the internet.

i think the internet is pretty cool. and since being here in peru it has been extra cool. you see throughout my day to day living i come up with a lot of questions. there are just some random things that i wonder about. when i'm in the states i usually simply send a little text message to my good friend nick, because he has a lot of useful, yet random, knowledge. i'm pretty sure that he saved my life about a year ago when he convinced me to heed the warning and not put my non-microwavable bowl in the microwave. unfortunately i am unable to send a quick little message to him for all my silly little questions. therefore i have turned to the internet for random knowledge. and it has been very good to me. everything from which side of my nose should i pierce? to are you supposed to floss before or after brushing? to how to apply perfume. pretty cool if you ask me.

now of course there is a dark side to the internet. for every useful bit of information there is also some real garbage out there. and stupid things too. things that make you wonder what on earth the person who posted it was thinking. things like the entire bible translated into lolcat speak. yes, it does exist. honestly? what is this world coming to?

but all in all i'm a fan of the internet. seeing as it allows me to "have the world at my fingertips".

things i like about peru.

i like its beautiful coastline.

i like its attempts at english translations.

i like its silly ice cream sundaes.

i like its natural beauty.

i like its history.

i like its food products with other meanings in english.

i like its beautiful children.

i like its colors.

i like its inca kola.

i like its yogurt.

i like its people.

i like its graffiti.

i like its bread section in the grocery store.

i like its obsession with limes.

i am so very thankful.

I missed Thanksgiving with my family yesterday.

But I did get to spend it with my best friends here in Peru.

On Monday I made a video of things that I'm thankful for:

Giving Thanks.

(And I just realized that I misspelled the title of the video. oops.)

[I'll be home in sixteen days]

making people a priority.

wednesday night here in lima. next week will be my last week of classes at la católica. my year abroad is quickly coming to an end and i’m looking forward to going home. to being around family and friends and snow and christmas. at the same time i know it will be difficult to leave and say goodbye. how does one say goodbye to a place? especially a place like peru that has become so much a part of me? i guess i’ll just have to figure it out as i go. but for now i’ll just enjoy my time and listen to christmas music and imagine that its snowing outside and i’m sitting by my fire place snuggled up in the big comfy leather chair watching “dancing with the stars” or “the amazing race” with my mom ... alright, enough imagining. let me tell you about last weekend.

last weekend was really great. amelia and i took a 13 hour bus ride up to a city called chiclayo on the northern coast of peru. our main purpose of the trip was to visit my compassion sponsorship child, but we did a lot more than that. we told our friends here at la católica that we were going to chiclayo and it just so happened that one of them is from there. so he put us in contact with people from cbu-chiclayo. we met up with them on friday night and they took care of us. we stayed in one of their rooms because he was going away for the weekend. they showed us around the city and took us to various historical sites. it was so much fun! i don't know why we didn't do the whole meet-up-with-cbu-people while traveling for our previous trips. but now we know.

i don't think that words can convey how nice these people are. they basically just dropped their plans and spent the weekend with two random american girls. it really impressed us and we were truly touched by their kindness. at one point amelia and I were sort of debriefing and talking and trying to figure out what was it that made them so nice. we realized that they made people and relationships a priority. i felt like i was important, they asked me questions, wanted to know about me, told me i spoke spanish well, and laughed with me (sometimes at me, but that's alright). after just two days i feel like we're friends. the kind of friends that you can count on to help you out when you need a tour guide, or a place to sleep or different blankets that don't make amelia's eyes blister (yes, there were some pretty interesting moments of the trip).

so i guess you can say that i’ve been inspired by the wonderful people that i met in Chiclayo – inspired to make people a priority. because i think that is what jesus was and is all about. that’s why he hung out with tax collectors, and talked to the samaritan woman at the well. people were important to him, like the most important thing ever. i mean why else would he leave heaven to live on this earth and then die on the cross? because people, humanity is his priority. he thinks we are important, he thinks i am important. so i want to start living in such a way that people are my priority. that i make others feel important, with the hope that they come to realize that they do matter, not only to me, but to the creator of the universe.

