I made it!! Which I
am sure many of you must already know but I left the big ole state of Nebraska
on Jan 10th to start one of the craziest adventures of my life. I
will be living, studying, sleeping, eating and much more in Peru for the next 4
months. Yes this is by far the craziest thing I have ever done in my life but
as I have been here for 7 whole days, I am more excited than ever that I chose
to do this. Where to begin with my adventure? Well let’s start with the eve of
January 3rd when my wonderful family threw me a surprise going away party. All
of my wonderful friends and family came and helped me celebrate me leaving! (I
don’t know if that s a good thing or bad thing J)
It was by far one of the best nights of my life. I am so blessed with how many
people care about me and believe me I cannot wait to get home and give you a
big hug and a kiss on the cheek!! One of the many things I have to get use to
in Peru! On January 10th, this was going to be the day my life
changed and all I could say was…”Wow I am really doing this.” My wonderful
family and I went down and stayed in Omaha the night before and then my flight was
the next morning at 10. I got to the airport with all my luggage (& yes
surprisingly enough I made the weight limit) and was waiting for the girls I
was flying with to arrive. Missy, another UNK student, arrives and gets checked
in and next thing I know she is telling me that due to crazy NE weather, our
original flight might be delayed but this guy at United Airlines can work his
magic and get us on an earlier flight so I say lets go for it. So needless to
say with some calling, and finding the other 3 girls we all get checked in for
the earlier flight. After a very tearful goodbye to mom, dad, grandma, April,
Liz, and Kate, I am going up the escalator ready for this adventure.. I think .
J
After
traveling on a plane for 14 hours, I am in Lima, Peru! Holy crap I am in South
America!! While going through customs, (with not so happy people working) I get
told my Visa is only good for 90 days and I say WHHHATT?? I have to be here for
4 months which equals 120 days!! All in all, all of us UNK students have to go
and get our Visas fixed for the right amount of days but I was thinking to
myself… Oh my gosh..how am I going to get home? Or leave this country? J My wonderful family of
Victor and Heidi are waiting for me with a sign that said my name! I was more than
relieved to see them. They take me to their car and we drive 30 minutes to my
house/apartment. I am exhausted from traveling all day and fall right asleep.
Within
the next couple days, it’s weird for me when I open my eyes and realize I am
not in my room, or my bed, there is so much commotion outside..Oh yeah I am in
Lima, Peru. My family has been nothing but nice to me but I feel for them
because my Spanish is so broken and bad that I talk Spanglish a lot J. My family consists of
Victor, Heidi, and Andrea who is 8. On Saturday, Heidi told me we were going to
have lunch with Victor’s mom and when we arrived, they are actually housing a
UNK student, Daniel, which was awesome to see! We spent the day at Jockey Plaza
(huge mall) and walking around with his host sister and brother. I met up with
the girls on Sunday and it was so nice being able to talk English again and not
have to rack your brain on what you are going to say next! J Also it was just nice
seeing familiar faces. On Monday we started school at UPC and it is a very nice
college. It is also very secure when we enter which is nice too. I had class
with the UNK professor and other UNK students and I am excited for my classes.
The classes I will be taking are Conversation, Peruvian Lit (Yikes!),
Psychology & Culture, and a Grammer class. Yesterday, the whole group and I
did some exploring and were determined to find the beach. We took a combi (a
little bus thing that will hold way over the amount of people it should J ) to Mira Flores and
walked to the beach. We had lunch together and then did some browsing. It was a
great day and when we returned we were all exhausted and ready to relax. And guess what… today is already Saturday! I
am so lucky to be able to travel to this country with the other wonderful UNK
students. I am already getting to know them so much and they are all great
people. Of course I miss everyone back home so much and sometimes think, what
in the world am I doing? But when I get a message from them or get to hear
their voices, everything is okay.
Some things I’ve learned in Peru:
-Kissing
on the cheek when I greet them! How cool!
- The
mountains are not covered in trees but rather dirt!
-
Bembos is the Peruvian McDonalds J
-
Combis are these crazy small buses that fit so many people in them !
- I
cannot wait to improve my Spanish & continue this adventure
I have been here a
week and it has flown by so I can only imagine how the next 14 weeks are going
to go! Adiós!
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