15 days to go!

i know you´re all curious about lima, but i don´t know what to say about it. here´s my average day:
7:30 wake up and get ready for life.
8 eat breakfast, usually a smoothie and coffee and cookies, with Luky and Otto.
8:15-30 leave for work and walk to where i like to get the bus*.
9:30ish get to work
1-3pm eat lunch with/get made fun of by Alejandro and Marta**.
5 get back on the bus
6 get home, take a nap.
8 eat lonche***/some absurd amount of food that Luky seems to think is appropriate.
then i watch gossip girl until i fall asleep.

this is why i have so little to blog about.

*this is probably the most exciting part of my day. since there are no bus stops, i stand next to a speed bump because they have to slow down anyway. Every day a bus is leaving just as I get there, and when they finally do stop they are usually full enough that I have to stand. A bit after I get on they get wildly full and I´m usually touching about 5 people who smell varying levels of good. We all stare awkwardly at each other and wish everyone else would just get off already. Without traffic it´s a 15-minute ride, but at 9am there are 2 major road hurdles to overcome. luckily there are usually enough seats by the time we get to them, and we wait for the traffic lady (no, it´s not a stop light.) to get sick of how intensely we honk and let us go. sometimes i get out early and walk.

**i don´t know if alejandro is related to the family, but he lives in the building i work in and runs a massage therapy practice. my friend´s dad, Raúl, lives upstairs and runs a hypno-therapy practice. Raúl and Alejandro don´t seem to like each other at all and both get upset when I say I´ve been talking to the other one. Alejandro likes to hit on me, which is fun but I´m afraid to go do any of the many things he suggests because he´s rather old to be my first boyfriend--he has children that have children who know who JBeebs is, and also he´s 60.

***lonche is usually a cup of coffee and a piece of bread, but luky usually serves me a piece of chicken with a plate full of rice and beans. i´m not sure how i eat it all, and some nights i can´t.

PS i made you guys a google map of my adventures in this lovely city. i´ll try to keep updating it; enjoy!

http://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=212051915913889296708.00049c08afa57caf64900&ll=-12.079778,-77.037635&spn=0.031054,0.038581&t=h&z=15

One Month!

So apparently you don't get to hear about how most of my January went. Not having loads of free time on the internet makes certain things fall by the wayside. AKA blogging. But yesterday was the one-month-left mark and I figured I should tell you guys I'm alive.

I just finished my first week of work about 50 minutes! It consisted of me sitting in an office and googling malt. Needless to say, I was getting rather fidgety and I'm ready to see other humans.

Luckily I have made one whole friend!!! Her name is Lady and she is my boss' sister. She also loves Korea and reminds me so much of Andrea that I occasionally speak to her in English.

I am a queen of Peruvian buses now! I was a little afraid of them in Buenos Aires, and totally survived on the subway alone, but here that wasn´t an option and I feel like I´ve risen to the occasion.

I don´t know what else to tell you!!! My life here is actually pretty boring, in the best sort of way. I´m not sure if I´m ready to go back to Argentina, but soon I won´t have much choice!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It is 2011!!! I don't know if I'm ready for it, but ready or not it is here. Tomorrow is my half birthday, and Andrea and I are going to celebrate it maybe, because I'm supposed to have lunch with Sergio and getting to Sergio's house is still quite a challenge. Especially because I'm not sure if Google Maps is right.

Drea leaves the 4th, really early in the morning. After that, I'm going to have pretty much no friends. I am befriending her uncle and maybe Sergio's brother will hang out with me, but we aren't sure. After she leaves, I am moving in with her Aunt Luky and Uncle Otto, so you should hear more about them soon! I also officially own too much stuff to fit in one bag anymore--especially considering that I have a ton of stuff in Buenos Aires. July is going to be interesting...

THE PART YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO READ: For New Years, we went on quite the family tour. Ukita informed us that she was going to a party and wouldn't be back until the next day, so we had to get all of our stuff out by 11. We somehow managed it, and met Andrea's father in the mall so we could go see all of his family. We had seco and yuca, which is one of my favorite things. We hopped over to Polvos Azules to buy some Korean dramas--don't forget that we are classy--and then went to see some Raymundos.

Raymundo lives in kind of a dangerous area, so we had to walk around the fence for a while waiting for someone to let us in. Finally an old man agreed to, and we got to meet a room full of relatives that even Andrea didn't understand the relationship between.

oh no I need to go! But I will continue later!

Peruvian Christmas!

OK so I have to wait for Andrea to come home since I don´t have a key to the house.

Christmas was a couple days ago, and still super exciting. We didn´t open presents or eat until midnight on the 24th. To tide us over we ate cookies and drank Whisky and lit sparklers in the living room, which turned out safer than it sounds. Shaun and I joked around with the little kids until they fell asleep and then we made friends with the cousins Andrea didn´t know.

finally midnight came and all these other family came rushing into the room and suddenly everyone had to hug and kiss each other and it was such a flurry of activity and happiness and everyone had been drinking slightly and it was super fun and amazing!!! then we had to sit down while select people served plates of turkey and applesauce and served everyone else. After eating as fast as possible, we opened presents. Andrea´s family got me a present! it was super exciting. Then we danced Cumbia for way too long and at about 2 we drank hot chocolate and went screaming home so we could sleep. the next day we spent eating leftover turkey, and Shaun made a novela out of Barbies. it was fun!

