If Only Medium Could Import Videos…

Gabrielle and I came a day early which was fantastic because we had a whole day of free time to explore. At the time of our arrival though, we were pretty terrified. We made it through eleven hours of travel fairly easily. There was one hard landing that almost threw me out of my seat but I let it slide because I couldn’t fly a plane to save my life! When we touched down at the Lima International Airport we effortlessly made it through customs. I had a look of sheer bliss overcome my face while I received my newest passport stamp, but that quickly turned to nerves that my suitcase was lost. It took around half an hour longer than expected for our luggage to arrive safely into our arms and then we were on our way! Welcomed by a nice taxi man with a sign with our names written on it. We drove through the crowded madness of traffic that surprised me at such a late hour of the night. Half an hour later we finally made it.

Our little host mom, Chela gave us great big hugs as our host father Carlos grabbed our bags. We got to talking and we noticed a collection of mugs above the fireplace, each one with a different college emblem on it. “AGH,” Gabrielle and I thought simultaneously, we should have gotten her a mug. We shrugged off the thought and began to converse with our new family for the next two weeks. My Spanish is a little rusty but I had some confidence thanks to passing the Duolingo placement test, so through some broken Spanish we started to get to know each other. This only lasted a few moments because we were exhausted from our flight, when we opened the door to our room a huge smile spread across my face because of the two little puppies printed on my blanket. We were given a tour of the house, shown how to use the shower, and had to keep reminding ourselves NOT to drink the water. Thankfully, Chela has been doing this for a while and she knows how to prepare meals that will keep us safe.

We slept for so long, incredibly grateful for the blackout curtains that blocked out the light. Awoken only once by a slight earthquake around 6 am. Yes, that’s correct. We were abruptly woken up by an earthquake last night! At first I thought it was a dream but Gabrielle confirmed that this was in fact reality that was shaking. At this point I began to doubt that I had made the right decision but my all of a sudden my eyelids felt heavy and I drifted back to sleep. When I arose the next time, many hours later, to sweet Chela asking us if we were ready for breakfast… at 12pm, all of my fears vanished. The stairs are for some reason ridiculously slippery so my simple trip down the stairs became -sit on your butt — scoot down a step — scoot down a step — scoot down a step- etc, while gripping the railing for dear life. Why not take off your socks?” some might ask. I am currently asking myself the same thing!

Breakfast was wonderful, pan y queso, platanos, y leche. Exactly what we needed to start the day off right. Chela told us stories about her adventures abroad visiting her niece who lives in Orlando, Florida. She made sure to remind us a few times that crossing the street was nowhere near as safe in Peru as it is in the US. She was right. When we began our adventure to the currency exchange later in the afternoon we made sure to latch on to the nearest Peruvian and only cross while they were crossing. Eventually we made it to this charming little park, it had big, bright red flowers and a charming playground. We were so distracted by the flowers we almost didn’t even notice the different trees that were trimmed to look like an array of different animals. At this park we sat and began to think about where we were going to go for lunch. We felt the sun on our faces, the humidity attacking our freshly washed hair, and soaked in every minute of it.

For lunch we ventured far and wide. We didn’t really have a choice since we had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Eventually we settled on a place and the first thing we were served was chicha, a purple drink that upon researching it, we found out is made out of fermented purple corn. They had no water, they had no beer, but they had chicha as far as the eye could see! The camarero came to our table with a menu del día, he explained much too rapidly that most of the options were all gone. After we gave him puzzled looks as a response, he slowed down his tempo and explained twice (or was it three times?) more that there were limited options. With more blank stares coming his way, he eventually said “yo puedo escoger por ustedes.” Now, THAT I understood! “Sí, sí por favor!” we exclaimed! We were a little less enthusiastic when we saw what was coming our way, but hey! We were adventurers right? If we can come all the way over to Peru, then we can try a scary looking meal… at least Gabrielle could. I chickened out a little bit, or a lot a bit. Our second dish was rice and some very colorful looking potatoes! Apparently, there are thousands of different types of potatoes here in Peru. We ate up and walked back to our lovely little home.

I love walking back to our little home because its right next to a dog park! I don’t know if it is actually a dog park but each time I have walked past it there have been at least 3–4 dogs there. In my opinion that fulfils the requirements of a dog park. We took a lovely little — 3-hour nap — and woke up with dinner waiting for us. We were groggy as could be, but nonetheless made sure to find time to practice with the tricky keys we were going to need to rely on for the next two weeks. Cravings kicked in and we absolutely needed to find ice cream, so we checked on google and found a Panera- not the beloved bread company of my native homeland- but a gelateria! We made the ten-minute trek and shared stories along the way. With ice cream in our bellies we decided to explore a little more before heading back home. All of a sudden, our ears were blessed with the sound of the legendary Michael Jackson filled the streets. We had to find the source! An IMPERSONATOR!!! Such a fantastic way to end our day, I attempted to attach a video because no words can describe this man’s raw talent, but apparently Medium wasn’t having it today. Whatever. We laughed off the calories of the gelato and made it home safely.

So far, so good I must say. But I already have a feeling that this month is going to go by much too soon.