BBQ

Okay, I'm a day behind on my blog again so I apologize for that, but I'm hoping to catch up tonight.  Yesterday (Saturday) was a pretty relaxing day.  I spent most of the day doing some homework I had, but I would have much rather been doing something outside because the Lima sun decided to come out.  It was beautiful!  It's definitely starting to be kind of Spring-y, which is wonderful because my favorite season is Spring!!

During the evening hours is when my day started to pick up.  One of the girls from my program, Rachel, had her birthday yesterday so I started out the night celebrating with her, her host mom, and her host aunt at her house.  We got to indulge in delicious chocolate cake that her host mom made and Inca Kola (pop that tastes like bubblegum/medicine).  Inca Kola still is not my favorite; however, the cake was amazing!!!  Also, we sang 'Happy Birthday' in English which apparently is pretty standard here and then it's followed by 'Happy Birthday' en español.  We then headed to our usually meeting spot in Parque Kennedy in Miraflores to meet up with everyone in our program as well as our Peruvian friend, Indy.

As Peruvians are, Indy was late, so while we were waiting for her to get there in the traffic, all 12ish of us gringos headed to the nearby Metro (grocery store) to pick up some food for the Peruvian barbeque we were heading to.  We really weren't sure what the standard thing to bring to a barbeque in Perú was, but we went ahead and guessed.  We decided on chips, alcohol, and hamburgers.  I still don't think the hamburgers got cooked, but the other two are definitely good picks, so next time you go to a Peruvian barbeque you'll know what to bring.  I brought Lay's chips and those were gone pretty fast, but fun fact about Lay's..apparently they taste different here.  Personally, I couldn't tell but a lot of my friends said that.  Anyway, more about this barbeque..there were anticuchos!  That's all you need to know.  Anticuchos are pieces of cow heart cooked on kabobs and, although that may sound gross, they were delicious (hence the reason that no hamburgers were cooked).  I also tried Canchitas, which are delicious as well!  They are literally just corn kernels with maybe some salt on them.  They are such a great snack food, like peanuts in the states.  Also, there was grilled zucchini, eggplant, peppers, etc.  It was pretty much exactly what you would expect a barbeque to be like in the states, except add more Peruvians.  Also, we ended the night with some cookie dough cheesecake for Rachel's birthday again and again we sang 'Happy Birthday' twice and again it was delicious!!!!!  Two desserts in one night is perfect!!  Again, Happy Birthday and Feliz Cumpleaños to Rachel!  I'm glad we could help make your day special!