WAHOOOOO!

Today=A GREAT DAY.
I don't really know why. It just felt good to be here and I understood a lot more and I did some really fun things! :)
This morning, my family's parrot, Camila, was making SO much noise! She can talk but really only says "Hola". Its cute at first and really funny but when you hear it 20 billion times at 6 in the morning, it gets old. Fast. But that was ok because I got up and just kind of lazed around for awhile. I am definitely enjoying the slower pace... :)
Breakfast was really good today too! I had this cereal that is made in Peru called Kwincha Pop (or something similar...I can't exactly remember...) but it was delicious!
After breakfast, I went with Bethany to Parque Kennedy (which is named after JFK!). Its pretty close to our houses (only a 5 min. bus ride away) and around it are lots of shops and restaurants. We went shopping a bit and bought a book that we needed for our history class. I loved looking around the bookstores. Its kind of different because each individual book is wrapped in plastic...it makes me kind of sad because I can't just go and read parts of different books. That is probably my favorite thing about bookstores...but I guess they don't want you doing that here! (David-If you're reading this, I found The Book Thief in SPANISH (El Ladron de los Libros)!!! I think I'm going to buy a copy!!! )
After shopping, we went to a cute little cafe and sat on a table on the sidewalk. It turns out that we both like Hawaiian pizza which made us both very happy since not many people do. :) We had coffee too and just relaxed there for awhile. Its hard to speak Spanish with each other because its so much easier sometimes to just explain something in English...but we're trying to speak only Spanish. More often it ends up being a mix of the two...Spanglish!
It was great to just hang out and talk about what we're thinking/feeling about everything here.
After lunch, we walked around Parque Kennedy for a little while and discovered La Calle de Pizza!! There are TONS of pizza restaurants all in the same street. They are all cute and look very picturesque and Italian. I really want to go there to eat sometime...but how to choose which of the 20 restaurants?!?!
We had to get to school from the park and we couldn't really figure out the bus thing from there because we only really know how to take it from our houses, so Bethany and I took a taxi to school which was really fast! We got to school in about 1/2 the time it normally takes which was kind of nice.
Classes were much better today. I understood so much more and I just felt better about the rest of the semester. Its pretty tiring still to have three hours of class in Spanish, but after class today, I feel like I can do this! Today we had history and ethics classes.
Here's the schedule:
Mon.-Latin American Literature and Culture
Tues.-Latin American History/Contemporary Ethical Issues in Latin America
Weds.-Advanced Oral Communication
Thurs.-Same as Tues.
So. Those are the classes I'm taking. So far, I really like the literature class....I just love analyzing things and finding symbols, etc. :) :) And doing it in Spanish is pretty hard, but twice as rewarding.
The Ethics class is interesting as well. Right now we are taking about corruption in Peruvian government.

After class we had a meeting with the ISA program directors to talk about our weekend trip!! I am super excited for it! We are headed to Ica, Paracas and Nazca!!! I don't know how many people know what the Nazca lines are but they are these shapes (animals, etc.) that are kind of carved into the desert near the town of Nazca. They've been there for a really long time and its kind of a mystery how they got there. There are theories about them being a signal for aliens...but also some more plausible theories as well! ;) You have to fly in a plane to really see them because they are so big.
Paracas is really close to the Ballestas Islands, which is supposed to be like a mini Galapagos and we are taking a boat ride out to them.
In Ica, we are going to a place where we can sandboard, which is basically like snowboarding but on sand dunes!!!
I'm super pumped for this trip. All of the things we're doing seem like so much fun and I'm excited to see a bit more of Peru.
Well, that's about it for today.
Besos!