my trip

I should write about my 10 day trip that I took a while ago.. i think almost a month ago..

i decided to make use of a 4 day holiday and take an 8 or 9 day trip to see some new places... those being huaraz, piura, and mancora. so i skipped some classes, didnt do any work, and left by bus with a friend (samantha) to huaraz.

im pretty much used to bus rides now. we got to huaraz way too early.. about 6 or 7 in the morning. it was freezing outside: a nice surprise. we got into some tourist shuttle to take us to a hostal and those people ended up booking our excursions for that day and the next.

the hostal was a house about 7 blocks from the main street with an amazing family that took care of us for the two days. it was comfortable with some nice hot water (because the city has natural hot springs under it) and she made us literally feel at home. We rested a little and did our first trip, which was pretty much a taxi ride to cities down a valley outside of huaraz. I was expecting like some small farm towns with a different feel, but really every city was pretty much the same.. some pleasant plazas with different buildings. the views were amazing though, and one place really struck me as an amazing oasis of beauty. There was a city called Yungay that in the 70s had an avalanche/flood wash through the city and everything and everybody were uprooted from the city, leaving almost nothing behind. thats not the beautiful part of course, but now there have a memorial site in memory of the city and the people that is a huge, i mean HUGE garden of roses... thousands of roses covering what once was the city, where theres almost nothing left standing... i have never seen so many roses, so many varieties of roses, so big roses, everything roses.. i related everything to roses for a week after that garden.

so we get back and rest in some hot springs, where we thoguht wed just jump in a spring, but it was just a tub that had naturally hot water come out of a pipe.. still nice.

next day, we get up and go with a peruvian couple to churup lagoon, which they said would be about a 4 hour trek to see it and 2 hours down....

this was not a trek.. it was a near-death hike and scale up a mountain. Note: im already about 10k feet above sea level and winded easily by that.. and then this hike wasnt just a casual stroll in the garden.. it was an uphill battle to survive! i was climbing an effin mountain without any preparation and a pudge... so yeah we took a lot of breaks, the couple from peru had to turn back due to now being 14k feet above sea level.. yes we hiked up 4.5k feet.. we had a part where we saw what was left... which wasnt a trail at all it was literally climbing up the mountain, the girl turned back.. me and samantha looked at each other and were like.. i dont care, we gotta do it. so we did.

Note: i know that i wasnt on a mountain or anything like some people hike, but this was some serious stuff. the air was thin, it got a hell of lot colder, as in in the beginning i was sweatin like crazy and near the top i was freezing. the sun was burning my face and hands, i was loosiing consciousness and barely being able to lift my legs.. but determination pulls through.

so we got up there to see the amazing lagoon and an amazing site and it was all worth it... of course it had to be hah. beautiful though, i got pictures on facebook.. the site was literally worth it.. but having to go down from there.. oh no

luckily there were already some locals on top just chillin (jealous), so they talked to us and we met some friends but ME...me.. I was dead... literally, i felt like pukin, i had a head ache, i couldnt talk to anybody barely, i just wanted to get down from the hike and nothing more, i coudlnt even think that far ahead hah.. that was me, my most exhausted time of my life, probably due to not bringing water or food for the hike.

so thats mainly our hauraz time, now we are goin to split, she going to cajamarca for some inca hot baths and a beautiful place and me to go to piura to meet a friend and see some stuff there..

piura, well was a city.. nothing too special haha. maybe should have gone to cajamarca, but it was actually good because i needed some time to do my registration for classes and relax a little.. i also went to catacaos and bought a lot of stuff that made me realize how bad of a shopper i am. while i was there i went to some ruins that were washed away by el niño en the 80s so wasnt much to see. it was the people of Tallan.. or soemthin.. there i met two local kids that took me back to catacaos and i chilled with them for a little while.. different hah.

in piura was a friend i met randomly at a discoteca in lima and her friends and such.. that was about it, piura was nothin.. but then i left to Mancora.. a beach in the north of Peru.. i had a full day to myself before samantha would get there.

Mancora was pretty sweet.. i went walkin for3 hours down the beaches and it was calm and smoothe, a little hot was some cold water.. also there was some reefs or i dont even know what you call it but on the beach were some sea rocks or somethin that was pretty cool. hah..

so one thing about mancora: the sun is INTENSE... dont forget that Equador is on the equator.. and Mancora is probably an hour and a half away from that country.. so basically the sun is beaming down on my really pale skin that has never been able to handle sun really well.. i saw some locals that were literally dark red... i dont even know if that is natural...

but the beach was nice, there were peruvian families for the break, and a lot of surfers and sports stuff.. and me.. just sittin there and chilling..

that was pretty much mancora.. sittin and chillin, and drinkin and what not.. samantha came that night and we went out and relaxed.. the next day we met a guy named STEVE! from new york.. a chill guy who was a big obama supporter.. i mean big.. i think he took a vacation to kick his obama addiction since obama won..

it was nice, i enjoyed mancora a lot.. i bought some other bad stuff that no one is going to like and i went home haha.

oh yeah food, so we ate some ceviche, which is kinda like peruvian sushi.. they dont cook it they just let it be semi cooked by lemon (or limon, i forgot if thats lemon or lime) and its amazing.. i had octopus, fish, and crab.. mmmmmmm and its all fresh too from mancora beach... then we had amazing sushi that was really good... and some burgers and i dunno nothin else too special..

that is pretty much my trip. that and lots of hours on the bus... and beautiful land and some things to think about.. i dunno what else to add.

Good job me, for never posting

I knew i would be bad at this. i got 40 minutes ish to talk about some needed subjects about my stay in peru.. so here i go

My trip to Teoria, Peru.. in the Junin provincia at the edge of the central jungle. It was me and 8ish education girls goin on a trip to the Ashaninka pueblo of Teoria, an old culture with its own language and customs... some modern advances of radio and electricity with a library that has internet... some sure signs of civil intervention.. i got to spend the night there and pass two days with the kids of the pueblo doing projects and just hanging out.

