Sunday, August 22, 2010

One Month!

Exactly one month after arriving in Peru I found myself at the airport again. Only this time it was to say goodbye. I guess it was sort of a coincidence that Ale´s flight left at the exact time that mine arrived. We piled into the same two cars and filled the back with even more luggage than I had. Ale managed to fill two of the most gigantic suitcases I have ever seen! She certainly loves her clothes and shoes =) Anyway we went with all of the immediate family plus some cousins and aunts and uncles and even a few friends. We sat and talked and took pictures while Ale stood in line to check her baggage and then we said goodbyes. Luckily it was a happy fairwell because we were all so excited for her to start a new adventure. Afterwords we went out for pizza and stayed out till 2 am. It was super fun because I got to hangout with my cousins (all my age) and listen to stories and practice more spanish. I told them about snow and American Christmas and Halloween and all of those things that they have seen in the movies but never experienced.

I am so thankful that I got to spend my first four weeks with Alejandra. She helped me to adjust to my new family and meet all my cousins and learn how Peruvian teens act. It was like having a personal tour guide but 24/7. I could ask her anything and she would explain words or songs or why the sky is blue (more like why the sky isn´t blue haha). But now its fun to be able to socialize on my own. Yesterday I went to the house of one of my classmates and played wii and watched a movie in Spanish. First social activity completely unstructured with friends from mi colegio! Woot woot :) And as funny as it sounds, I am really enjoying going to school. I guess its because everything is in Spanish but I actually enjoy doing my homework too. Usually we sit at the table after dinner and my parents or sisters help me with the words I don´t understand. For example, I had this huge packet full of synonyms and antonyms that I obviously didn´t know. Or the other day we read a 5 page story and then answered questions and wrote a one page summery about it. I find it a little ironic that now that grades don´t matter the homework is fun! But really, I am understanding classes completely in Español!!! I had my first math test the other day and scored 16/20. Not perfect but definitely not the worst in my class. =)

Ok, so two things that I just have to say are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better over here than in the US are the keyboards and stoplights. You know how whenever you are writing in Spanish and you have to make an accent or ñ and it takes about 5 minutes to remember which ridiculous combination of buttons to push? Well over here all the laptops have a ñ button and an á é í ó ú button... YES! And the stoplights have a countdown. Yep, thats right. You always know exactly how much time is left for a green light and you never experience that ridiculous fear of "am I going to make it through the light."

3 comments:

  1. You are a lucky lady to have such an adventure! You will have memories to last a lifetime =) Love to read your blog. Look forward to the next one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chelan that sounds amazing!!!! you are so lucky to have been there a month already!!!! I'm so jealous that I keep forgetting how much i love you, i just want to take off your skin, crawl inside and take your place. haha totally kidding I've only thought that a few times.

    I dont have a departure date yet because my paperwork got screwed up. Sitting in Wenatchee reading everyone's blogs just SUCKS. School starts in like a week here too! so i have no idea what i'll do with myself then. Although Rotary is on it.

    I've loved reading your blog though! Your spanish just must be fantastic by now! I cannot wait to speak it with you in a year, it blows my mind. It sounds like you've had an amazing first month in Peru! Good luck with the rest and keep updating the blog!!!

    Love Liv.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chelan,

    Emergency! Jace has e-mailed an open invitation for 9 AM breakfast here tomorrow to celebrate International Waffle Day. Even worse, we have six (not a mis-print) members of the Posse spending the night.

    Any chance you catch a quick flight back to help in the morning?

    Love your blog.

    Dad

    ReplyDelete