Day 38

I apologize for failing to take a photo Sunday, but this is from Friday. I blame Eden for this picture -- she thought it'd be funny to take photos in machinery. I've found that Peruvians prefer to smile rather than make weird faces in photos... I'm not sure why. Sunday started with church, which started 10 minutes late with only about 10 people in the audience. The sanctuary wasn't full until about half an hour into the service -- typical Peruvian time. I went with some Americans to lunch at an "Italian food by way of Argentinia" restaurant. Very tasty. I hung out with Eden for a bit (watched "Friends" -- really makes me forget that I'm in South America) and then went to another church service at Calvary Chapel. It's a bilingual youth group type of service for college students, I think. And then I went to bed early (I hadn't realized how tired I was).

Day 37

This was how I spent a lot of my day -- in a bathing suit on the beach. Eden, Nadia and I went to the beach in Barranco this morning at like 9 a.m. We were there a couple hours, and then in order to take a taxi to Miraflores, Eden and I had to hide behind a wall so that the taxi drivers wouldn't see Nadia, a native Peruvian, with two gringas and so she could get a lower price. We paid 6 soles, but without Nadia, it would have been at least 10. I went to read in Starbucks for about an hour and a half until Gabriel and Gabriela showed up and we went back to the beach, but this time to Waikiki. Gabriel and I surfed while Gabby hung out on the beach, and I think there was a lot more sun than we realized (I got a teeny bit of a sunburn on my nose). I went home for a few hours, took a much needed shower and nap, and then joined the universitarios grupo in the church. We all went to La Punta in Callao. I understood almost everything that Cristian said in the lesson, and then we had dinner (I had anticuchos again). I've realized that it takes forever to do something with that group, but I'm learning to be much more flexible and patient. Now I'm exhausted, though, because I took a dramamine before surfing so I wouldn't get seasick.

Day 36

It was such a wonderful, exhausting day. It started with Spanish class in San Isidro, and then I walked to the school where Eden works and sat in on her class for about 45 minutes, until I needed to receive instructions on being a science fair judge. I took about an hour to judge 9 projects, and it was really fun -- brought back a lot of science fair memories. Then I went with Eden and her roommates back to her house to hang out before walking to the Blocks' house, maybe 6 or 7 blocks away (both are in the district of Magdalena). She and her roommates are thinking about renting their house while the Block family is in the United States for a year. After that, Eden and I met Nadia at her house and chatted for a while with her and her sisters before leaving to get gelato. I got coconut and brownie -- que rico! Then we walked around for a while and walked over to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The wind coming off the ocean made it a little chilly and reminded me a lot of San Diego. It was just such a perfect moment, and we had so much fun talking and hanging out with Nadia and her sister Cynthia (and I understood almost everything!) The picture is on the way home, and we were walking on a bike path in the middle of Salaverry.

Day 35

This is the English class, with David Block teaching. It's basic English, and we consistently have between 5 and 8 people. I started my second month of Spanish class this morning, and so far, so good. The professor seems nice, but no one from last month is in the same room with me. Then I came home, took a nap, went to the grocery store, and ate lunch while watching The Office. I met David at the bus stop to go to El Alfarero (the church where we teach). The English classes were pretty eventful, and we waited afterward for Kay (David's wife) to finish teaching a class so we could all drive together. That drive was the most exciting part of my day. David got pulled over by a policeman (who are well-known for accepting bribery) and the cop accused him of talking on a cell phone while driving, which he hadn't done. There was a heated argument in Spanish, and while I sat in the back row, I prayed that the situation would be resolved. After about five minutes of arguing and pulling out documents, the officer handed the papers back and told him to be careful, to not talk on the cell phone, and didn't give him a ticket. It was amazing (and quite the cultural experience for me, as David remarked). After that excitement, David, Kay and I stopped at a Chifa restaurant for dinner (what is with eating dinner at 10 pm?!). It was delicious. Apparently, the key to Chifa restaurants here is not to know exactly what's on the menus, but to ask the waiter for something sweet and for something salty. When I got home, I had a lovely chat with my grandma over Skype and now I really should get some sleep.

Day 34

There are pigeons everywhere in downtown, and when people feed them, they flock. This is outside the Monasterio de San Francisco near the center of Lima, where I went with Elsa today. We took a tour (in Spanish) throughout the church and into the catacombs underneath. There were an estimated 70,000 burials there, I think, and the creepiest part was not the tons of bones piled in crypts. The creepiest part was that the people who conserved the catacombs had found the bones in disarray but chose to arrange the femurs and skulls in circles. (We weren't allowed to take pictures, though...) We went to lunch at Pardo's chicken near the Plaza de Armas, and I tried anticuchos (cow heart on a shishkabob) for the first time -- quite tasty. Elsa was very encouraging in our discussion. And she's very entertaining. When we were riding up the elevator, I thanked her for taking me, and she was like, "Now you've met the dead of Lima!" We came home and I watched most of the Ecuador/Paraguay World Cup qualifier game before going to Bible study with the gringas again. It was an interesting discussion about how we should pray and how God speaks to you. My second month of Spanish class starts tomorrow morning.

Day 33

This was part of a surprise 25th wedding anniversary ("bodas de plata") celebration for Emilio and Gladys. They're part of the Blocks' church (El Alfarero), and the pastor Oscar performed a ceremony of remaking their vows. It was so sweet to see a Christian Peruvian family gather around the couple in a celebration. Before that, I had spent a quiet morning at home and then went to Starbucks for a while, visited Eden at work, and then went to lunch with three girls from the church. Two of them are Peruvian but speak very good English, and the other is an MK and speaks both, too. But they spent lunch at Casa de Empanadas speakng in Spanish, which was fine because I can't learn it if I don't hear it, but I also feel like they can't see that I have a personality because I can't even participate in conversation. But I feel bad making them speak to me in English because I'm the one coming into their world. It was a little frustrating, but the Blocks were encouraging to me, telling me that I need to be much more patient with myself. We had our English classes tonight, which went well, and then I went with Kay and Dave to the anniversary party. It's awesome that I get to have so many cultural experiences while I'm here! But we did have the late night meal again (like 10:15), which was delicious, but I didn't really have room in my stomach for it.

Day 32

Yes, that is Nadia eating hot dogs on French fries. I decided to just have a beverage at this restaurant. The started off well, with me sleeping in till about 10 a.m. (I didn't realize how tired I was). There's a guy that's building a closet for Meredith, and then Sonia comes every Monday, so while people were working, Elsa and I had a nice little chat in the living room while drinking coffee. Then it seemed like the afternoon came really quickly, and I went to a missionary meeting at the Panaggios' house. We just talked and snacked for a few hours. It was a little boring because I didn't know all the people they were talking about or any of the context, but it's really cool to see these long-term missionaries interact and share. It was a very interesting glimpse into missionary life because they've all been here at least 8 or 10 years and are very settled into their lives. Afterward, I rushed to the cine to watch a movie ("Boy in the Striped Pyjamas") with the universitarios group. It was an extremely sad/depressing film. And then we ended the night surrounded by a lot of grease at a nearby restaurant.