For this classroom project we did a story... and we made books, puppets, and a scene to tell it. The story was how an ashaninka boy captured a star, and eventually the star turned into a princess and they got married.. touching... by the way it was based off an ashaninka legend so dont acredit me for the ingenuity.

of my group, me and fiorella (a peruvian group partner) went to the place and man it was an experience. First, the scenary was amazing, as some of you know thats all i take pictures of.. it was a great relief from the concrete jungle that is called Lima. so i was basically outdoors, with the buzz of nature from the two rivers that surround the pueblo and the common insects (crickets, lightning bugs, etc) that are somehow everywhere in the freaking world. the kids were kids, thats the reality of the world.. they got their customs and language but in the end they got the same cares, needs, and things to work on haha. Some of the kids were shy, some were open, I basically tried to be open with everyone after everyone got use to us. We did the puppet show and storytellin time with success the first day, everyone responded and participated... wehihc made me feel good because i am still a bit insecure with my communication skills.

So about 10 of the kids took us to their hang out.. which was the teoria river.. where theres some good places to relax and also some cool rapids to go down... that was great and our group and the kids had some fun, except that we left too late and couldnt really see our way goin back.. oh well

the night sky was... i cant even describe it.. it was no longer a picture frame sky like you get from the city lights, but rather a profound and awe inspiring view of the huge space that we are a part of... which made me repeat oh my f!$%# $#$% a couple of times.. since really that was the most I have ever seen of the true space thats beyond the city lights... and to think before electricity people saw that almost every night (except in lima because 9 months out of the year its cloudy)

Also a bat got stuck in our room and i didnt want to kill it haha the girls complained, i tried to capture it without sucess, and we slept with the fear of Nasferatu's return

Next day we spent the whole morning with preschool children ages 3 to 5.. and talk about a hand ful.. so we did the storytellin and puppets.. with some blank faces and some picking noses and such,.. typical i guess.. but others got it. then they drew some pictures and made their own puppets AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW PICTURE TIME!

that was good, then we went to the OTHER river called the mazamari river and waded around, where i took my picture for my facebook profile pic a while ago and we hung out with the kids even more... all in all an amazing experience that i will keep with me for a while.

when we got back to the main city (satipo), i hung out at the plaza and we ate at a restaurant for FREE (gracias a la catolica) then we got back

so... if you remember my delirium from not sleeping in the techo para mi pais trip in chincha.. get a load of this...

we left 9ish... and immediately the bus got hot... miserably hot.. i was in a sweat within an hour.. but bearing through it all... until the movie ended.

so the lights went out and everyone got to sleep.. except me.. whose only focus was the sweat and tiredness that dont mix well together... i think i went into a deep conscious sleep, but some might call that.. i dont know

then suddenly the bus stopped... for 2 hours... without ANY air flow, and i had to take off my shirt and try to not think, until i saw elmer fudd again.. that was awkward because we got into a fight last time we met. basically the trip lasted 11 hours when it should have lasted 7, and i did not sleep through it at all, but i did get some nice thoughts in! but i survived and here i am...

Its a long post but i want to add the next weekend, where i watched a peruvian soccer matchup La Universitaria versus Cienciano

so.. peruvian soccer isnt particularly good, and this game was not a peruvian highlight tape.. more like a clumsy practice tape. but the cool thing was that the music and cheering NEVER ended.. never... ever.. which kept a pretty cool rhythm through the whole game...and it makes me wonder if all pro soccer games are like that.. since football you got the constant breaks and basketball has lots of down time.. really soccer has short enough breaks that you can just cheer constantly.. hh well sidetrack.. but yeah it was with the whole group and was cool to be there.. plus the seats were really colorful.. like a gumball machine on the sides

there, peace yo.

Some random Peru experiencies..

I want to talk a little about some random experiences that happen in Peru:

The first thing thats in my head are temblores.. or small earthquakes.. This monday was my first time to experience a pretty big temblor, and let me tell you its something. At least for tornados in Alabama you know when they are comin, temblores hit suddenly. I was upstairs with my brother, and the whole house started to vibrate and then shake. My brother told me to get down and down I went along with everyone else in the house. It lasted roughly 10 seconds, which is a pretty long time to me. Octoberish is the season for temblores, so i might have some more in store for me. Its really a hard situation since theres not much you can do about it and of course afteer the big earthquake a year ago people have that memory of what could happen, but the house has been secured for those.

I am communicating more with the little girl in our house Camila.. She is two years old and only knows the world through whats hers and whats yours hah, and not surprisingly she thinks everything is hers. She is cute even when she ignores any request you may tell her to do. its different hearing a baby girl in spanish since every time i hear her i want to think shes gonna say somethin in english.. still need to get use to that one. The mother works a lot so the maid has taken up the duty in watching over her 24,7, which she does.. i dont think camila ever gets a break from chaperones.. but thats the everso watchful eye of a peruvian mother.

I walk to school sometimes.. a really nice and quiet neighborhood is between me and my university, and its my time for myself. I listen to music, probably sing too loud, and just walk. its about 35 minutes, which is a nice chuck of time to have, but really not enoguh for me hah. I have found some nice roads to take so that its not so busy traffic and i hit some nice parks. I cant help but wonder how weird it must look seein me walkin through this district, but that could just be me thinkin that.

I dont work out, but I do do pushups.. every other day im doin too many pushups and sometimes some ab and balance workouts. I have gotten a little gut since ive gotten here.. but thats to be expected with good food and cheap everything coughbeercough.
i have a little blanket i use as a pad for my hands, and you can see me next to the comp just pushinup on through.