// rosa and i // with our new friends from cbu chiclayo // drinking chica de jora en poto - a fermented corn drink served in a carved out pumpkin // me and amelia in front of the museum of señor de sipán // on the longest balcony in south america // amelia and i with raquel and daniel - our two wonderful tourguides - at the pirámides de túcume // jumping picture =) // a peruvian hairless dog - which i think are gross // cebiche! the typical dish of peru - raw fish "cooked" in lime juice served with corn and sweet potato (can you believe i eat that?) //

live and learn.

i'm living in lima.

and i'm learning a few things.

>>if a movie is still in theatres and you buy a copy of it in the black market, you are pretty much guaranteed to get a crappy version of someone sitting in the theatre filming it.

>>shakira's songs are way too catchy.

>>there is a section of the center of lima where you can buy puppies for pretty cheap.

>>either i'm smarter than i thought i was, or i'm getting some major gringo points on these assignments. (by the way, gringo points = when the professor has sympathy that you're a gringo and are taking classes in a language that is not your native tongue and therefore goes easy when grading assignments. maybe it's discriminatory, but it sure is appreciated.)

>>having chocolate in my room is a bad idea. (a delicious idea, but a very bad one.)

>>the field of linguistics still has not come to an agreement of what language is. a topic which seems pretty essential to define.

>>when crossing a large street, make sure you have enough time to make it all the way across before the light changes.

>>things aren't usually black or white. there is a whole lot of mixed gray area.

>>it's hard for me to get into the christmas spirit when it's warm enough to start wearing flip-flops.

>>there are no tropical storms (like hurricanes or things like that) that damage the city of lima because of the andes mountains.

>>when you log into the pucp website and click on a professor's name to send them an email, you're actually sending an email to the entire class.

>>i like pumpkin pie.

buenos aires.

in case you didn't know, i went to buenos aires last weekend!! our study abroad program includes two weekend trips during the semester and since amelia and i already went on those trips last semester we were able to take that money and go on another trip. and we chose the "paris of the south": beautiful buenos aires. here are some photo highlights from the trip.

first of all, buenos aires has really delicious food. there is a huge italian/european influence in the city which means amazing pasta and pizzas. i must say that the pizza we ate our first night was right up there with my mom's. (and if you have had my mom's pizza, you know that that statement is not easily given out.) and as my friend laura commented "i don't even like pizza and that looks delicious!"

there are some really cool (and wicked old) big trees scattered throughout the city.

buenos aires has the coolest graffiti that i've ever seen.

"el caminito" a small little neighborhood in the poorest district of the city. known for its colorful houses and tango dancing.

beautiful bookstores. this one is in an old theatre, gorgeous!

i had the chance to meet up with my friend amy from gordon who is studying down in buenos aires for the semester. she picked us up at our hotel and showed us around her neighborhood. there are beautiful parks and the roses are just starting to bloom. yay for spring in october!

in the main square where the casa rosada (the "pink palace" where the president lives) is located. jumping pic in front of la casa rosada.

the day before we arrived the ex-president Nestor Kirchner had passed away. he was also the husband of the current president. there were demonstrations thursday and friday during the period of morning and a procession on friday afternoon. also these posters were all over the city.

cementerio de la recoleta. a famous cemetery containing the graves of some of the most famous argentines - presidents, authors, and the granddaughter of napoleon bonaparte who died at the age of 6 days. the graves are marble mausoleums decorated with elaborate stone statues. it's all very beautiful, but also slightly creepy. i personally liked all the different shapes and styles of crosses, and the stone figures against the blue sky made for lovely pictures. we also tried (unsuccessfully) to get a jumping picture.

comfort.

being away from home is sometimes difficult. and you crave familiarity and just all around comfort. so much so that you sometimes do strange things. you eat too many tootsie rolls because even though there is chocolate here, it just doesn't compare to a tootsie roll. you look through old pictures. you constantly check your email to see if you have messages from people back at home. you snuggle up and take a nap with your ratty stuffed animals even though you are an independent 21-year-old. you write messages to your friends about inside jokes in an attempt to feel closer to them. you decide to make pancakes at ten o'clock at night because you just want to eat something familiar, something that tastes like home. you read student news even though none of it really applies to you. you have your computer set up to check the weather back at home even though it is 3,800 miles away from where you are. you download podcasts from gordon because the sound of familiar voices is comforting. you love getting emails from your mother about nothing in particular, just the regular daily ins and outs of life back at home because it makes you feel not so far away.