Un día libre

Okay, so I guess I would say that I missed out on Lima today; however, the upside is that I didn't miss out on my host mom.  Since I didn't have class today I slept in a little bit and took my time get ready.  I then did some homework for my Living and Learning class.  I had to come up with three to five goals for the semester.  It was actually kind of difficult to come up with goals apart from improving my language skills, but I did it and I hope to meet those goals by the end of the semester.

I then sat down for an early lunch with my host mom.  It was funny, she said "Today, we're eating like gringos" because we were eating so early.  It made me laugh because it's so true.  Peruvian lunch is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. and today we ate at 12 p.m.  We definitely were eating like gringos. :)  I had a wonderful and long conversation with her.  We talked about different foods and everything that I like here so far and sometime next week (or in the coming semester) our empleada is going to teach me to cook the things I really like.  I blurted out "lomo saltado!"  Be ready Roseville and Kenosha, when I get back you'll be eating like Peruvians. :)  I also tried a fruit called a pepino.  It is a type of melon and it tastes a lot like other melons, except less crunchy.  It's soft and very water-y.

It was pretty good, but I'm not a melon fan so I'll stick with my piña y lúcuma, but if you like melon you would love the pepino.  After lunch she also got out three of her photo albums and we looked through all of them and she told me stories.  I got to see pictures of her kids growing up and everywhere she's been.  She has traveled a ton, it's very interesting and made me envious of me.  She's been to Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, France, Germany, Spain, New York, and I'm sure many other places that I have forgotten.  It was fun to here some of her travels and I also was able to tell her the places that I would like to go in Perú y en el mundo (and in the world).  I also got to meet her son (who lives in France) briefly on skype.

After lunch, her and I both got to "work."  I think she probably did more work than I did.  I have a huge packet to read for Comunicación Social, but I am still not even halfway through.  Oops..it's just so much more fun to listen to music in Spanish or watch TV shows in Spanish.  Plus, I don't even enjoy reading in English, why would I enjoy reading in Spanish?!  So rather than go out and about and avoid reading the packet, I stayed inside and avoided it.  It's kind of a bummer, I was supposed to go to Larcomar (a shopping center in the mountainside two blocks from my house) and to Polvos Azules (the black market center); However, somewhere in the middle of my long lunch I missed some texts and so my friends and I just never met up to go, but maybe next time!  But, I did have a good day regardless of the fact that I didn't leave the house.

One last thing for the day, we got our itinerary for our Cusco/Machu Picchu trip.  I am very excited!!  We leave early on Thursday morning and will be getting back on Sunday afternoon.  It's going to be a great weekend.  We are going on a tour of Valle Sagrado (a sacred Incan valley in the Andes) and to Aguas Calientes (the town closest to Machu Picchu) and then obviously to Machu Picchu and Cusco.  Buenas noches!