My first individual grade Ive gotten in my university was an 11 out of 20... which of course is horrible but i am not worried. I cant wait for the new life of gettin really low grades.. hah. I actually didnt read all the material, but man readin so much for classes takes a lot of energy out of ya, and its all in spanish of course.

I went to see a play at the National Library. It was Arsenic and Old Lace, an old movie that luckiyl ive seen before. I didnt understand a lot of it. Then we went to McDonalds.. hooray.. they were surprised when i told them i dont eat restaurants like mcdonalds, but i got a strawberry sundae and a chicken wrap haha.

I am not cut out for the greetings in Peru. Whenever there is some type of social interaction, a greeting is required. For girls its a kiss on the cheek, and a handshake for guys, but I am a hugger! hah and when ive tried to do some hugs its just weak! plus, my face is never smoothe, so i always got some scruff or razor sharp cheeks. Sorry peruvian girls!

Nothing in this city resembles the wild. Everything is man made, even the trees look manufactured for looks. The parks are a joke.. but they do appear like a painting by someone in the form of flora. It is nice, but Ive realized how much truth is in the saying concrete jungle. People havent a clue about the wildlife, about things that arent created by us.... I think its a necessity that is lacked in Peru, but they do have that nice ocean.. which I will see tonight.

Peru is almost always has a clouded sky.. not cloudy.. fully clouded.. It is rare to see the sun in its round form.. and when the sun is out it cant be handled. Supposedly it is the season, so when summer rolls around (november and december) it should be clearer.

I went to a bar place and listened to a tribute band to Bon Jovi.. it wasnt that great...

Ill post more later.

Un techo para mi pais

So Im gonna talk about my little volunteer trip i had... it was grand.

There was a pretty devastating earthquake that struck Peru last year in August, where thousands upon thousands lost their homes to the quake, so almost immediately some youths decided to do somethin about and started the program un techo para mi pais (a roof for my country). They get volunteers to rebuild houses for all the families that lost them, and now its rollin pretty well.

So i decided to do it, since i am a pretty big fan of Habitat for Humanity. I went over to the Techo building, which is actually just a house and seems more like a hang out spot than a formal office. i signed up and i get teleported by some random invention they made and its friday... night.

They got a huge turn out for this trip, over 300 volunteers, all between the ages of 18-30.. their goal is 75 houses in one weekend.. yeah i dont know how either... we all met up at a stadium at night... the planned departure was probably around 9 pm.. but being in peru, where everything is formally an hour late, we didnt leave the place until 11:30... and the city (Chincha) is over 3 hours away.. WOOHOO

on the bus, sittin next to Elaina (stephanie, samantha, aaron, jamie, and john all came too from my program) she could pleasantly sleep while i couldnt.. which would turn out to be the rest of the trip It was a rough ride, squished and miserably wanting sleep..

We arrive at our school where we are going to spend the nights, and its like 2 am.. im ready to pass out.. but what do the leaders do??!? They have an icebreaker activity to get to know names!! Why sleep, they ask me, why sleep!?

so of course us (gringos) being not so chipper, we complain and give mean faces as everyone is somehow ready to build houses in that moment... next its 3 am and someone is brave enough to ask what time well be gettin up cuz ya kno we need like 7 hours sleep for this work right?!!?

We'll be waking you up at ooo 6:30

What.... did you just say, jefe? not even 3 hours of sleep for the first night.. and its really nice being in room that makes my nose act like a dam for air and 30 people sleepin around you on a floor

so im thinkin everyone is gonna be miserable.. but who gives us a chipper howdy in the mornin? the directors ... Do they even need sleep?

for breakfast some tasty stale bread and juice.. alright go build! im with 3 people to make a house.. they house is 6 meters by 3 meters.. so almost the size of an average room in an american house.. made out of wood.. we have two days to build.. my jefe for the group is gustavo, and theres an exchange student from france named cristelle and a highschooler named tamia... we are the dream team

the first thing we gotta do is level the land... thats nice... we start levelin with a shovel and other inventions that dont use electricity until we get to a part... hmm it seems kinda rough we think.. so we bash it a little to see that its just a big ROCK... so lets level rock with some simple tools... i got my pick and was wailing on it... for 2 hours..

the rock.. NEVER.. ended... so we failed and had to raise the land a little.. a good compromise since its the first day, hot, and im miserable.. so go take a good swig of water and what did i buy!?! CARBONATED WATER... you see, regular water and carbonated water are popular in Peru, and you have to read it before really knowing.. and i just took one... so i drank it, almost gagged, and i never truly quenched my thirst that day..

we work until late.. we probably worked 8 or 9 hours thatday and just finished gettin the floor in. everyone is smelly and dirty and we go back to the school, where there isnt a clean bathroom and definitely no showers.. we are goin dirty the whole weekend.

the cool thing thatr kept my spirits up was meetin a group from Loyola university in LA. i was chillin with some guys form there and had a good time until we had to pass out.. one guy was actually on the show NEXT on MTV.. how.. weird..

so was pass out at 3:30 am i guess, i dunno.. and i was like good lets get some sleep, i dont care that my nose is completely stopped up... im passin out... but Halleluja a director bursts into our room at 6 or 7 and tells us Buenas dias

im glad i didnt have a shoe in my hand... but i looked up and the guy was wearing a clown suit... i looked deep into his eyes... i saw that he was literally insane.

so i got some more stale bread in me and we hit the road.. gotta finish the house
the house is made of wood with a tin roof, pretty simple really with two windows and a door (i want to make a house without a door)

we were cruisin and i got to know my group pretty well and we were jokin the whole tim.. for lunch the family prepares us meals and we sat down and watched a dvd on 70s and 80s american music.. HELL YEA! got some Blondie, Grease, Jackson 5, and disco.. cant beat that.

so we finished the house at like 5.. it looked nice we tried not to mess up any but its hard with our inexperience. everything looked good, we hugged the lady of the house and took a break. and i was like yes lets hit the road i gotta get home sleep and do work.. but NONE of the hosues were finished... so even though i was hallucinating i was so tired i had to go work more.. cheers, we got done with the houses at around 10 or 11 pm, and i had school the next day... i woudlnt get home until 2 or 3ish... i havent recovered yet.

in the bus ride, i was talking to elmer fudd at a coffee shop. it was cozy, occasionally wed be interupted by scary 18 wheelers being 5 inches away from our bus and passing us. Elmer told me somethin about some rascaly rabbit that always messin with him.. i was like , yo fudd, take it easy, let the rabbit be.. there are other rabbits out there to eat.. we talked some politics, and he had to go to mrs fudd, who was piggy from the muppet show.. i thought she had a thing for mickey mouse. i didnt ask..

