Confusion.

Yesterday was our first day of classes here. We had an Ethics class for one hour. (Its the equivalent of Paideia capstone at Luther...for those of you who know what that is!) After that we had a history class for two hours. It was pretty overwhelming and we all came out of there feeling really tired and a bit confused. Its a really hard to focus for three hours in general...but three hours PLUS having to do it all in Spanish was intense. It will get better little by little but yikes! That was a really really hard day.
I'm kind of glad though that our group is all taking classes together. I think it would be even more overwhelming if I was the only one who didn't know what was going on! :) At least we are all in the same boat.
After classes we went to Metro (which is a kind of Wal-Mart-like store that has pretty much everything you can think of) and we all bought cell phones!! They are pretty cheap here They were about 23$ US. (Which is 69 Nuevo Soles. The exchange rate is about 1$ to 3 Soles right now.) Most of the phones here are the pre-pay kind, so we have to buy minutes as we go. Its going to be nice to have them so we can call our families and call one another.
After getting the whole cell phone thing figured out, we took our the combis to our houses. It was out first time riding them alone and a little scary but a lot of us ride the same one, so it wasn't a huge deal. Combis are these tiny little vans that go pretty much everywhere in the city. They are really cheap to ride (only 1.5o soles...which is about 50 cents!) but they're a little crazy! A guy hangs out of the side of the van, yelling to people where they are headed. They cram a lot of people in and its kind of hard to know when you need to get off or how to tell them you need to get off. The first few times I rode them, I could not figure out what was going on because I had no idea where I was! Now I'm starting to be a bit more familiar with things and I know which block and the street I need to get off and on at. So that is good! :)
Last night, I was so exhausted from classes, etc. and I was feeling pretty homesick, so my host sister and I just watched a movie and then I went to bed kind of early. Its kind of surprising how tired you get just having to concentrate so hard...I have been getting a lot of headaches!!! :)
Anyways, today, I'm not really sure what I am doing but I think my host mom is just going to show me around the neighborhood a bit more.