Colombia!

We had a long weekend, so I went to go visit an old friend, Jeny, from Camp Storer in Bogota, Colombia. It was so much fun! Bogota was huge, crowded, and kind of dirty, but also had plenty of charm to it. I only had two days there, and they went as follows:
Day 1:
-Visit the kindergarden where Jeny and her mom work
-Go the center of town to walk around for a bit and feed the pigeons in Plaza Bolivar
-Help paint the walls of a children center that Jeny and an organization she's a part of is starting
Day 2:
-Visit Jeny's university
-Get her visa for the US paid for (she's nannying with Au Pair for a year in Chicago)
-Go back to the center to see the Museo de Oro
-Party in the streets of Bogota's center
-Dance in the discotecas

As I said, despite being crowded and dirty, Bogota is awesome and the city definitely has a ton of attitude. Museo de Oro was a really well done museum, and included an exhibit about archaeology, which made me happy! On Friday night, the city shut down a main street and it was flooded with performers, vendors, and people out to have a good time. Every type of Colombian music can be found in downtown Bogota at night and it was so much fun! Bogota also has a ton of living sculptures who do a dance and let you take their picture after giving them a coin. At the discoteca, Jeny told the people at the door that it was my birthday so I could get a free drink. My name was flashed on a board that said "Feliz Cumpleanos" and I had to dance the Macarena and other Colombia party songs on stage with everyone else who had a birthday that day too. It was hilarious. There was also a live reggaeton band, which made me so happy because I LOVE reggaeton!

On Saturday, we went to Villa de Leyva with Jeny's parents and her friend who owns a hotel nearby. It was so gorgeous! The streets are all cobblestone and the buildings are white and have a backdrop of the Andes mountains. We got in kind of late on Saturday, but still went walking around and had a glass of vino caliente - hot wine. It was red wine with cinnamon on the rim of glass among other things mixed in. Delicious. The next day, we went shopping in the botiques that line the streets of Villa de Leyva and went to see a huge fossil of an aquatic dinosaur from when Colombia was underwater. After that, we went to Raquira which was an incredibly colorful town full of handicrafts. It was very short, but we crammed a lot into out weekend out of the city!

Some side notes about Colombians. They are super proud people and LOVE Colombia! They relish in their culture musically, gastronomically, and artistically and speak elegantly and highly about it. When they describe things, they use adjectives like "divino" (divine) and "estupendo" (stupendous) and they address each other as "corazon" (heart) and "mi vida" (my life) often. It was so fun to listen to them talk to me about their country. Also, the Colombian flag is everywhere - the colors red, blue, and yellow are incorporated into buildings, clothes, jewelry, art, and housewares. They have tons of food and drinks that are typical to Colombia... most of them are soups and sweet things. My favorite sweet was Miloja... Think crispy dough like ice cream cones with layers of cream and caramel and my favorite drink was the vino caliente.

Overall, the long weekend in Colombia was way too short and I hope I'll be able to go back for longer!

Huaca Pucllana Day 1

I started my volunteer job at a local archaeology site, Huaca Pucllana today. It's only a 15 minute walk away from my house, so I'm in a really perfect situation! Today, the director just wanted me to get familiar with the sediment and types of artifacts that are typically found, so I was screening dirt. There were lots of fragments of adobe bricks, sea shells, botanicals, and ceramics. It was pretty cool. Later on, she wants me to organize and analyze the shells and fish bones in their collection and excavate! Anyways, it's a site from the Lima culture, whom little is known about. They were around from about 200 AD until 700 AD. Unfortunately, the city of Lima (which I adore) was built on top of the archaeology left by the Lima culture, but Huaca Pucllana, a ceremonial and administrative center as well as s tomb was not destroyed. On site, there are both excavations and restoration projects as well as a museum, gift shop, and restaurant. There's also a huge portion that hasn't been excavated yet (mound pictured on the right). I'm really happy to be working on an archaeological site here!

Un cappuccino, por favor.

Photos from a lazy Sunday in Barranco.

The San Francisco Monastery

I always meet the nicest people at the beach. I woke up today with the worst back ache I've ever had, which put a damper on my plans to go surfing, but I like hanging out at the beach, so I went down there anywhere to read my book for a bit. I ran into some friends and they introduced me to a girl and her boyfriend from New Jersey traveling with her parents. They were going to the catacombs at the Monestario San Francisco later that day and invited me to go along.