The University Life

So i feel like talking a little about my life at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica en Peru. First off, its not really a highly religious school... I think its just a requirement to have Catolica somewhere in the name of schools here (not really). The campus is amazingly well maintenanced, but to me it feels really unnatural despite it being one of the few places i know with lots of green areas. The campus is huge and beautiful, and is not a bad place to lounge around all day..

I am taking 4 courses directly enrolled in the school and 2 courses through my CIEE program. The 4 classes are Alternative programs to Pre school, administration and legislation of education, social development and responsibility, and human sexuality. My other two are advanced spanish and peruvian social reality. So this is what i do all day at La Catolica (PUCP)

Let me tell you about first days of school in a new language: you dont understand anything. I was literally completely lost by the end of my first week. I didnt even know who i was, i was so confused. The cool thing about most of the classes are that they work in groups. So some students who felt sorry for me decided to take me in and nurture me back to health.

This is how their conversations probably went:

Pepe: Do you think we should take the gringo?
Maria: I dont know, I seriously doubt hes going to do any work.
Pilar: But i want to practice my English! Lets take him!
Pepe: Yeah, poor guy, he is all alone in this class. Lets do it out of our good hearts!

So i have groups for the rest of the year, and yes I have done work for them...

A kinda different thing in Catolica is that there are no bachelor degrees, only degrees equivalent to masters. A person chooses a faculty and takes classes only in that faculty, so me being in 3 different faculties (education, social management, psychology) is a rarety, if ever it even happens.

My two classes in education are full of girls, I am literally the only guy in one class, and Im gringo. What a mix! I have a pretty cool group of girls for that class but they talk incredibly fast. I think they do that just to make fun of me in front of my face! Ill understand them one day...

Also, my human sexuality class does not just talk about sex... it is actually includes everything about sexuality, be it preference, social issues on gender, development of sex, actual sex, and identity. I am actually getting a lot of cool ideas from the class, mainly because i agree with my teacher on just about everything, even if they do call it feminism (i have in the past claimed myself to be an ecofeminist without the title of ecofeminist) i am also one of the few guys in that class as well.

I am meeting new people, but its a slow process. I really do not think the ¨Im lost, can you help me¨ line works in Catolica, so ive just been goin to classes and goin home. Three of my classes are made for independent reading and research, which is exactly the classes i believe are the best for learning. My human sexuality is all lecture, which is fine. My administration and legislation class is literally all independent research, we dont even have classes except for when we need to do a little exam (which i did alright in)

Another cool thing is that all of my classes work for my little research project im doing for UA. I am focusing on the education of Peru and Lima and what all the social reality is of it. So almost every class helps me on my independent research. I am happy about that

When i cannot go home for lunch there is this hamburger kiosk right next to the school that i go to every time. I pay 3 soles (1 dollar) and get a huge hamburger (thin slice of meat though) that i enjoy every bite of. The different thing they do in burgers here is that they put potato sticks in the hamburger.. Who knew it would be delicious!

Cheerio, then! Right-tow!

Cusco, while its fresh in my mind.

Lets talk about the Cusco trip.. where I might have slept a total of 5 hours... That is exaggerating, but not much



The cool thing about the trip was that my friend Polina actually came from the states to accompany me and see Machu Picchu. We have been good friends for a while and it was cool that she came by from that far. She took part in one of the coolest trips ive had (I dont have many)



So we got to Cusco on Friday, and immediately we decided to go to the market to get some food... even though our all knowledgable leader Marion told us to rest (we ignored her foolishly).

If you dont know, Cusco is a city that is roughly 3,350 M... lets divide that by 1600 and we got roughly 2 miles high... lets convert that to feet and wha!!? we are almost 11,000 feet up in the air... when Lima is sea level...



With all that said, i nearly fainted while eatin at the market.. and had to immediately go home to rest and turn a little in my bed because my stomach couldnt digest the cheese.. im sorry for my foolishness, Marion



Melvin, the other chill leader of CIEE, knows this man named Kike` who played 20 somethin different types of native instruments in front of us at a really cool place in cusco... it was spectacular, one of the best performances of music I could have listend to in 30 minutes or so. He also runs a completely donated school for andian children that we would visit the next day.



