On Tuesday, the five of us chicas took a taxi together again, but this time to USIL, the university that we will be studying at starting in about two weeks. The taxi took about 20 minutes (without traffic) although once school starts it may take closer to 30 with rush hour and people being back from their vacations. So far, our host moms, who all seem to be amigas, are herding us like little sheep, together, into Taxis that they chose and call for us. They seem to think we are not ready to attempt transportation via combi (small buses) or micros (slightly bugger buses) but they will warm up soon (we are hoping). It has been really fun so far to get close with these 4 other girls. We are an interesting group, from Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Maryland and California, all with different levels of Spanish which is a ton of fun because we have all been teaching and helping each other. We arrived to USIL and did a sort of orientation with Michelle again, only this time is was for USIL only. (The group is split between 3 universities) We walked around the campus a little bit and I posted a few pictures but I am sure there will be many more to come. It is a very modern and pretty campus. It is fairly new campus in Lima and is very well known for its cooking school and its international program because it offers a wide variety of classes in English. They have lots of extracurricular activities like dance classes, music lessons, and teams which in reality I will probably not have any time for… But that is okay! I have lots of other things to do, places to go and people to see!
We then had lunch at the little shopping center right next to our school where we all had lunch together. I had a DELICIOUS pretty typical ‘lunch’ in Peru (which is their biggest meal of the day) with causa con pollo (chicken) for an appetizer, lomo saltado (delicious meat, onions, tomatoes, rice and fried potatoes) for my entrée and chicha morada for drink. IT WAS SO GOOD. I also tried some friend’s foods, including crema de rocoto and a soup of some sort and a fish of some sort. Delicious.
After we finished touring the school, the 25 of us (more or less) went with our three directors by combi to Jocky Plaza, a kind of upscale mall with a lot of American stores and brands (including iStore, Guess, Nike etc) In the parking lot there is also a Tottus, which is a Target type of store. We walked around the mall a bit and I purchased a cell phone for about $25 dollars with some prepaid minutes and texts so now I can communicate with my friends and host family and it has been pretty helpful so far! I got to know some more of the group during this time as well because we split up in the mall and so it was easier to talk to people one on one more. We walked past a movie theatre which had a million show times of harry potter and tickets (GET THIS) were the most expensive ones around and they were only 12 soles (which is around $5!) however on Tuesdays it is 2 for 1 tickets (in most cinemas in the city) and there are places much cheaper where it only costs 7 soles for a movie ticket! What a deal! How am I ever going to be able to go to a 3D movie in California again!?! We took the combi back to school then got picked up by Leah’s mom and arrived home around 6:30, with tired brains and were very hungry. As usual, upon our entrance into the house, Maria Christina and her magical self began cooking and I had some DELICIOUS chicken and rice and potatoes. No, she did not know that we technically already had our “lunch” since she did not cook for us SO we were fed a full meal again. Yes, rice and potatoes. Again. Yes, two carbs in every meal. Yes I am going to get fat. No, I do not care-EVERYTHING I have eaten is delicious!! Apparently you eat rice with near every meal here and you rarely have a side salad or vegetable, but usually another starch.
I love it, I am going to run on Thursday. I SWEAR :D
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