reflections.

My last blog post was mainly about activites and things that have happened recently, but another big part of being an exchange student right now is doesn't involve what's actually happened.

I have really started to realize just how crazy, chaotic, and random life seems to be. The things that I thought would be true for me no matter what are changing like sand in the wind - without the slightest form or predictability.

I am also a bit scared to return to Ashland, because I know how different things will be, and I know how much I will miss my friends in Peru. Maybe everything will be better than I ever could have imagined, but right now I have very mixed feelings about July 20th... the day I will fly home. The other side of me, however, is very excited. I have begun to miss my family more than I ever have before and even miss the what used to make me so mad about them. All of those things seem so small now, so insignificant. I am excited to get to know my family like I never bothered to before, spend time with the friends that I became really close with before I left, breathe some fresh air, see some moutains, and eat some Giseppi's Pizza and Sour Patch Watermelons :) I am starting to feel ready to come home, but am still enjoying every day of life in Lima.

Somehow, amongst all of the crazy things that have happened to me over the past year - and finding that things turned out exactly how I didn't want them to - I have managed to become a much calmer, level-headed person. (To the people who know me in Peru: I know you probably laugh at this statement, because I am still extremely irrational and many times over reactive... but I have made some serious progress in this department). Right now I just looked at the clock and saw that it is 11:11 and couldn't even think of something personal to wish for.

I can now confidently call myself a content person - or as content as anybody really is.

Bits and Pieces.

Recently nothing much has changed from day to day of my life as an exchange student... but starting June 4th things are going to start getting very exciting! My dad is coming from Ashland and he, Steve Gretzinger and I are going to la selva!!! Then (possibly) we will have the opprotunity to spend a couple days en la sierra :D I am so excitied and am constantly thinking about the trip. So in a couple of weeks, check back here because I will have some very intiresting blogs coming up...

Since I don't have much to write about at this moment I will share some funny or intitresting things that have happened to me or facts that have happened:
- A while ago I had to take a combi (one of the public transportation buses in Lima) by myself, which was very scary. These buses have only about 10 seats but carry sometimes over 20 people. I had no idea where I was going, which combi to get on, or where to get off. After walking out into the street and talking to a bus driver at a stoplight, I found a combi that would take me within a few blñoxks of my street. On the bus there were so many people that I had to sit on a windowsill and hang out the side. Other combis were rushing past and swerving all over the road. It felt like being in what I had always imagined Tijuana would be like in rush hour. Somehow though I manages to make it home in one piece.

- Bus stops are something new to Lima, in the past few years. Before combis could stop where ever they wanted in the middle of the street.

- Combis do NOT always follow their route. Therfore, you have to know where you are going and how to get there so that you can tell if you are being taken in the wrong direction.

- I found a new kind of chips called camote fritos that are made from sweet potatoes. These are the most addicting, delicious variety of chip on the face of the earth. Dad, when you come you have to try these!

- Zoos in Peru have cows next to animals such as zebras, giraffes, and hippos. People who go to these zoos are just as facinated with the cows as the zebras... but couldn't care less aboout the llamas (which I took about 50 pictures of).

- I wondered up until a few days ago how the parks amd center dividers of grass in the streets are watered since it never rains in Lima and there is no sprinkler or drip system anywhere. I had the privelage of recently seeing how this is done. La Municipalidad de Lima comes around in a big truck with men standing on top with pressure hoses. As the truck slowly drives by (bloxking up most of the road) the men spray the grass below. If you are in the way of the power pressured water... you had better run fast.

- I have my new winter school uniform, which I am completely in love with. I feel like a little school girl from Hogwarts in my plaited skirt and button up shirt... also, school this bimester is going much more smoothly because my spanish is so much better and I can participate more class.

For now, this is all I can think to report... but I will write again soon. I miss and love you all so much!

Semana Santa

For Semana Santa (Easter) I went on two trips outside of Lima. Thhis was my first time out of the city and it felt great to get out of the constant noise and presence of other people.

The first place that I went to was called Lunahuaná. My host sister, 4 of her friends and I took a 3 hour bus ride to a little town that is known for its rafting and pisco. The original plan was to spend the day on the river but since it was Semana Santa all of the rafting places were full so we filled up Friday with a relaxing lunch of traditional peruvian food (ceviche, mariscos con arroz, chicha morada and pisco sours). It was my first time seeing what Peru is like in the parts that are not as nice as Miraflores from more than the window of a car. It was the closest I have ever been to extreme poverty.