So the night was better, and i promised myself to not eat until lunch... but that didnt stop me from drinking a little... or... yeah, a little...

so that was done and we had some drinks and went outside just to see a drum circle playin some cool beats.. we sat around, some people played with them from our group, and enjoyed the atmosphere.. which was gettin better and better.. and it got better



note: most of the people there had dreadlocks.



so i was definitely into the music in cusco, until a cool girl from the bar place told us there would be a fusion band that would have some native instruments mixed with rock... WHAT!?! im there..



so we went upstairs to see like 10 people up on stage rockin out some tunes from america and i went nuts... there was an electric lead guitar, a small guitar from latinamerica, a saxophone, two andian flutists, a bass, singer, and a cajon (a box kinda) that did the beat... man they rocked.. it was me, Polina, samantha, matt, and tyler... and you could ttell we were totally feelin it



i have never rocked out to music like that.. it was one of the best vibes ive ever had...



next day, i slept maybe 4 hours and we were off to the donated school, which ill talk about later because i loved it so.. we also visited a huge white jesus statue openin its arms to cusco.. then nightlife.. i listened to a band that played ALL classic rock... some led zepplin, pink floyd, good doors, one strokes song, deep purple and maybe one more... but yeah it was sweet i was definitely into that... but we had to get some sleep... Machu Picchu tomorrow!!



note: the singer sounded just like the bands... impressive, which also happened in a pink floyd cover band i listened to (later i guess)



so next day, me and polina took an hour and half taxi to ollantaytambo, where the train would take us to machu picchu... let me tell you that this trip surpassed the mesa verde passage in Colorado when i went to Telluride from Durango.. it was magnificent.. and we talked some with our taxi, Alfredo, who loves canadian families ??? i didnt ask.



I have lets say, 180 pictures of my machu picchu trip, and machu picchu is as wonderful as they say, i mean its not just the remains of the people that is beautiful, it is the entire atmosphere.. can you imagine walking for 4 days without civilization to find a beautiful gathering of buildings on top of a mountain surrounded by mountains.. man, i was feelin it.. me, meghan, matt, and tonisha decided to walk up to the gate of the sun, an hour walk straight up the mountain to get to the place where the 4 day hike Inka Trail ends and its the first time you see machu picchu. spectacular, we even saw some hikers finish the trail.. which was really cool.. we took in the beauty and hiked down...



so gettin back to cusco, youd think id be tired right!? like completely exhausted bein in the sun all day a little burnt!? right!?!? NOOO... to ROOTS! where its almost all night reggae! sadly my bros could not make it, so it was me Zach, and John with two girls from Urubamba, i dunno John met them somewhere.. anyway we got there and I met these two girls (could be ladies) from Australia!! Hell yea, they were cool.. and there was a live band for a little while playin some killer drums with an Australian indigenous instrument called the didjeridu, and youd know it if you heard it.. so i was definitely feelin this place.. and i danced there until 4 am..which is a ice way to end the trip, even though i felt like dying the next day...

note: every place i went out to had more foreigners than locals.. and they were mostly backpackers.. a way different feel than anywhere else ive been to. there were some free spirits there, and it seemed like a blend from everywhere around the world.. and lots of dreadlocks.. there was a tv in Roots that was showin just extreme sports highlights always... and i think the lesbian population there outdid all other populations of sexual preference. the places were cool.

fact of my life: even though i was droolin i was so tired, i could not sleep in the bus to the airport or the airplane ride.. i am doomed to never be able to sleep in public.

I am horrible at this, but im going to get better...

As my mother knows, I do not do well with keeping up on things...but in all honesty, I got that from her genes!

So, ill just do some short blogs, since i cant let yall suffer... or can i!?!

Lets talk about my family a little more... So it has been a while since ive lived with a big family.. oh wait.. never.. Like I said, there are 11 people total in the house and two dogs... and two turtles (but thankfully they do not bark)

So the first thing to notice is, there is rarely a quiet time.. Camila is two and yells, the dogs bark with the slightest shift in sound, thats really mainly it.. but its enough to notice. The only time ive noticed things being quiet is when I walk in at 4 in the morning.

My family worries a lot... about me, about everyones safety.. its just a thing that happens.. but really i think its just a part of understanding the city life, because there are always dangers out there. Through my talks with my comrades in la catolica, I have found out that their parents worry too.. So in order for me to ease my parents (especially the mother), I have decided to do a text system where i text my mother when I am comin back, if I am stayin out later or not.. this all was decided after i came out at 7:45 am in the morning (i might tell this story later)

My home is comfortable.. I get my daily exercise walkin up three stories.. sometimes just for water.. My parents leave for work in the mornin and i dont see them that much, but i am going to start checkin on them (i mean, im family!) my older brother fernando works all day, but we talk some when he comes in... sandra, the older sister, chills in her room and we do the occasional hola.. and tamara, the younger sister, comes home later and we talk some... but the most important part of the family is my brother, jose luis. its hard to describe, but he is seriously the best bro match CIEE could have done. We have all the same interests, we get along really well (except i wake him up sometimes, usually for no reason) and we have good conversations, spanish and english.. he has really helped me get use to Lima, and im tryin to find a way to repay him for it. We are two peas in a pod...yehaw (and other cliche southern frases)!!

I cannot forget about Marisa, our stay at home cook. Sshe is wonderful, i have great conversations with her and she cooks some of the best food i will probably ever eat casually. I have really enjoyed my stay in my house, and I look forward to another 3 months here. Of course I need to work on being a better son for my parents, and I still dont know how to do everytihng right, but I believe i should get the hang of it soon.

a wrap up of the first 4 weeks.

Man, youd think blogspot would have more font choices than 9. Just for your information, there isnt a button for apostophes on the laptop that my brother from another mother let me borrow. Spanish doesnt need them. So here is the past 4 weeks, July 17th to August 14th.

The flights were smoothe gettin from bham to lima, but i think most people wouldve been fed up with the diapered kid next to me for 7 hours. So i arrived in the airport of lima at around 11 pm lima time and went to the passport control, where i had to tell them ill be a student in spanish and try to understand the attendent, who obviously didnt want to be there at that time. That went well... I got my stuff and off to the customs agency! Which is actually just a stop light for travelers. Green means go ahead; red means you lose. I got the green. I bowed to the light; it was fair.

