll see how I actually do when I get my grade. . . I am not sure how the grading system is here. I was proud of myself for not being the last student in the classroom - other Peruvian students took longer on their control than I did! After class on Tuesday I ate lunch with Gaby, Jazmin, and Julio (all in my history class) and then we went to Plaza San Miguel, a nice mall about 10 minutes walking from the University. I had to return to la Católica for class at 4:00, even though I really did not want to go because it was my spanish class and I am not really loving my spanish class for a multitude of reasons that I will not delve into. That evening I went out for a late dinner at a restaurant called Timbó to celebrate Teo's (the empleada) birthday. The food was super good!
Wednesday there was a get-together for international students from four of Lima's universities at the english pub in Miraflores. My friend Megan and I decided to go together and we arrived at about 9:45 pm only to find that the place was basically empty. However, by 11:00 the pub was packed and everyone was dancing and chatting. Unfortunately the music was so loud that I had trouble communicating because I could not hear, and everyone was speaking English too! I forgot to mention that on the way to the party, I wiped out in my micro. Don't try to get off a micro while talking on the phone and holding a water bottle in your other hand because you won't have any hands to grip the bar above your head and when the bus breaks you will go flying down the aisle only to land on the little platform between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat, thankful that you did not fly through the windshield. I have a huge bruise on my leg and I think I popped a blood vessel in my hand - it hurt quite a bit and got all swollen.
Thursday was probably one of the best days I've had since I've been here and it marked the completion of two months in Lima. Really nothing special happened except that I had a ridiculous amount of energy so my Spanish was coming out well and and I was really talkative which led to some good conversation with my host parents and sharing pictures with Juanka, Blanca and Teo.
Today I went to Mistura with my host family. Mistura is the name of this year's Feria Gastronómica del Perú, basically an international food fair put together by some of the most famous chefs of Peru. If you have never been to Peru, you probably do not realize how proud Peruvians are of their food. This food fair is a testament to how much they love their food and how celebrated their chefs are. To enter the fair you had to buy a ticket for 20 soles (about $7) but once inside the plates cost a max of 12 soles ($4). The amount and variety of food was overwhelming. 32 of Perus top restaurants participate in the food fair. However, after walking around the entire food pavilion twice, I decided to get a simple turkey sandwich from a sanguchería. Delicious! One restaurant, called 73, had really amazing churros. Churros are a dessert made out of fried dough filled with a caramel-like substance and coated in sugar cristals. These churros came with sopa de chocolate, which meant they had some chocolate sauce drizzled on them. ¡Qué rico! I spent just about the entire day at the food fair. We left our house at 11:30 am and I think I got back somewhere between 6 and 7 pm. Quite the long day! And now it is bedtime! I still cannot post any pics because I'm having camer/computer connection issues. My apologies.
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