After my intense cultural experience the day before, Saturday consisted of lying by a pool and suntanning in Asia (a beach town about 1 hour away from Lima where many families go on the weekends in the summer to get out of the city). This was the nicest place that I have ever been to in, I think, my entire life. In the middle of the pool was an island where a dj was playing music and was surrounded by waterfalls. Around the pool were canopied sofas and tables. For lunch that day we got to go to my favorite place to eat so far - Bembos. Embaressingly, this is a fast food restaurant but it is peruvian and absolutely delicious.

On Easter Sunday i spent the day with my host family at our house. This was my first year without an easter basket, but being 17 I told myself that I should be able to survive, and believe it or not, I did. However, my lack of candy on Easter was later made up for on Tuesday when my host brothers came back from Disney World with lots of american candy for me :)

It's hard to believe that I only have just over 3 months left in Peru; it seems like I have been here for no more than a month. I am beginning to think of all the small things that I never noticed, but now appreciate Ashland. Right now though, I have the perfect balance: realizing the positives of home and at the same time still loving every day of life in South America.

School and Such

I have never had less of an idea about what is going on around me than the past two weeks of my life, but things are beginning to smooth out and fall into place. School has been a complete blur of me trying to comprehend classes like Advanced Physics 2... in SPANISH. dios mio.

However, starting monday I will be helping out in the pre-school and kindergarten classes with teaching english during the classes where I don't even have a remote idea of what's going on. San Jorge (my school) is grades k-12 all in one building, so I get to see the younger kids alot. They are so cute in their uniforms with little rolling Barbie and Ninja Turtle backpacks. I am so excited!

San Jorge is a British school, so it is set up a bit like... Hogwarts. Minus the castle and mail by owl. But there are 4 houses, prefects, head boys and girls, demerits and all that good stuff. The actual school building is intiresting because there is a center basketball court and all of the classrooms are built around it, forming a wall. After 8 when school starts the gates get locked and nobody can go in or out except through the front desk area - making it impossible for anyone to cut class. Oh! the most different thing from Ashland High School is that there are guards who stand around San Jorge in uniform with multiple guns and bats with metal spikes strapped to their belt. That was a bit intimidating on my first day.

On friday my class went on a field trip to a club in La Molina and we spent the day playing volleyball, swimming in a gorgeous pool and sun tanning. My kind of field trip :) Definitely beats the fourth time in one year of walking to Science Works or North Mountain Park...

I have been anticipating that I would begin to get really homesick by now, but to be honest I haven't even cried once since I arrived in Lima. But I do miss my family and friends in the states very much. I would give anything to be able to bring you all to Lima and show all of you how wonderful it is! But for now emails and blogs will have to do.

Finally...

I am blogging again! Now that I actually have to get up in the morning and do more than lie on the beach, my motivation has been lacking. However, right now I am sitting in a computer class that is very boring - especially because I don't have even a remote idea about what is going on (as usual).

School is not exactly what I had hope it would be so far. I am attending a bilingual school but I have come to find that this doesn't necessarily mean anything. Two of my twelve teachers speak english and so all of my classes are in Spanish. In addition, students in Peru have a much more rigorous educational path, so even if my classes were in English, I would still be sitting in the back trying to put on a facial expression that looks like I am not completely lost.

Life in general, though, has been great. I went to Argentina to visit Chad last week which was so much fun! There is so much to tell, so i will try and sum it up... I spent one day in Buenos Aires with Chad's parents and we took a tour around the city before leaving for Cincos Saltos (a small town about the size of Ashland, in central Argentina). I spent the week re-connecting with Chad and his parents, and meeting his 3 host families and many friends. It was great to get to see what his life is like, because it has seemed so far away for so long.

The first night I went to a Quinceañera. It started around 10 at night and didnt end until 4 in morning. Then Chad, his host siblings, friends and I went to a small club called Missa until 8 in the morning. People in Argentina seem to regard sleep as a plus, not a necessity. But it was really fun to go out dancing for the entire night :) Other things that we did included going to the lake, making pizza and empanadas, walking to the ice cream store a couple of times, eating lots of dulce de leche (I am in love) and drinking lots of Mate.

My last day in Cincos Saltos was hard because I was so happy to have spent a week with Chad, but also really sad to leave again. I couldn't feel down for too long though because my last night Chad's host mothers threw a going away party for Dave, Marge and I. They gave us various different Argentinian gifts, one of which was a flag with notes that everyone had written to me. we also had a bubble fight with spray espuma as the grand finale to the night.