My first thought of true lima was fish, due to the overwhelming smell of low tide odors comin from the bay. I cried a little inside, but i think that was a rare occasion because it has not happened since. I found my group leader, Marion, brave and ever-persevering. There were four other students already there, so we hit the road in a big taxi to the hotel, la paz apart. Marion stayed behind to wait for the rest... the conversation went kind of like this:

"No guys, you go ahead, leave me!"
"We cant leave you great leader! We will wait by your side!"
"It is my destiny"

Not really. We just wanted to get there, so we really did not even talk to her that much.

By the way, other posts wont be this long, but 4 weeks is a lot to catch up, so ill do the best i can.

First thing you learn about lima: driving here has a chaotic order to it. We weaved through traffic like being on a motorcycle, but we were in an Astro van. It was okay to be 2 inches away from other cars, at all times. It was me, Erica, John, Aaron, and Jeremy, and the driver. We talked some, prayed for our life a little, and got to the hotel in a nice part of lima that is obviously a tourism spot for gringos (Americans), Miraflores.

I celebrated the late night at a cuban bar with Aaron, his girlfriend Jamie, and Samantha. Dont worry mom, the drinking age is 18! Aaron and Jamie are from Minnesota and decided to do this study abroad together, while Samantha is from Kentucky goin to Transylvania University. They are definitely cool cats.

Next day, visited PUCP (AKA pook, la catolica, pontificia universidad catolica de peru and my university) located in San Miguel then ate some chifa, which is chinese-peruvian food of lima at a place called fou jou. There is a good minority of chinese and african decent in lima, along with european (of course). The majority has mainly indigenous decent, but there are a lot of mixed. Im straight up gringo.

Marion, our fearless leader, gave us 20 soles to eat with. She is also very generous. We as a group stopped by Larcomar, basically a theme park of stores for whenever i get homesick and need some commercial america, which will be never. It does have a beautiful park on the upper level that looks out into the ocean, with the stores and stuff being in the lower two levels. I ditched it with some others and spent the food money on booze (I am disloyal to my great leader, i know). First, there is this ice cream shop called dove vai (something french) that i got some lucuma (a fruit from peru) and pisco sour (a famous drink in lima) ice cream. MMmmmm. Lauren told us about the place, a student who is spending a year in lima. This will be her second semester here.

that night was my first night to try out the discoteca. It was me, John, Aaron, Jamie, and Shannon. John is doing a program in a different school (Pacifico) and is the only student there from our group. Ive tried calling him throughout the trip but heres what happens:

Me - BEEEP.... BEEEEP.... (there isnt ringing when you call a person, just long beeps)
Some Old Lady "AloooooO?"
Me "Uh, John esta alli?" (I literally dont know what to say)
Some Old Lady " Quien es? Quien es usted? ISRJIJGXJLGX (Spanish i dont understand)"
Me "UH UH UH UH LO SIENTO"

that has happened 5 times or so. i got your number now, John. Shannon is from California and in a small college somewhere else, i dont remember. She has a boyfriend who is actually from Lima and she is staying with his family for the semester. He goes to college in the states so they only have a couple of weeks together in Lima, ironic i know.

So i danced some, more than likely horribly

next day! we went to an arabic diner/hookah bar. That will be my homesick place! it is the only one that i know of in lima, and is sweet. the second level is pure white and you can buy drinks and smoke hookah (flavored tobacco). It was a huge group. Me, Jeremy, Danita, Elaina, Kate, Samantha, Zach, Daniel, Jessica, Meghan, Juliet, and maybe more. There was an awesome gypsy or arabic style (dont know, but he was on coke) dancer that got a lot of our group to dance with him, and it was crazy.

After that, Marion got the whole group into a Jazz club with Afro-Peruvian musicians. Good, then a group of us ditched that and went to dance! there is this street called calle de pizza, literally pizza street, where there are bars and discotecas that all serve... pizza. It is kinda trashy, but its my kind of place hah. so we danced there, me Tyler, Samantha, Stephanie, and Juliet. Tyler is my nightlife amigo. He is from Colorado and a cool, chilled guy. Stephanie is from new york city and lives with a family that is related to the family im stayin with, so we are technically kin here.. kinda. i dont know the word on Juliet, ill get back on that one. Anyway, it was fun.

Next day.. (this has only been one weekend, it was packed). We meet our family!
Ill get a pic sometime, but its a full house, literally. I live with the parents, grandmother and housesitter (never see them though), an empleada (maid who lives with us) Marisa, 4 kids (Jose-Luiz 18 who i hang out a lot with, Tamara 22 who has a precious but 2 year old daughter, Camila, Fernando 29? who is movin out to be with his wife, and another sister that i never see), and two dogs. and two turtles. its full. (the turtles live outside). we got home in Pueblo Libre, a part that is only 5 minutes from my university and 30 minutes from miraflores.. not a bad location. We ate some and i got into my room on the third floor and chilled. It was smoothe, except for my spanish.

Classes start! its intensive spanish course, which wasnt intense at all.. things start slowing down now.. or do they!?!?!?

Things to note: almost all my teachers got to class late... its refreshing because i dont like being pushed for time, but of course punctuality exists in lima. There are no public transit systems, only small (or big i dont know) transit businesses that have micros (buses) that go through certain routes. You just wait to find a micro that takes you to where you need to go and wont overcharge you because you cant speak that well. Its different, and is taking a while to get used to. there is constantly tons of traffic, and you can tell by the air. these cars arent necessarily eco-friendly. there is also constant road work around the city. they are trying to make the streets cleaner and nicer without causing too much chaos, but chaos already exists.

So one week passes. Clearly ive written too much, but i cannot turn back. The weekend! its fiestas patrias, so we have monday and tuesday off. Oh.. no...

friday was Samanthas birthday, so i visited her house and met her peru family (her dad looks like a peruvian mafia man, but is nice as hell) i was planning on goin to miraflores that night, but still naive to the transit system so i couldnt find the one micro i knew to get there. there were tons by the way, i just didnt know. So.. i walked home.. 10 blocks at night, wasnt too smart... but okay i made it home and chilled... its okay. it was best, because i went out 3 nights straight after that, maybe 4 i dont remember.

