Finished school...Bring on the traveling!!

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First of all, GO CANADA GO!!!! YAY, I was so excited when we won gold!! I found an american style sports bar that was showing the game yesterday and got to watch it. All in spanish of course! It was amazing how many Canadians were in the bar. I would say about 75%. When we won, everyone started singing the canadian anthem. I was sitting with some American friends from school, so my table was pretty bitter. HAHA!! It was cool though! Also it was so wierd having everyone around me speaking english. Ive missed being able to eavesdrop 😊 Seeing the olympics, especially when your away from home makes me so proud to be Canadian. It also makes me miss being there. I would have loved to be able to be in Vancouver. BUT 3 months in SA is quite the experience and I wouldn´t change a thing.

I am FINALLY finished my classes in Espanol! I must say, you never know till you try. I definitely dont regret trying to learn some spanish. It could be that I´m lazy and didn´t spend 3 hours a night studying, or the fact that when Im in another country I would rather go out and see neat places. Either way, I am still a beginner in spanish and still have the hardest time with it. It is humbling to have a mental block and not have a clue what is going on. At times if im talking in english, I will start to say a word in spanish though. Or if Im writing in my journal for example, I will want to write some words in spanish. I guess thats some sort of progress eh?!

Also, what on earth is going on with all these terremotos (earthquakes)?? I am quite lucky that I chose to go to Chile first. It was a little bit frightening when you hear about the earthquake, and people are getting away from the ocean here in lima. I guess the ocean receded 5 meters or so right after the earthquake happened. Peru had a huge one about 3 years ago, so they are definitely not ´´safe´. But thank you for your concerns and prayers!

I guess I haven´t done that much since my last post. I did spend a weekend further down south at a town called Asia. Its where all the rich people from peru go on weekends. I hated it! Sure, it was a nice enough beach, but there is just normal people, normal little shacks, then BANG right in the middle of nowhere is this little America. There is walls all around, and so´modern´and you need to go through a gate to get inside. Its basically all rich, snobby people who care so much about what other people think. It really was not my definition of a good time. It was ok, because I was with some friends who didn´t care much for it either. But its so obvious how much of a huge separation there is from the poor and rich. Really, no middle class at all.

Im lucky enough to have met locals and they know where to go and what to do. On saturday night, I got to go to a place that is called Mister Fish. Funny, because they pronounce it in english. Anyway, when I walked in, I think my jaw fell open. I was 1 of 5 north americans among 250 peruvians. It was outside and a live band and everyone just singing and dancing! Now that was a fun place to go! Its wierd how you can develope a dislike for tourists, even though I am one of them. Probably because I have seen enough obnoxious tourists, who have no respect or no clue about local culture and just give north americans a bad rep. Regardless, it is amazing to find a place that isnt in any tourist guide book.

Tomorrow my mom and sister get here!! I absolutely cant wait to see a familiar face!! We are headed to Arequipa then to Cusco. Machu Pichu is still closed, but there is still so much to see and do!

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Comments

[Darci]

Correction: the ocean at the beach really close to where I'm staying went back 200 meters, not 5!