Being here is amazing. I loveeeeeeee this semester. I love Perú, despite frustrating times, which are normal for any study abroader and this experience is only making my desire to work in Latin America grow!!! SO EXCITED ABOUT LIFE RIGHT NOW and all of the possibilities I have with Spanish and this experience :) I'm going to be reallyyyyy sad to say goodbye to South America. I've pretty much decided I'm going to set a long(ish) term goal to go to grad school in Miami.. perfecctttttt. University of Miami.. really excited because I love Temple and I know I'm going to enjoy the rest of my years in Philadelphia with a long term goal of moving south to be closer to the network of Latin American companies and a hub for foreign trade and service..
I've also decided I want to pick up another language.. French.. this opens doors to a few European countries, Quebec, Africa and some middle eastern and carribean countries..... YES. new goal!!
Anyways, Perú... It clicked how much I love some of the food here. and what I'm going to be missing once I get back to the states. This weekend my host mom and grandma bought lunch to bring home new foods from Perú for me to try.. Papa Rellena which is sort of like a baked potatoe with some seasoning on the outside and beef, eggs and olives on the inside. DELICIOUS! and another potatoe that I don't remember the name of, spicy and yellow. delicious. lots of papas in Perú! They also brought home a dessert for me to try called Turron de Doña Pepa. It's a dessert only made in October to celebrate Día de los Milagros which is on December 18th, a catholic holiday. The dessert is really dry and sweet with thick honey in the layers. It was delicious, but reallyyyyy sweet, so I couldn't eat too much at a time.
Other foods I'm going to miss are pan con pollo con papas y ahí.. which is a common chicken sandwhich with potato chips and pepper sauce.. i love the ahí here (the spicy sauce.. my dad would love it, too... souvenier?) I'm going to miss choclo con queso (big corn on the cob, not as sweet as what we have, with fresh cheese), yuca frita (friend yuca potatoes), maracuya (a type of tropical fruit)
fresh fruit juice for breakfast every morning and alfajores de manjar blanco (which is a cakey cookie with caramel filling).. hellooooooo new christmas cookie. Maybe I'll attempt to bake some for christmas for my friends and family to try at home!!! I'm sure they'd be a hit, too.SALSA DANCING IS GOING GREAT! I loveeee my salsa classes and my instructor is so much fun! I think I'm improving and right now I need to work on being able to follow a man's lead better without losing step. But this is new and I'm white, so I'm proud of my progress. We have a dinner at the end of November in a Peruvian restaurant where I guess we can dance too? Because our director mentioned something about trying out what we have learned. I want to bring my salsa back to Philly too and start scoping out salsa scenes. Latin dance is soooo beautiful, soo much fun and so sexy! We are starting salsa classes twice a week, yay!
As for school.. tough going from a long 5 day weekend to getting back into the work load. But this week(end) I am determined to get stuff done so it doesn't all pile up as all the fun things that I'm looking forward to come closer!!
I went for a 2 hour beach trek this morning before salsa, GREAT IDEA.. it was beautiful and I found new things to appreciate because I walked though places I'd never gone.. love Miraflores :)
ALSO I came home from class to a package from Josh!!!! Love mail, this made me smile big. Now I'm waiting on my pumpkin puree to arrive :) geeked!
Also, I loveeeee my host family. I am going to miss them so much. Today my grandma, zaira and I enjoyed a delicious lunch followed by fruit salad and caramel and wine, lovely. And we were laughing a lot at my grandma trying to speak English. She's the best :)
all is wellllll
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