Saturday, i decided to do some sight seeing. it was me, my brother from another mother Jose, aaron and jamie. We walked around central lima at la plaza de armas y la plaza san martin. there were old buildings and beautiful churches, and also the presidents crib. we took a tour to the catacombs of la iglesia san francisco and took a guide in spanish... i didnt understand anything. cool day, then the night.

it was me, tyler and matt to begin with. We drank some somewhere in la calle de pizza with i think Kate, and then met up with kaitlyn and her friend and some others at a bar kaitlyn suggested. Kaitlyn already did her semester in peru and it was her last weekend, so had to make it count right? Matt is from philly and is really cool, i think hes in a colorado university somewhere, dont know. So we bought some johnny walker red label and went to town. I had my share, and I left with Danita, Daniel, Zach, Kate, Tonisha, Elaina? and Zachs host brother to a discoteca called Bierhous, beerhouse, and danced for a while. I ended up tryin my dance moves with a peruvian girl, who was fun and it went alright, or atleast... i though so hah. It was a good day, luckily my host sister was around the area and we got in touch and took a cab together. The taxi driver asked if i was mexican. ??? A Successful saturday.

Sunday, a badass day. I skipped out on an event at la plaza de armas, where the fountain there had pisco (a peruvian licour) instead of water, and the president spoke. must had been a party, but i decided to go to el parque de la reserva, where they had an event with food to show all of the awesome fountains in the park. it was incredible. there are about 20 fountains in this park, all unique and beautiful, and are only on at night, which is even cooler. they have the highest shooting fountain in the world, and some other cool stuff. ill go again no doubt and get pictures. it was me, Daniel, Danita, Jessica, and Tonisha. Ill get their info later. I talked to a girl who had a kid and gave her my number, which i immediately regretted (she called all day for two days)The ticket was paid for by none other than our great majestic leader, Marion. I bow when i see her. they had this cool fountain that acts like a maze, where its a flat fountain you can walk through, but randomly walls of water shoot up and you have to guess when to cross the wall area and when not to, but ultimately you getfooled, and whoever did it from my group got soaked, me being one. My pants were soaked, especially around my groin, but the night was young! hah. Yes, i spent the rest of the night with wet pants.

i went back to the calle de pizza and met up with matt, jeremy, meghan, tyler, and aaron. I think there was one more but i forgot. Jeremy is from colorado and a really cool guy, hes into anthropology and doing a whole year in lima. Meghan is a cool girl from i think philly who is also into anthropology and also doing muay thai boxing.. hell yes. anyway, while in a bar, we met a group of people from los olivos, a part of lima. It was Molly, Sammy, and Cecelia. We talked with them for a while, and everyone from my group left, so it was just me and the peruvians, who all spoke english. Somehow dancing came up and we left to a discoteca, where we danced for a good while and took a taxi home.

Note: most discotecas in la calle de pizza dont do much salsa and meringue, but rather reggae-tone and electronica, and american music also. So most dancin there has a slight hint of salsa but mostly just normal dancing (not really grinding). I got there numbers and hopefully will stay bein friends with them. Sunday was over, the end. Ive written too much, but oh well.

SO monday rolls around.. I have infinite energy, and want to go out again to dance. I meet up with matt, tyler, and a friend matt met up with saturday night and we chilled around la paz apart in miraflores. First, me and tyler met up and bought a glass of wine to drink, but didnt have a good place to go, so we went back to la paz apart and talked to a friend i met who works at the hotel, Rony. I met two friends, actually, Rony and Miguel, friend the hotel, both really friendly and really cool, and ill visit them and maybe even salir (go out) some with Rony.

After, we go to Bierhous again and meet up with Samantha and Stephanie. The place starts hoppin and we go out to the dance floor. Me and Tyler go to a group of girls and start dancing with them, who were really fun. There were 3, and willing to share us hah. Tyler got their number and had an interesting story ill tell later. I left Tyler, who gladly took all 3, and hung out and danced with stephanie some. I found another girl and a salsa song came on and she helped me learn some steps and was really nice, but stephanie and samantha wanted to go, so sadly i had to leave her.

Note: Matts girl he met is a wild but good dancer, really fun.

Oh yeah, somewhere in the week of school me, stephanie, Elaina, and Juliet went to see Batman, which was the bomb diggity. it was good.

Okay the weekend is past. 140 dollars later I must start slowing down, or do i?!?!?

Week was blah, then the weekend! Hell yes. It was Jessicas birthday and Chanels birthday. Chanel has family in Peru and her dad had a glorious house party i didnt go to, but oh well because friday night chanel decided to go out with us. It was me, stephanie, abbe, erin, chanel, danita i think and others i forgot. My host sister taught us some salsa and meringue, which was really cool. We had a little lesson at my house. It was me, Kate, Matt, Danita, Stephanie, and Abbe. After that it was me, tyler, matt, stephanie, and abbe drinkin in a park. Danita met up with some otheres and Kate went home. Dont buy cheap champagne in lima, by the way; luckily we had whiskey, so the girls had to suffer. We talked to some hostal owners who wanted suggestions for a name and they were cool and visited colorado for snow boarding and matt and tyler were all in that, one guy actually visited telluride, the only place ive been to in colorado.

so i was gettin sloppy, and i forgot what happened to matt and tyler but they were gone and it was me and all the girls, and me being happy decided to buy some drinks for everyone. So i got even more happy and found a peruvian to dance with that the girls swear looked like a guy. oh well, who cares? i was just in the mood to dance. And maybe to kiss.. embarrassing hah. Abbe wanted to go home, and me being so chilvalrous walked her, which i thought would be 5 minutes... it was like 20! okay maybe shorter, but i couldnt tell, and supposedly i took a pit stop at a school and was complaining the whole way.. Abbe says that, i dont remember... but she was probably right. abbes nickname is A bay bay ey, since if you spell her name in spanish it sounds like that.

i came back, stumbling probably. i dont know how i remembered the way. I met up with stephanie and the girls, who were talkin to some guys, i ended up gettin a 30 year olds number, who put her name as D Gig... cant say why. i thought her friend was cute at least.

