My First Few Days in Lima!

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Hola!

My flight to Lima was long and pretty uneventful; I flew from Charlotte to Miami to Nicaragua to El Salvador and, finally, to Lima. There are 7 UVa students doing the program; we all met in Miami and arrived as a group in Lima. Once we got out of customs and immigration, we were met by the two professors directing the program and taken to our host houses.

My host family lives in San Isidro, a really nice, ritzy area of Lima. My host parents are Lucia and Antonio; my host parents, another American student, Adam, Lucia's mother, and two of their six children live in our house. Antonio speaks Spanish and English, but Lucia only speaks Spanish and French; never have a been so thankful for taking French in college. We have a lady that cooks and cleans, Maxie, who only speaks Spanish. We use a lot of body language to try and communicate. I am pretty spoiled here... Maxie cooks and serves all of our meals (and they are all delicious) and cleans up my room and makes my bed daily. And I have a balcony off of my room (see attached picture). The only bad thing is that it is FREEZING (it's winter here) and none of the houses have heating or AC because the weather is normally more mild.

Tuesday and Wednesday we went to the university we are taking courses at for orientation. After orientation on Wednesday the UVa group went to a peninsula-like area in NorthEast Lima called La Punta for lunch; we had ceviche (fish marinated in lemon or lime juice), causa (like mashed potatoes but made with yucca), and fried calamari.. yumm.

After heading home for a little while, I went to the apartment of two of the UVa girls who live close-by to hang out for a while before a group outing to a soccer match. We left the apartment (on the 7th floor) and as soon as we got out of the building to hail a taxi (literally, within the minute), the earthquake started. We were SO lucky to be on the ground and not the top floor. After the 2+ minutes of shaking stopped, a very frightened us jumped in a taxi to head to the place we were supposed to meet our professor. Luckily, everyone was safe and sound and we just sat and drank some coffee for a while to calm down. No one's home or cell phones worked, but somehow one of the professors managed to get in touch with everyone's parents.

I came home to a VERY worried host family, but after assuring them I was okay and sending out a few e-mails, headed to bed in preparation for our weekend journey.

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Photos

View from Front Balcony
Not the prettiest view, but there are two parks, one at each end of my block. The golf course is 4 blocks to the left, the beach is 4 blocks to the right, and a bug commercial area is 5 blocks straight ahead.

Catolica
One of the academic buildings at the university.

Catolica cafe
One of the outdoor cafes at the university

Catolica
The university grounds are beautiful and colorful; all of the buildings are different colors and there are lots of plants and wildlife around(deer roam freely). This is a blossoming tree I thought was really pretty.

Comments

[Jose]

small world
Hello Tara, It is a small world. I was born in Lima, got my PhD from UVA, and gave a seminar on my research at La Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru a few years ago when I was visiting family. A couple of recommendations... get a churro (or two) from Manolo's in Miraflores and go to Las Brisas del Titicaca. Although Las Brisas advertises itself as "turistico" it has a great Peruvian vive! Wish I had some ceviche right now... Enjoy, Jose