The monastery was gorgeous! The colonial architecture in Central Lima was so grand and beautiful. I was so sad that we couldn't take pictures of the inside. The first room we went to was the library. It was only lit with natural light, had two spiral staircases, deep cedar shelving, and thousands of books from the 1600s. It was amazing... Everyone gasped upon entering. That's the room that stands out the most in my mind, aside from the catacombs underneath the church. The ceilings were low and the tunnels were musky. The bones had been organized, which was very really weird. There were one room that we passed that looked like they haven't been organized with an array of misc. bones and skulls. Along the hall ways were rectangular boxes with organized long bones neatly laid out along with some that were full of skulls. The tour guide explained that they would empty out the catacombs into deep cylindrical chamber to make room for more bodies. The skulls and bones in there had been arranged in a circular pattern with alternating skulls and long bones. It did look kind of eerie, but I really don't like how much the human remains have been tampered with. After leaving the catacombs, we went to another room that had cedar carvings of saints on the walls. The ones with martyrs had an M. under their names and were carved showing how they died. ALSO there was another Peruvian last supper painting different from the one I saw yesterday. It took up an entire wall and was absolutely gorgeous! This one had a round table, included different people than are traditionally pictured, and of course, had cuy has the main dish.

After leaving, we went through a street that was set up like a souvenir market and had a bite to eat and then went to get churros for desert. Curros are long fried pieces of bread with custard in the center and rolled in sugar. Delicious. Apparently, I miss the memo that we were eating the churros for the picture. We thought we saw sails to a ship... they weren't, but still lead us to a neat park looking at tons of colored houses on a hill. It was also neat to see the old architecture intertwined with modern.

Overall, it was really fun to hang out with people who were touring Lima for the day!

The National Archeology and Anthropology Museum

Today, Jasmine and I went to the National Archaeology and Anthropology Museum. While lacking in some labels and interpretations, there were some awesome artifacts in there from pretty much all regions and time periods of Peru. I took a class on Andean Archaeology last fall, so I love seeing these artifacts and having a bit of a background in them. There were tons of ceramics, some textiles, and my favorite colonial painting, which I was so happy to see! It's of the last supper, but instead of having his arms stretched out over bread, Jesus is blessing a guinea pig, or cuy, a traditional Andean dish. During the time when the Spanish were Christianizing the indigenous people of the Americas, they would try and blend aspects of their culture into Christianity. We see this in carnavals, art, and pilgrimages, among other things. I love this painting for it's explicit syncretism of Christianity and tradition Andean lifeways.

School, Take 2

Before I get going on my day, Tessa told me that there's a Seinfeld episode about Peru. We hadn't seen it, so we got on YouTube. We could only find this clip, but it's a pretty funny one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pnr2gX97gs&feature=related

Despite waking up an hour late, I did much better at the whole school thing today. Tessa and I had Bio-huertos (gardening) at 8am and I'm gunna have to drop that one. It's super boring and if I drop it, I'll have time to pick up another shift at the Huaca Pucllana, the archaeological site I'm volunteering at. I think I'll get more out of that than a gardening class. And it's at 8am. The work day at Huaca Pucllana starts at 8 as well, but it's only a fifteen minute walk away as opposed to an hour bus ride.

After Bio-Huertos, I had Danza Moderna (Modern Dance), which was kind of a fail, but I can see this class being really fun, so I'm going to stick it out. The room was really hard to find and then when I finally did find it, I was the first on and so I waited in an empty classroom. All these alarms started going off and it was hard to tell the origin. In the DR, you could always hear car alarms and sirens going off from outside the university, so I didn't think anything of it. Turns out, this alarm was an earthquake drill and I got yelled at for sitting in the classroom and not being outside. During class, we had to an exercise where we told people how to dance and they had to do and then we had to make a performance to perform. Panicking at the beginning of the exercise, me and the other gringa paired up. We made our dance and it was pretty bad, but we weren't too stressed out because we missed the part when she said we would have to perform them for the class. We had to go first. We would've danced around up there like animals all day, but thank goodness the teacher stopped us.

After that, I made my way back home for an interview at the Huaca Pucllana. It went really well and I start work on Tuesday. She said she has a few other foreign volunteers for the semester, so hopefully I'll meet another archaeology nerd to travel around to different sites with me!

