Homestay

I have a host family here in Lima, which right now is just my host mom, Enma.  She also has a granddaughter who lives with her, but she's in the U.S. right now with her mom so I haven't met her.  I'm not entirely sure when she's coming back...  Enma and I get along well.  A lot of the time when I'm home I hang out in my room and she in hers, but we always eat dinner together and watch a Peruvian telenovela (soap opera) called "Al fondo hay sitio" ("There's a place in the back" is how I think it translates.)  It's quite dramatic, as soap operas are wont to be, and I don't like a lot of the characters because they're overdramatic or crazy or some mixture of both.  But it's good listening comprehension practice and I can learn about culture and such as well.

This is the front of my building.  I live in the district of Miraflores on the sixth floor of an apartment building (two apartments per floor).  The apartment is nice with 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, two sitting areas, dining room, kitchen, and laundry area.  It's about 5 blocks from the clifftops overlooking the ocean.  I enjoy walking along the malecón, which is the parks and walkways along the cliffs, enjoying the outdoors and listening to the ocean below.  I tend to go walking just before sunset so I have a lot of pictures of the sun setting and the ocean and an island off the coast... it's just always so picturesque. 

So far Enma and I have watched a movie together, gone to visit her mother's grave on her birthday, and visited with several friends and family members.  My second Sunday here, we went to have lunch at the house of some of Enma's friends.  It was a good afternoon, but I also think I got told that I have the face of a 14- or 15-year-old and that I need to go to the beach to get a tan (coming from Wisconsin winter, I'm pretty pale... not that I can really tan either...).  Ha. 

Then this past Sunday we visited Enma's sister.  Her grandson came in and Enma told me to go with him so he could teach me something... I wasn't entirely sure what was going on.  So I went with this guy whose about my age that I just met, and ended up helping him make cachangas (fried rolled-out dough which we then put mashed avocado on).  It was a little awkward, but the cachangas were good.  I was so full though after a big lunch and then cachangas, and my host mom was like "Eat, eat!"  Thank you, but please no more!  :-)

Here's my room... a little bare, but suitcases have their weight limits and I have what I need.  I also have a lot of shelving and other storage space in my room.

Sunset out my window.

A bit about classes...

I've got a lot of ground to make up on this blog, and I feel like starting with classes the first two weeks I was here (instead of working on the huge pile of reading I have to do for my literature class).  The program I'm studying abroad with, CIEE (Lima- Liberal Arts) is very well-organized, with lots of thought given to helping students transition into studying abroad.  Our first two days after arrival were orientation days, with lots of info as well as some fun activities like going to Peruvian buffets for lunch and a tour of the city, with evenings free.  Then on Sunday we met our host families... but I'll save that for another post.

We arrived in Lima two weeks before the actual start of the semester at the university (PUCP).  The program built in two weeks of intensive Spanish language classes to help us prepare.  On our first day here were took Spanish placement exams involving reading comprehension, grammar, writing, and a short interview with the 3 professors.  Based on level of language ability, the 13 students in the program were divided into 3 classes- the Language and Culture students (lower level of Spanish) in one, and then Advanced 1 and Advanced 2.  I placed into Advanced 2.  We had class from 9-3:45, with a 20 minute break around 11 and an hour for lunch at 1.  (Lunch and dinner are shifted later here.)

This is my class posing for a picture, pretending that our professor Jorge is actually teaching at this moment and that we're learning something important.  :-)

I really enjoyed my intensive Spanish class (most of the time).  We did grammar exercises, readings, writing (<-- not so big on), and listening comprehension with news articles or occasionally a guest speaker.  After the readings we'd go through unknown vocabulary.  We also talked about various parts of culture or Peru in general that we had questions about or that came up in class.  We also did speaking practice, such as short expositions (speeches), up to 9 minutes long, and short, sometimes interesting conversations courtesy on an online random situation generator.  My conversation with the professor for the midterm involved my hamster, Captain Furball, getting eaten by a carnivorous plant. 

What I think we all enjoyed most was playing games with vocabulary, slang terms, and idioms that we were learning.  For example, we'd have a sheet with terms on it and play an improvisation game "Whose Line Is It Anyway" style, brainstorming situations and earning a point for every slang term or idiom we used.  Certain classmates were especially entertaining.  :-)  We also heard the other class was going on a field trip (!) to the big supermarket store, Wong, and convinced Jorge to take us too to learn vocabulary (foods, etc.). 

Intensive class was fun, but a lot of the time my brain was fried by the end of the day- 6 hours of focusing on, listening to, reading, writing, and speaking Spanish was tough.  I think we were all ready for it to be done in some ways by the end.  But Jorge was a great professor- he's a really intelligent guy with an interesting sense of humor, and speaks both English and Spanish natively (all 3 of the professors were fluent in both), so he could explain things in English if need be and help us with unknown words, explain what something means or how to say something, etc.  It all made for a fun class overall.

View overlooking part of campus from outside of our intensive Spanish classroom.

And in case you all were wondering, on the subject of whether or not all Peruvian guys can dance (which somehow came up as we were chatting after our final exam I think)- 
Jorge: I'm latino and I'm stiff as an American.  
(Hahaha!)

More to follow when I get around to it... chau (a.k.a. ciao) for now!

Welcome to Peru!

¡Hola, familia y amigos!  It's about time I got around to creating a blog.  (And it's not lima beans, it's the city Lima!)  As you probably know, I am studying abroad this semester in Lima, Peru for my Spanish major.  I left the U.S. on February 24 and will return on July 15.  I've been here almost three weeks now and have been enjoying living in and learning about Lima!

This is a view of Lima from near the beaches.  Most of the city is up on cliffs.  The weather has been warm and sunny during the day for the most part (around 80 degrees), with nights getting linto the 70s and maybe upper 60s.  It's very humid in Lima, but coastal Peru is desert.  It may sprinkle or mist every so often, but it really doesn't rain here.  It's still summer here right now, but near the end of April the weather will change and it will typically be in the 60s, overcast, and 95% humidity for the winter.

Lima, the capital of Peru, is a city of approximately 9 million people.  The entire STATE of Wisconsin has about 5.6 million.  So far I haven't minded big city life.  Lima has various districts, kind of like the different neighborhoods of New York.  I live in Miraflores (the coast pictured above is probably Miraflores or nearby), and the university I attend here, la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, is two districts away in San Miguel.  More on transportation later... Lima traffic is rather chaotic.  Ok, not rather... it's very chaotic most of the time.

La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru), which I shall henceforth refer to as either PUCP or La Católica, has about 18,000 students and is considered a rather prestigious university, founded in 1917.  It's also a gated campus with plenty of green space.  They've got a wonderful variety of birds (if you don't know, I'm a birder- I love birdwatching), as well as a cute species of squirrel and some deer.  Yep, there're deer on my campus.

FYI, Peru is spatially in the US Eastern Time Zone, but now that you all have sprung ahead with Daylight Savings, I'm at the same time as Central Standard Time!  Peru doesn't do Daylight Savings.  It's kind of weird to ponder... time changed for you but not for me...

Also, lesson of the day:  Don't assume the person in the elevator with you lives in your building and knows how the elevator works, and will push the right button so the doors don't start closing as you're trying to unlock your apartment.  The elevator bit me.

(I have more photos on facebook.)

More to come: food, fun, transportation, classes, host family, cuy...