Stephanie and Abbe wont let that night go probably hah. Abbe is from virginia and goes to school with Shannon, but they didnt really know each other there.

Next day, i think. Jessicas birthday! But first...
So me, meghan, jeremy, and kate met up with that group of friends from los olivos to play some volleyball and hang out in a park. We met up with them near the university and left to a park in los olivos, about 40 minutes away on a micro. I was definitely feelin the other night, but continued through the day. It was really nice and relaxing. Molly introduced me to Eliot, a friend of hers who likes to play Dota, Counter-strike, Magic the gathering, and other things im addicted to. So basically, im gonna start back on those games.. shame on me. the park was huge. it had a zoo, which was not bad, and soccer fields, a big play pool, courts for whatever sport and more... well not much more. It was relaxin and everyone had fun. Me and Kate stayed and ate some lunch at Mollys house, which her mother was beggin for us to do. I got eliots number and me and Kate left.

Now to Jessica. We went to a peña, which is an entertainment venue with some dance called del carajo. it was really nice, but not my sort of place. it was fun, everyone seemed like they were havin a good time, and i took it easy that night. Samantha... didnt. Hah but it was really fun. The peña had a dance competition for foreigners near the end that sadly i took part of. Samantha did as well. It was really just a good opportunity for peruvians to make fun of all the foreigners. I was definitely in relaxed clothing since i didnt know that it was so nice when they told me where to go and when they presented me they called me shaggie and asked where scooby doo was. cute. i was 2nd to dance and they put music on and in front of everyone i danced like a fool. Someone has a video of it, so yall can enjoy my absurdity. Samantha was glorious hah. they put on 50s style foxy lady music on and she danced the part. The host even gave her a chair to i guess mimic brittney spears. She got a prize and i was left in tears. By the way there were over 200 people there, and there was even the host of Bailando con los suenos, a latin spin off of dancing with the stars. Danita got a picture with a peruvian olympic wrestler who was also there.

alright! I still got more!

week of school, meh. We had orientation. I am taking a class in Peruvian culture, spanish, administration and legislation of education, alternatives for elementary school, and development and social responsability. we also met our compañeros, or la catolica students who will help us through. They seem nice and ill keep in touch with them. Marion, our most trusted and courageous master, treated anyone from our group and the compañeros to beer and soda in a deutch bar on thursday. There i talked to Daniel, daniel from the compañeros, and Fernanda, who Jeremy got a number from. It was fun and relaxing, and I went home early since was Samantha was feeling under the weather. FRIDAY!... AYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe

Yeah I am getting tired, but I must persevere! Friday i decided to try out a pure salsa and meringue venue with live music and an open bar for 30 soles. The plans were me, meghan, jeremy, fernanda, shannon and her boyfriend to meet up at Casa Vieja in Miraflores. My sister told me about it and said it was nice and low key, since i was ready for a different scene (ive had salsa fevah!). Great, we met up and walked to the place, just for it to be closed. Pucha (shoot)! Oh well, because Shannons boyfriend got us in for free to a place in barranco called Saquaras. We all split a bottle of johnny walkers and had our fun. There was live music for a while, and i got on the dance floor with shannons boyfriends friend and swept the floor. Not really, but we found some people to dance with and meghan came to save me from my mistakes and danced with me some. Eventually stephanie abbe and elaina came in for free, and immediately some guys took them and put them in the VIP section of the place and gave them free booze. what the hell!?!? anyway i partook some in that and danced with abbe. Things came out of that, and we left. Saquaras was nice, it was like a venue for upper class younger people. Del Carajo had majority older people. Once again, not my style.

Saturday, i decided to do some non-nightlife sight seeing. I went with Eliot and my two brothers from another mother to go to Polvos Azules, a market with the best deals ever. Clothes, shoes, accessories, games, movies, dvds, music, anything, all for cheap black market price. Copyrights mean nothing in Lima, thank god. I bought final fantasy XII and tekken 5 and Akira, since my brother has a playstation 2 and a computer. I had to go back of course. After i chilled with eliot some and we went to a gaming internet cafe and played some dota and counter strike, which was pretty cool. He told me of a place wheres its 3 stories of just gaming computers. Hell yes, im there! im coming back a gamer nerd, guys... who knows how to dance salsa.

This week has been free, since classes start the 18th. I went through an interesting time when Fernando, my host brother, invited his wife and her family to eat with my family on sunday afternoon. The father owns two chifa restaurants, one being in the chinatown of lima, which i will definitely visit sometime. They seemed really jolly, even though i didnt understand everything they said. We celebrated the beginning with a shot of nice Pisco. We said salud and drank. Is it courteous not to drink all of a shotglass for that? I took the whole thing, just to see that everyone sippeda little. They laughed and I didnt ask for a refill. Let me tell you, that dinner lasted 5 hours, something i have NEVER done. Maybe 6, i dont know, but i went through it all hah. the course took an hour and they talked literally for 4 or 5 hours straight. There was an intermission just after lunch just because thewifes father took a 5 minute nap.

Everyone is traveling and im chilling with my brother. Today we went back to polvos azules because i wanted to get some movies. I bought 16 movies for a total of 20 dollars. And these work anywhere, and are legit, just copies. okay so not legit, but you get the picture.

Damn, im done! I got mostly every event in. That took 4 hours exactly for me to write. Ill get into specifics when i think about it later or if asked.