I had to go back to campus for the Cultura Popular Urbana (Urban Popular Culture) class from 6-9. Yes, 3 hours of urban pop culture. Thank goodness the prof. gives us breaks. On my way there, a little Andean girl came on the combi busking. She had an empty aluminum can and a hair pick that used to accompany her singing. While the whole thing was kind of heart breaking, she had a gorgeous voice and presented herself really well. Every person on the bus gave her some soles. I really enjoyed my class! I met some really nice Peruvian girls and we'll be working together for our group ethnography project. They said I spoke Spanish "super bien", which made me feel good.

The way home was an adventure! I should never be responsible for navigating Lima at night: all the street vendors I use as landmarks are gone! Anyway, I made my combi change (a little late, but it was ok) and then I got to ride in the front seat of my combi back to Miraflores! It was so exciting. Combis don't have noses that jut out, so we'd be schreeching up to a stop and I would get scared and think they would collide, but they never would! At one point, my combi driver got out and yelled at the combi driver next to us and then went to look at the back of his combi. I was nervous that something was going down that would take a long time, but when he came back he was shouting out destination again and high fived the driver he was previously yelling at. I don't know. Anyway, I made it home safely and it was kind of fun.

My Day of School-Related Fails

Since I only have class Tuesday and Wednesday, today was my first day. I got up and ready to go for my 8am gardening class, scarfed down some breakfast, and then headed out for my hour journey to campus. Today was a "practica" day, which Tessa and I thought meant actually being in a garden. What it really means, is test, which we obviously wouldn't have at 8am on the first day of class. So my journey to campus today marked my longest commute for a latte to date. I guess the good news it that I don't have regular 8ams on Tuesdays, just three.

The rest of the day was looking like it was going to turn around. I went to the bank and got my cell phone up and running, then it was time to go back to campus for Chorus.

The directions I was given for chorus were "behind classroom L105". What? I was expecting it to be super obvious, since the directions were so vague, but I couldn't find the room anywhere. I asked multiple people and they kept pointing me in the same direction I had been wandering. I wandered for about 45 minutes listening for people singing and had no luck. I made it to Ecotourism on time and really enjoyed the lecture, and then it was time to go home.

I've been feeling like a pro lately with the bus system here, but today was a fail. I fell asleep and jolted awake long after we had passed my stop, so I took a cab the rest of the way home with a driver who was very annoying and acted like he had no idea where he was going.

Tomorrow's a new day and I'll be giving PUCP another shot. Hopefully I'll do better this time!

Pictures of My House

Lima, te amo.

I took advantage of this beautiful sunny day to take pictures of the city

Surfing!

Yesterday, I went down to the beach to read a book and found the place lined with surfing schools, so instead of reading, I decided to take a surfing lesson and had a blast! The waves were really constant and pretty gentle... I got up 4 or 5 times! One of the things that I love about living in Miraflores is that it's the district of Lima that's right on the beach, so while it's enormous, it still has a beach town feel is full of surfers, fresh seafood, and it really laid back. I posted a picture of me and surf instructor, Manuel.

I also went out dancing for the first time last night and it was great We met up at the Plaza in Barranco where there a firework show and a marching band.I'm not too sure what they were celebrating, but I was really happy to run into it! After that, we spent the night in discotecas and I remembered how much I love dancing the merengue and the bachata!

Another day in Lima...

Today wasn't too eventful, though Tessa and I successfully used public transportation multiple times. I don't have too much to say... we walked around, did some shopping (soon I will have a working cell phone), and went to the Lima Film Festival with Jasmine. She's friends with a Paraguayan director and one of her films was being showed tonight. I also taught Tessa how to knit... she's catching on really well and stopped using her legs when she does it. She should have hat in no time!

That's about all I got. I decided which classes I want to take and I have next week to try them out and then do the official registration. I'm taking gardening, chorus, urban popular culture, modern dance, and ecotourism. I'm also writing a paper on archaeological tourism using Huaca Pucllana, the site I'm volunteering at, as my case study for credit. I'm really looking forward to a fun semester and I'm going to learn a lot.

While the weather isn't gorgeous, the city is wonderful and it hasn't gotten to me to too badly yet. I keep holding out for a sunny day to take pictures of the city and campus, but am starting to doubt it will come, since it is Peru in the winter time. Here are pictures of the Peruvian deer that hang out on campus and a sign reminding everyone that while they live with us, they are not our pets. There are also some pretty awesome multi-colored squirrels.

First Day at La Catolica

Today was international student orientation at the university La Catolica. While the sessions were extremely boring, I met some really cool girls, which made the day worth it. There are people here from all over the world! I spent all day hanging out with Tessa (my housemate), Sophia from Germany, and Jasmine from Paraguay. After orientation was over, Jasmine and her boyfriend, who is Peruvian, taught Tessa and I how to use the bus system, which was extremely useful!

