Happy Birthday to my Dad and Lima!!!!

Dancers at La Plaza de Armas for Lima's Birthday Celebrations!!!

My friends Derek and I in the Combi! (As you can see we are a little squished!)

This past Sunday my dad celebrated his 50+ birthday. I was very sad that I could not be with him to help celebrate. I did however eat a piece of chocolate that day in his honor. J My siblings and I always joke about how old my parents are. Well dad, I have some good news to cheer you up: you are way less than half of Lima’s age. You look like a baby compared to how old Lima is. Last night marked the first night of festivities in celebration of Lima’s 477^th birthday. The students from UNK all got together and went. There were literally thousands of people everywhere. We were able to witness Peruvian dancing and some other cultural celebrations.

Since I last blogged, I have had my advanced Spanish Grammar class. The teacher is really nice but talks a little bit fast. Oh well, we’ll catch on quickly. After classes on Thursday, the UNK students decided to play basketball and soccer. We ended up meeting some native Peruvians who were extremely nice. At the beginning of the game I told one of them “No juego.” (I don’t play.) I meant this as I don’t play well by American standards which are nothing compared to Peruvian standards. The Peruvian man responded in English by saying you try to kick the ball in the goal. I felt totally incompetent. I know the purpose of the game…I just meant I’m really bad at it. After about an hour or so we exchanged information with our new friends and they invited us to the beach the following day. Unfortunately, all of us already had other plans but perhaps this upcoming weekend we’ll get together.

The students from UNK and I do not have classes here on Fridays. So, we split up and about half of us went to the beach and the other half headed to Jockey Plaza (a huge shopping center). I joined the group going to Jokey. Jokey Plaza is roughly a 50 minute walk from the college we go to. Consequently, we took our first Combi. Combis are little white vans that travel around Lima and drop you off at different spots. They squish as many people as possible on these things. Once we got to Jockey plaza, the rest of the day was spent having fun shopping and exploring. On Friday night I went to Barranco with my host family. It is a nice little town with lots of restaurants and bars. We were able to walk around and get an excellent view of the sea. Saturday was spent at the beach and then in the evening we went to a mall in a different district of Lima. Sunday we went to church and then ate Chifa, or Chinese food for lunch.

As I’m sure you have guessed, there have been quite a few differences between Peru and Nebraska. I remember myself saying multiple times how boring I thought Kearney is. Well, I never realized how grateful I am for certain aspects that Kearney has. For instance, there is always noise here. When we are sitting in class at least two to three times a car alarm goes off. You can always here construction and honking from the outside window as well. When I return home, I cannot wait for the peace and quietness of Kearney. On the other hand, something I like better here is the way people walk. Here, everyone walks much slower. They aren’t on a mission to get where they need to go as fast as possible like what is so often seen in America.

I am excited to say that I think my Spanish is improving. Yesterday during our Literature class I was able to understand at least 95% of what our teacher was saying. I thought this was because he was talking much slower but I asked my other classmates and they didn’t think he was talking slow. It makes me excited to think I might actually be catching on a little bit. This afternoon the students from UNK have a meeting with two English professors from UPC because next week we will start being volunteer TA’s. I am super excited about this. Later this week we will also be having a meeting with a representative from the U.S. Embassy. Our professor here from UNK said he isn’t exactly sure what this is about. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I need to go get ready for my meeting with the English Professors. Adios for now!!!! J