aprender: to learn.
Something I'm doing a lot of during my stay in Peru.
One would never think there could be so much history in a place like this, but you'd be surprised. Every place, every corner, every building, every park, has some historical meaning behind it, making it all the more interesting.
My very first day in Lima was a pretty easy going one. Gonzalo took me out to a popular mall in the Costa Verde (green coast). It was an outside mall filled with designer stores and regular stores and a popular club within it. After, we met the family to eat Chifa. (Chifa: chinese food with a peruvian twist. SO good). For being someone who doesn't like to experiment outside of her Taco Bell box, this was one of the most tasty things I've ever consumed. Come to find out, Starbucks is one of the most popular places for Peruvian people. Whodathunk Peru would have a Starbucks?! Along with Dunken Donuts, Chili's, TGI Friday's, KFC, and McDonalds! Ohhh how the United States has corrupted other countries.
My trip has been very lax so far. I've been doing a lot of getting to know my family and their friends. Rodrigo, one of the sons of the family I'm living with is 18 years old. He just finished his first term at his university. He took me around his university his last day of testing to show me what it's like. VERY different than in the United States. The campus is much, much smaller, but they have the same amount of people. It's strange, but it works for them. He took me around some buildings and showed me classes, very similar to ones in the U.S. There were two things that definitely got my attention. There was a place for people to just charge their phones or iPods! Because Peru doesn't get much rain, they can have things like that outside without it being a hazard. How convenient is that? I'm thinking that'd be a good thing to invest in. After the shock of seeing that, we went inside one of the buildings and found a sucker vending machine! How interesting. Gonzalo was nice enough to buy me one.. but it took his money. I guess not much different than the vending machines in the U.S.! After we left Rodrigo's university, Gonzalo took me to his university. His was a little bigger and had a lot more good looking people! Hard to not notice all the smart, ATTRACTIVE men. Gonzalo made fun of me because he saw me spotting out some eye candy.
I was also taken to downtown Lima to see some los museos y las iglesias. This trip was definitely filled with so much history. Gonzalo knew so much about the city, it was crazy. I saw the house of the Peruvian president and the very first church built in Lima! While walking next to the church, some representatives from the jungle passed us. Apparently, the jungle's economy is not doing too well and those were the representatives who came to Lima to have a meeting about it. I've never actually experienced anything like that before in my life, but there they were in front of me, almost out of a book or movie!!
We were driving back to the house one night and we passed a Peru army base. Gonzalo told me that around 20 years ago, if a car had stopped on the street in front of the army base, the soldier in one of the security houses would shoot everyone in the car because they had a problem with terrorists. How scary is that?! Even at a red light, everyone in the car would get shot. I was sadly sitting behind the passenger seat, so Gonzalo told me I would be the first to go. FANTASTIC...
Saturday night, Rodrigo took me to a club with some of his friends I had met on Thursday night. He had friends over on Thursday to celebrate the fact that they were told with their first term. Luckily, some of them spoke English so I could communicate. Only three of the friends, out of the nine I had met prior, came to the club. We had such a good time. While waiting in line, us girls were offered a VIP pass, so we took it and got into the club as a VIP! The VIP part of the club was separate and we had to have a wrist band to enter. The poor boys, Rodrigo y Andree were what Rodrigo calls the RTP (Regular Type People). Us girls had great treatment all night, free drinks, nice couches, obviously making us feel way important. We got there around 10:30 P.M. and didn't end up getting home until 3 A.M. The music was extremely fun to dance to and it's really different than the clubs back in the States. There was a lot of latin electronica (por supuesto) and a ot of salsa! Rodrigo's friend Katty (amazing at speaking English) taught me some good salsa moves and had me dance with one of the guys who came named Andree. He was a fantastic dancer, even if he couldn't really talk to me. ;)
On Monday, I start my dancing classes with Annie! I'm excited to learn some new moves and come back to the States with a few Latin moves under my belt!