When I got home, Alonso and I went to LarcoMar, which is this fun outdoor mall situated on a cliff facing the Pacific. I indulged in a Starbucks mocha and it was delicious... today was pretty chilly!

Today, the sun didn't come out at all... I'm regretting not taking pictures yesterday when the sky was blue and the city looked beautiful! Here's on though of me by the ocean from today -- a typical day in Lima during the winter.

My walk about of Miraflores and Barranco

I spent today walking around Miraflores and then Barranco. Lima is beautiful!

The Miraflores district of Lima is gorgeous! Super clean and lots to do in terms of shopping, restaurants, and dancing. It's considered the safest area of Lima and it's actually safer to walk at night than to take a taxi, which is weird for me because in the DR it wasn't safe AT ALL to walk at night. I'm just a couple minute walk away from the ocean. Today, the sun came out for a few hours and the ocean looked gorgeous, especially with all the cliffs. There were a ton of people surfing and a snorkeler. I was on top of a cliff, so I couldn't see the snorkeler very clearly, but he kept diving down -- maybe collecting shell fish? Tessa took me around the city today (she's been here a few days) and we went to Paque de Amor, Parque Kennedy, and then splurged on a cebiche (fish half cooked in a spicy, acidic sauce) lunch. Parque de Amor was really charming. It was full of mosaics with quotes and poems about love and couples' names. In the center, there was a fountain with a stone couple embracing on top. It had a beautiful view of the ocean, and as you could imagine, was full of young couples. Parque Kennedy was awesome, but for many different reasons. There were lots of gardens, people getting shoe shines, and just relaxing, but my favorite part was all the cats that live there! The park is full of these hilarious, some very fat, cats who live in the trees and people feed them. It was pretty awesome. The temperature was perfect today and yesterday, but it gets chilly at night.Lucia took me to the hauca where I'm going to be working for the semester. It's enormous! After I make my schedule for the university, I need to go back there to make my work schedule. I'm super excited about it!

Tonight, Alonso, one of my housemates, took Tessa and I took Barranco, which is where all the colonial buildings were. I was itching to dance so bad, but being that it's Tuesday, there wasn't too much of that going... or any. It was beautiful there though and while people weren't dancing, there were plenty of people out and about. Apparently Fridays and Saturdays it's completely alive!

I have orientation at the university in the morning... Tessa and I are taking a cab there and then we're going to give the bus system a whirl. I'll try and get some pictures up here tomorrow!

FINALLY Made It!

Welp, I didn't get in at 4:35am like I would have liked to due to my flight being delayed until 7am this morning. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because I would have missed it had it been on time due a delay I had in Chicago. I met an Irish woman who gave me a motivating talk about survival and encouraged me to sleep on the airport hotel's couch. I was asked to leave immediately upon resting my head and banished to a check-in area. I slept most of the way into Lima, but woke up for a bit to look at the Andes Mountains, which was awesome! When we touched down in Lima, all the trays that had our left over breakfasts came crashes down and slid through the aisles like an avalanche. It was pretty hilarious. Unfortunately, my luggage didn't follow me to Lima, but it should arrive tomorrow and be sent to my house. We'll see.

I'm all settled into my house and there's another girl from IU living with us and some Peruvian college students. Everyone seems really nice and I think I'm going to be really comfortable here. I have a room with my own bed, bathroom, and shower. It's a big old house and with a central walled patio and garden. It's super pretty and in a great part of town.

Today, I just had lunch when I came back and then took a nap. There's film festival near by that I might check out later, but I'm looking to have a pretty chill night.

Off to Peru Tomorrow!

I'm heading to Peru tomorrow and could not be more excited! I'm leaving out of Detroit at 3:50pm and have lay overs in Chicago and Miami before arriving in Peru at 4:35am on Monday morning. I've been told to expect cool temperatures and cloudy skies, but weather.com says the forecast is only for PARTLY cloudy skies (temperatures still cool). We'll see on Monday...

This summer has been a whirlwind. I was in Wyoming on an archaeological field school and internship in Wyoming and Montana, and then when I came home, I took a week long road trip in to Pictured Rock National Lakeshore and Mackinac Island, which left me with a week in and out of Toledo visiting friends and family. That being said, it really hasn't hit me yet that this time tomorrow, I'll be well on my way to Peru...