Argentina was wonderful and I would love to go back to see Chad's families, more of the country, and of course to eat Dulce de leche again...

Loving Lima

Yesterday was both the most fun, disturbing and beautiful day of my recent life.

The fun part: I went to a beach with my host sister Margarita and a couple of her friends, about 30 minutes from my house called Playa Silencio (the name is a very inaccurate description of the place). It was streaming with people and I spent a very enjoyable 4 or 5 hours lying on the beach while eating ceviche and swimming in the ocean. This is the life...

The disturbing part: Something that I have only heard vaguely about so far on my trip I finally saw for myself: on the outside edge of Lima is, literally, a sea of cardboard boxes as far as the eye can see. It is a sea of the houses. They are placed up on huge dirt hills around a petroleum refinery. Everything is the same color of gray dust except for the clotheslines where bright red shirts and blue jeans hang to dry in the blistering air. The whole place looks dead, and there is not one movement. Garbage is in piles taller than I am and the dust seems to be suffocating everything. This is not exactly the Peru I had imagined or wanted to believe in. And even though everything in me wanted to do something to help these thousands of people, I must keep reminding myself that I am an exchange student and I am not out to save the world just yet.

The beautiful part: After Playa Silencio, Margarita and her friends decided to show me some other beaches as well. Each beach seems to have it's own interesting characteristics. We first went to Punta Hermosa, which is geared more twords tourists, but it was very pretty. The second stop, however, was my favorite. Playa Pucusana is a little fishing village full of colorful little fishing boats floating in the middle of a cove. Along the edge of the water there are children swimming and many stands where people are selling fruit or cooking meat. It was so post-card perfect that I couldn't help but jump up and down I was so happy. This is my favorite beach because it was so cultural and it gave an accurate view of average Peruvian life. I forgot my camera yesterday which made me want to scream, but I will be going back soon.

Anyways, we girls walked around for a bit and then payed a local fisherman to take us out on his boat. It was bright blue and orange and had little mussels stuck all over the sides. We putted around for about a half an hour and saw sea lions bobbing up and fish jumping all around. When we got out of the cove... I almost died. It was so beautiful that I wanted to cry. There were birds flying in every direction and pelicans flew so close to the boat I could have touched one. They skimmed over the aqua water so gracefully and every once in a while one would land on the tip of our boat for a rest. On horizon the sun was setting behind a couple of sail boats coming back to the harbor for the night. I have never seen anything so perfect in my life.

Sorry about the incredibly long description - I am so frustrated because I don't have any pictures and words just aren't enough. I suppose it will just have to stay in my memory.

Right now I feel completely in love with anything and everything Peruvian.

I am alive.

I am writing this post to let all of you know that I am alive, though I have been without internet for the past couple days. To be honest, I am not in much of a writing mood but I am keeping to my goal of not forgetting that I have a blog to upkeep. It seems to help me clear out my brain because the days have begun to blur together in a huge smear of traffic and rapidly spoken Spanish. Homesickness is beginning to settle in, and trust me, you do not want to know what I would give for a slice of Giseppi's pizza right now.

But enough about that. I have too many wonderful things happening right now to be able to complain, so I will allow myself only two sentences to focus on the negative.

Now back to the fun stuff. Over the past 3 days I have been to Wong a total of 12 times. I am literally keeping track, because it is getting a bit comical. I spent about 2 hours in there today figuring out how to buy an internet chip, so now my connection should be much more solid! Other than trips to the grocery store I have been doing so many amazing things I can't even remember them all. On Saturday night I went to dinner with my host mother and tried a popular Peruvian drink, called a Pisco Sour. People in this country are also obsessed with Chicha Morada and Inca Cola (soft drinks). During my past couple dinners out, I have realized that Peruvians are a hoot to be around at meals because they are so passionate about what they eat - and they eat with style.

On Sunday I watched the Super Bowl with our family friends, the Gretzingers, at an American pub called The Corner. I think that every white male in Lima was crammed into this place, and I found myself completely forgetting that I was in South America instead of a small Texas town for the big football game. Also during the past few days, I went to my first movie in Peru and took my exams for my school (which I admit, I have been avoiding talking about until now). To say the least, they did not go well. This is mostly because the entire exam was in Spanish. I was allowed a spanish-english dictionary, but that wasn't much help with my 200 + questions to answer in Math, Spanish, and History, etc.

But, I am very proud to say, I most definitely aced the English section.