I will update you about New Years soon! I bought my yellow underwear today!!!

Sorry Guys...

So I put up that schedule, but I haven´t written about Ushuaia, Calafate OR Machu Picchu yet. I know you´re all sad. But I don´t have free internet so it is expensive to blog. But ten minute summary!!!

1. Ushuaia was really cold. Seeing as it´s Antartica. But it was light forever because it´s summer there--roughly 4am to 11pm it was light out. I ran around with penguins and went canoeing and it was beautiful. I also got wind and sun burn at the same time, which was a new and interesting experience.

2. Calafate was warmer and looked like a desert. We went on some hardcore hikes and started to get really sick of each other, but had a really good time running around on the glacier!!! There are almost too many pictures of it.

3. BUS RIDE!!! I forgot, probably because I tried to block it out of my mind. It was 60 hours of the same salsa mix and every Nicholas Cage movie. People kept throwing up because of the extreme altitude changes and the guy next to me tried to convince me to have his children, but it was an interesting experience. I´m still flying back to Buenos Aires.

4. Machu Picchu and Cusco was beautiful! Totally intense hiking and I did the sissy hiking, but also I did it cheaply so I had to walk on the train tracks intead of taking the train. You guys should go too!!! And eat peruvian food.

5. LIMA!!! I am there now. I met with Sergio yesterday and I am probably going to be doing production and development of maca beer, which should be super challenging but super interesting as well! Lima is really cool and super delicious! Also it is a ton cheaper than Buenos Aires so I am unhappy about having to return. I am living with Drea´s Grandmother right now, and she is adorable. I am super sad that I don´t have my own Peruvian grandmother.

I will try to write more eloquent and interesting things later okay!? About Lima and Lonche and Life!!!

Christmas is soon!!! I am super excited.

Colonia!

In the flurry of papering, I forgot to write about Uruguay part 2.



Colonia was pretty much everyone pretending they didn´t have large amounts of essays waiting for them in Buenos Aires. As such, everyone tried extra hard to be calm and just enjoy life. Colonia, it turned out, was the perfect place to do such a thing. There are very few permanent residents there--everyone is a tourist. They accepted Pesos of every kind and even Dollars even at the most hole-in-the-wall places. It had cobblestone roads and flowers everywhere. I would move there in an instant if I had the money and a job that let me work remotely.



for Thanksgiving, we went to Mario´s house. He owns a bed-and-breakfast in a lemon orchard and we all ate ourselves silly. A lot of people went swimming, but I just sat around and enjoyed the, as we call it at camp, nature. He even had pumkin pie! Which was super exciting and better than I expected. I want to get married there. With the large tent and wads of happy people, it felt a lot like a wedding. Also, the weather was incredible. We couldn´t have asked for a sunnier day or a gentler breeze. It definitely didn´t feel like Thanksgiving, but it´s fun to break with tradition now and again!

DECEMBER!?

So I am totally supposed to be writing my very last paper right now. My last tango class is in 2 hours and I'll definitely go out with the gang afterwards because it's our last night.

It is already December first!!! I realized that December is going to be every flavor of crazy. I also realized I won't have time to do laundry for the next 2 weeks, so I bought 3 more pairs of socks and another outfit out of desperation.

Also I am going to be online really rarely from now on. If you catch me online, you might want to talk to me. I'm sure I'll have a story to tell you.

here is my schedule, in case you're wondering. which you probably are.

DECEMBER!

1-that's today

2-Castellano final

3-get on the plane and ship myself to Ushuaia (the end of the world)

4-5-Explore Ushuaia

6-Get on plane no. 2 and go to Calafate, a glacier. (snow in december! my goal!)

7-8-explore El Calafate

9-Haul @** back to BsAs

10!!!! Board the bus to Lima

11-lose excitement over being on the bus

12-Probably be in Chile by then. on the bus.

13-Arrive in Lima! Minus my sanity

14-Get on plane no. 4 to Cuzco (which I will have driven by on the bus)

15-16-17-18-19-hang out in MACCHU PICHU!!!

20-Get on plane no.5 and go back to Lima

21-realize i'm broke

22-do nothing

23-eat soup

24-start celebrating christmas

25-celebrate more christmas

26-calm down about christmas

27-explore lima?

28-Shaun leaves-ish

29-Drea and I cry

30-start preparing for new yeras

31-PARTY REALLY INTENSELY

01/01/11 wake up hung over on a beach. i've been promised that's what is going to happen.

DID YOU NOTICE THAT THERE IS EXACTLY 1 DAY THAT SAYS DO NOTHING. I AM ROASTY TOAST.