Exploring the City

One thing before I begin this post: I forgot to mention that I toured my university the other day and there were DEER just roaming around on the campus. Adorable.
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Yesterday I walked around Lima and went to the very modern and very touristy area called Miraflores. Stunning. I went to Larcomar, an outdoor mall overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Even more stunning. After that, I walked for what seemed like miles up Avenida Larco in Miraflores, a main street in the district, and found a restaurant called Manolo. I walked in and was instantly guided (almost physically) by the server, a 50ish year old woman named Marina. She was very nice and helped me decide what to order. She pushed ceviche on me, but I didn't want to try it in that restaurant because I wasn't sure of their refrigeration capacities and didn't want to get sick! Thus, we settled on a chicken breast with potatoes and a Coca-Cola. Delicious. I had a similar meal when I was in Madrid over Winter Break, but the Spanish version had absolutely no flavor. The Peruvian dish was bursting with it. I also tried a delicious hot sauce called aji (a-hee), which was not very spicy, but it gave the food a nice little kick and more flavor.

After eating a churro for dessert, I walked up the avenue and found a place called Saga, which was basically a Macy's. I went inside and looked around, finding lots of American and European brands like Tommy Hilfiger and the United Colors of Bennetton. It's a nice place.

After about an hour or so perusing Saga, I left and continued my journey in Miraflores, stopping in Parque Kennedy, a famous park in Lima, which I found to be decent. Apparently there are special events that happen on the weekends, so I may have to go back to see more activity.

Upon returning home, I talked with my host mother about how my day went. She asked me if my first taxi-taking experience went well, and I told her it did. The man who drove me to the mall was very nice and even gave me his cell phone number for future rides if I ever needed a ride home. On the way home, two taxi drivers tried to rip me off, saying the price was 10-11 soles (about 4 dollars) for a ride home, which is far too expensive, even with the currency difference. I told them both to go on and found one who gave me a ride home for 8 soles (about $2.83).

After our conversation, I went to Wong, a Wal-Mart type place and purchased some school supplies and then headed home, where I proceeded to spend over 3.5 hours speaking with my host sister about an array of topics, including love, life, ferrets, family, Spanish phonetics, vocabulary words, her time in Australia, the future, pets, accents, the difference between girls from the US and other women in general, and the food in Spain. Those are just some of the topics. It was great! The best part is that my host sister corrected me whenever I made a mistake while speaking, which was nice, but she also gives me time to see if I catch the mistake by myself, which I normally do. My host family is wonderful and very accommodating - they've actually helped make the transition here a lot easier.

Now, I bid you farewell as I try to go running...though the task has managed to elude me for the past couple of days. ;)