Una semana ocupada

Buenas noches,

It has been a little while since I last updated, and it certainly has been a busy week. The week that we returned from our trip was pretty relaxed, and we just had our language class each day and a few group trips in the afternoon. On Wednesday August 6th we went to el Museo del Oro, Peru's Gold Museum. Our guide was very enthusiastic and he showed us artifacts from the pre-Inca and Inca times, mummies from before the Incas, and a collection of guns and armor used by the Spanish Conquistadors.


On Friday we had another group trip, and we went to a film festival at the French Cultural Center in Miraflores. The festival displayed a collection of low-budget films by budding directors, and we saw a movie called El Tunche. The film was directed by a man who is in a master´s program at La Católica, my school, for Anthropology and film. It was a very interesting - and at times comical - film about a group of medical students in Lima who travel to the jungle to try to uncover the myth of El Tunche, a mysterious creature that kills people in the jungle. It was cool to see a low budget Peruvian film, and it brought back memories of my brother's days of making movies with his friends.


On Saturday morning we went to Parque de las Leyendas with our director Julio, which is a zoo nearby our university. It was cool to see some interesting animals like condor birds, monkeys, llamas, al paca, and vicuñas, but it was also a little sad to see them all kept in captivity. The funniest part of my day was when Meredith stuck her face close to the fence to say hello to a llama and it spit, grassy saliva and all, right at her face! Although a bit shooken up and laughing, she managed to survive the rest of the day. On Saturday night we met up with Fernando and his friends to go out to celebrate his birthday. It was fun to see them all again, and we always enjoy having some partners to help teach us to dance salsa and merengue. On Sunday, Meredith and I rested a little bit, went for a run around a nearby golf course, and went to mass at night with our family.

Vicuña y llama en El Parque de las Leyendas

Starting Monday, this past week was fairly busy with work for our Spanish class and planning for the start of the semester. It was the last week of our orientaion class, since classes started today, and we had to prepare for our final exam and presentation on our experience in Peru so far. Besides class work, we had an orientation on Thursday for all foreign students to go to each department within the university to ask about certain classes. We had to decide for this week what classes we wanted to try out, and after this week the foreign students officially sign up for classes. Although my schedule became a bit complicated to figure out, I decided to try out the classes Ecology, Peruvian Social Reality, History of Peru in Modern Times, Ethnicity and Mestizaje in Peru, Photography, and of course our Spanish class that we have to continue taking. From there, I will decide which courses I will actually take.

Other than the business of scheduling and our language class, Meredith and I got three new arrivals to our house in the past week. Two weeks ago, Ana Maria arrived and earlier last week Kelly and Caitlyn arrived. Ana Maria is from Finland, Kelly and Caitlyn study at the University of Wisconsin, and all will be studying at La Católica and living in our house. Although I wasn´t really expecting to have so many students living in the house with me, it´s nice to get to know other foreign students as well. The girls are all so friendly and dinner conversations with Señora and Dante are always interesting, especially on Tuesday night when we spent three hours chatting at the dinner table!

This past Wednesday our group of HC student went to an old cemetary called Cementerio Presbítero Maestro, which had huge graves and tombstones from a bunch of famous people - including presidents, authors, and Lima´s nobility. On Friday night, our group went to a show called Brisas del Titicaca, which displays a bunch of dances from all over Lima. The room was set up with a bunch of tables surrounding the dance floor and a live band up above, and we were served appetizers and drinks. The performances were quite long and lasted from 10pm to 2am, but it was great to see the display of various dances and all of the audience got up to dance in between performances. Caitlyn came along with us, but Ana Maria and Kelley were traveling to Pisco this weekend. My favorite dance was called Marinera Norteña and is a very emotional dance with only two performers.

Brisas del Titicaca - un baile de la sierra

Brisas del Titicaca - Marinera Limeña

Saturday was a very long day, because after getting up to run we took a taxi with Fernando´s brother Juan Pablo (Juan Pa for short) to their house in los Olivos. Fernando had invited us over his house earlier in the week to have lunch with his family. We ended up spending the whole day chatting in their house, for about 6 hours! It was so nice to meet their family, have a home-cooked meal, and chat with everyone for the afternoon (of course in Spanish!). We got to meet Fernando and Juan Pa's nephews and ended up looking at their baby pictures!

Almuerzo en la casa de Fernando y Juan Pa

Saturday night we went to a discoteca on the ocean in the Costa Verde, called Drama. We went to celebrate Fernando's friend Hugo's birthday, and we also met up with our friends Rey and Jonna who eat lunch with us at school, Caitlyn (one of the new girls in our house), and Evelyn's two cousins Juan and Carlos. It was so much fun to have everyone we've been hanging out with so far in one place, and the discoteca was really nice because it was literally right next to the beach.

Una foto de todos los amigos en Drama el sábado

Sunday was a more relaxed day, and we just tried to look into our classes for the week and went for a run. Meredith, Meg, and I ran about 9 miles, which is the most I´ve ever run! We decided out of the blue that we are going to run the half marathon in Lima at the end of August! I never thought I would want to run a half-marathon, but when Meg brought up the idea I thought it would be something nice to work towards. The half-marathon is in two weeks and we haven't really trained properly, but our goal is just to finish it!

Today was the first day of classes and it was certainly a long day. Since I am trying out more classes than I am planning on taking, I was at school from 7:30am until 7:30pm! I had three classes today, and had time in between to rest. Photography this morning seemed very interesting, and we met some really friendly girls in Peruvian Social Reality (although the professor is much harder to understand than my other professors). History of Peru in Modern Times seems like a very worthwhile class, but it also seems like almost too much homework, projects, and readings.

Well that's all for now! After such a long day, I need to get some sleep!

Chao,

Michelle