The city is filled with murals, and this is another that I found and love!!
SKRILLEX
Four of us decided to spend $30 to go see a concert. This was one of the best choices I could have made for a weekend at home. Leaving from my house, we headed to KFC to grab a quick bite before making the drive to wherever this place was. The fries were beyond disappointing and I pulled back my nail for some below-par ketchup. The night is not starting out well. Around 8:00 we get to the concert (an hour before the ticket says the starting time is) in order to get good spots. We walk in and the place has way too many kids for this concert. But we get some drinks and head into the crowd. We spend most of this hour trying to figure out how we can get into the VIP area so we can be closer to the stage. It was unsuccessful, mainly because we didn't actually act on our ideas. The opener comes on and is very quiet and not that exciting. We bare through that and I cheer very hard when he finishes up because I am ready for him to leave the stage...finally. Then, instead of Skrillex, another opener comes out. Ugh! Luckily this one is much better than the last and I enjoy it more. But around midnight when Skrillex was still not on the stage, too squished, too hot, and too sober. Annika and I decided to leave our spots and head back to a table so we could have some breathing room. This is what turned the night around. Right when we got back there we sat on a high-top table and at 1:00 am, Skrillex decided to grace us with his presence. I got to enjoy the concert with room to breathe and a place to sit if need be. Some guys who were sharing our table with eventually asked if we would like a drink, so we graciously accepted. They turned out to be very nice and gave us more than enough drinks to enjoy the rest of the concert. And the best part was, they didn't judge me and Ahnika for our eccentric dance moves! The night ended up being an absolute blast!!
Brisas del Titicaca
The next morning, for our Thursday class that was moved, we went to a Dinner Show-typeofthing. They served us lunch and had dance performances and opportunities for the audience to dance as well! All the music was traditional Peruvian music and all the performances had very intricate costumes and were so interesting! Even though it was a billion degrees in the building and I saw one too many fans not being utilized, it was a great experience and a lot of fun! I'm sure it would have been even cooler if we were Peruvian or with a Peruvian that knew the history of each of the dances, because there were many times I was lost. Some of those masks and costumes were a little creepy... During the audience-dance-breaks, there were these 2 cute old ladies who came over to pull us out of our seats. In our culture, being the first one on the dance floor (or even setting foot on the dance floor) is dreaded. But here practically everyone left their seats and were dancing it up to the lively salsa music. It was a great sight to see!
My huge plate that I barely put a dent in, but it was so good
Sorry I didn't take many pictures, but this is the one I did get
Millionaire Life
Sunday, instead of going to a pool with my host parents like was planned, they took us to a friend's house outside of Lima for a BBQ! Except this was their not-on-a-beach beach house, it was like a small resort that they owned and it was so beautiful. There was a huge garden, a pool, like 5 rooms you could easily make into a small hotel. Francesca and I enjoyed the day in the pool with our parents and their extremely nice friends. Also the cookout was so delicious that the food melted in my mouth (salivating just thinking about it). It was a beautiful day, not too hot and just the right amount of color on my skin. I literally spent the whole day thinking: "I am so happy. This is a great life." I could not stop smiling on the inside just thinking about how great my weekend had been. :)
Also I really love my host family. They are just great people and I am so lucky. My dad isa riot and we have so much fun picking on each other. He has taken a liking to calling me "Bruja" (witch) whenever he greets me and I have not quite figured out why yet...one time he motioned to my hair but that still does not clear it up for me. More news to come on that.
Me and Francesca living it up by the pool
Jaime was yelling at me for taking too many photos of the house and not enough of him and his friends
The patio
Pool life
I really like fountains.
Tuesday night my parents took me and Francesca to see the "club" they're apart of. This "club" is way beyond a country club or whatever I was expecting. It is like a whole city! There are 3 beaches with tons of beach chairs and umbrellas. There were shops. There were at least 5 restaurants and even more little concession stands. There were indoor olympic sized pools (that walking into the building gave me flashbacks to my childhood as a swimmer). There was a huge gym. Anything you needed, other than a place to sleep, was there. We got the grand tour from my parents and then headed up to enjoy dinner overlooking the entire coastline of Lima. It was breathtaking and so amazing. I'm considering going during the day to enjoy the beach, but it was 80 soles, which is expensive for this cheapskate.
You can see this cross from all down the coast. And I found the base of it!
A lovely night on the water
...even if I look like a giraffe
The views and the breeze.
Wednesday morning the Nebraska girls all went to a very small school in Central Lima that's in a shantytown. It gave me flashbacks to my trips to Haiti, but I loved it (probably because I loved Haiti so so so much). There were murals that were painted on the side of buildings that were amazing and I wish I would have gotten pictures of them, but alas, I did not. Anyway, in the classroom we split up the 11 kids into 3 groups and played games with them. I was in the math group, and since math isn't the best subject (sorry Gabi) we decided to bring some candy to make it more exciting. So we played math Bingo with our 4 kids and they loved it (I'd like to say it was because of the game, but it was probably more based on the candy they had sitting on their boards). After the first game was done, we headed out to recess where I was expecting, based on my experiences, to get mauled by children. I was correct. I ended up being a horse running around the courtyard playing freeze tag with a 9 year old child on my back. But I loved it. They were all so happy to have us running around playing with them, and I could not laughing (or sweating). We only got to spend just less than an hour at the school, and I wish I could have gotten a lot more. But the experience was still wonderful and made my heart full. :)
It's crunch time and we are all ready to start kicking our live-life-to-the-fullest attitudes to the test. I only have so many more days left (I refuse to actually count them out because I am not going to be focused on the end. Only the now.), so the trip planning and pure happiness is about to start rolling again.
I cannot wait.
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