Greetings from Peru

Well, I´m in Peru. And I´m doing the travel blog thing, which makes me feel like a jerkface for becoming another member of the self-centered internet unisphere. Oh well.

Today was my third day in Lima/Peru/South America. And as nervous as I was beforehand, coming here has turned out to be much less scary and sad than moving to Syracuse, NY was (earlier this summer) - and that time I even had my dad with me. Nearly everyone I´ve met here so far has been very warm, welcoming, and sincere - and pleasantly surprised that the American can speak Castellano. It turns out that all those years of bad Spanish classes have paid off. After arriving around 11pm in Lima from Boston, I talked with my taxi driver on the way to the hostel - he´s been a taxi driver for 42 years and told me, "Eres de los Estados Unidos pero hablas español perfectamente..me confundiste." I made friends with the two brothers, Dennis and Erick, who run the hostel I stayed at. Their friendliness and helpfulness certainly made the transition much easier. The next morning - my first full day in Lima - I ate breakfast with a washed up Australian, and we ended up sharing a cab down to Barranco - the quieter, more bohemian district of Lima where I´ve been staying since. note: the driving in Lima is the craziest driving I have ever, ever witnessed or been a part of; not for nervous nellies. it´s the norm for cars to be about six inches away from each other, and from pedestrians. lane markers don´t mean much, and stop signs mean even less.

Everything in Lima is extremely colorful, except for the sky which has been the same shade of gray since I arrived. But the buildings are bright yellows, reds, blues, teals...nothing like any American city I´ve ever seen, except maybe New Orleans. It´s busy busy busy and full of people, people, people, stuff and more STUFF. Everywhere you go, someone´s trying to sell you something: hats, mittens, long underwear, hair brushes, pirated dvds, stove-top knobs and other bits of appliances... I wandered through market area where I was definitely the only gringa around. While I did get some stares, at least I´m not 5¨11¨and blonde, like one girl from the hostel (¨I´m a lighthouse,¨she said). It is sort of nice to be an average height in the general population, for a change.

So many new experiences already, so many new people. I was taken out by the Japanese-Peruvian family of a zumba teacher I met in Maine this summer; they were unbelievably friendly and drove me around the city at night, and then took me to eat anticucho, a typical Peruvian meal that is cow´s heart on a kebab - so much for vegetarianism. The mother of the family, Toshi, has told me to call her when I get to Cusco and get a cell phone, to call her if I have any problems whatsoever, and to call her when I´m back in Lima. Chicha is my favorite drink here, made from the native purple corn. Being by the shore of the Pacific. Coming across the changing of the guard in front of El Palacio del Gobierno, house of President Alan García. I talked for a while with a primary school phys. ed. teacher in Lima Centro, who dóesn´t speak a word of English and has never left Peru. I´ve been staying at a wonderful hostel that´s run by a family in a beautifully converted old home in Barranco, where the daugher Melissa mans the desk most of the time and her parents are in and out. And there have been plenty of other stumblings and bumblings in this new city.