On Monday, August 18th I had my first day of class at La Catolica. The entire week we were able to "probar"(sample) which ever classes we wanted and by Friday had to hand in our final classes to the international office. All of this sounds pretty simple but FALSE last week was awful. I probably went to 10 different classes, some I couldn't understand the professors, some I couldn't understand the content, and others had debates and oral final exams which I want nothing to do with. Everyday I came home more frustrated than the day before and had to spend hours online making up new schedules knowing that next day I would most likely have to change everything again. By Thursday night I thought I had my schedule all set when I got an email from the international office saying that we were not guaranteed any of these classes and we had to attend a mandatory matriculation on Monday. On Monday I got up really early to be at the matriculation an hour early because it was on a first come, first serve basis. They never told us how many spots were available in the classes, how many international students would be in each class or really anything other than to just show up on Monday. Everyone, me included, was really worried we wouldn't get the classes we wanted. I ended up getting the classes that I wanted; Spanish Linguistics, Contemporary Spanish Literature, and Peruvian History. My schedule is terrible though; three days of the week I have one morning class and the other two I have one class in the morning and one at night. I'm going to have to go back and forth to Catolica a lot more than I had planned and now I won’t be able to travel so much on the weekends. Hopefully though all of these classes will transfer back to Madison and I will only have a few classes left for my major when I get back. We don’t need to buy a lot of books for classes here because most things are photocopied. There is a photocopy location in each faculty and you have to go buy the copies for class. It’s kind of like a course packet at UW except not bound. It’s really cheap though, it cost me 13/$4 soles for all the info for my literature class and it’s probably a couple hundred pages. For that class I did have to buy the book "Cien anos de soledad" which cost about 30 soles/$10.
Culture note: People here don’t wait in "line" here. There is no such thing as a line, getting the photo copies was really hard because people just yell over you what they need and just bunch up around the counter.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Hanging around Lima
The last few days i have just been exploring Lima. I had to go to La Catolica for a few hours of boring orientation but i met a group of people who live 4 blocks from me so we have been hanging out. One of the girls is from Milwaukee, two from Germany and two from Spain. Its nice because they almost always speak in spanish because the two people from Spain dont speak english. As nice as it is, it is also equally exhausting to constantly be thinking about what people are saying and thinking about what to say back. I invented a new game i all "Combi Surfing" to play on the buses around Lima (buses are refered to as combi or micro pronounced combee and meekro). So basically in this game all you have to do it stand in the isle of the combi without holding onto anything and see how long you can go before you have to grab something for support. Usually the game lasts only about 10 seconds tops!
On Thursday I went to a female safety orientation at La Catolica. It was a lot more helpful and a lot less boring that I thought it was going to be. Plus, i met up with my friends there too (my phone STILL doens't work). We ate lunch at a place called Larco Mar which is a mall that is dug into the side of the cliff that goes down to the ocean and on top of it is a roof. They made it that way because they didn't want to ruin the view of the ocean. It's a really awesome idea, if you drove by on the street you would have no idea that they was a mall underground. We walked about 20 mintues to an artisan market in Miraflores which sells all kinda of hand made goods for pretty cheap. I really want to buy some peruvian paintings while i'm here.
Today (Friday) I have to go back to Metro for the third time to see if they can fix my phone. Also, i'm going to this HUGE orphanage that is 4 blocks from my house to see if Kat and I can volunteer there. I am such the typical american in that I cant be doing a million things at once. I have been pretty bored all week since I dont have a phone to meet up with my friends and my roommates all have class/work. Hopefully next week will be more fun since school starts and hopefully I will start volunteering.
Notes on Culture:
Everyone here kisses on one cheek when you great them, but people from spain kiss on two which sometimes leads to awkwardness.
It is very hard for spanish speakers to pronounce my name because they dont have the "sh" sound in spanish. They also cant pronounce the first A the way we do and they say "ahh" like what you say at the dentist. Maybe i'll change my name while i'm here to something spanish like people do when they come to the states, that would be funny!
Answers from the last post:
Lima is right on the coast so it is at sea level but if you take an hour or so bus ride east you will be in the Andes around 4,000 meters/13,000 feet (about the altitude I went skydiving from). Madison is at 250-300 meters altitude.
The temperature here right now is around 66 degrees everyday. I saw the sun for the first time yesterday, it was out for a few hours. Its really cloudy most days and a little windy so i have been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
The Nazca lines are in Nazca, Peru which is about a 6 hour bus ride south of lima.
On Thursday I went to a female safety orientation at La Catolica. It was a lot more helpful and a lot less boring that I thought it was going to be. Plus, i met up with my friends there too (my phone STILL doens't work). We ate lunch at a place called Larco Mar which is a mall that is dug into the side of the cliff that goes down to the ocean and on top of it is a roof. They made it that way because they didn't want to ruin the view of the ocean. It's a really awesome idea, if you drove by on the street you would have no idea that they was a mall underground. We walked about 20 mintues to an artisan market in Miraflores which sells all kinda of hand made goods for pretty cheap. I really want to buy some peruvian paintings while i'm here.
Today (Friday) I have to go back to Metro for the third time to see if they can fix my phone. Also, i'm going to this HUGE orphanage that is 4 blocks from my house to see if Kat and I can volunteer there. I am such the typical american in that I cant be doing a million things at once. I have been pretty bored all week since I dont have a phone to meet up with my friends and my roommates all have class/work. Hopefully next week will be more fun since school starts and hopefully I will start volunteering.
Notes on Culture:
Everyone here kisses on one cheek when you great them, but people from spain kiss on two which sometimes leads to awkwardness.
It is very hard for spanish speakers to pronounce my name because they dont have the "sh" sound in spanish. They also cant pronounce the first A the way we do and they say "ahh" like what you say at the dentist. Maybe i'll change my name while i'm here to something spanish like people do when they come to the states, that would be funny!
Answers from the last post:
Lima is right on the coast so it is at sea level but if you take an hour or so bus ride east you will be in the Andes around 4,000 meters/13,000 feet (about the altitude I went skydiving from). Madison is at 250-300 meters altitude.
The temperature here right now is around 66 degrees everyday. I saw the sun for the first time yesterday, it was out for a few hours. Its really cloudy most days and a little windy so i have been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
The Nazca lines are in Nazca, Peru which is about a 6 hour bus ride south of lima.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Weekend and School
Saturday night some of my roommates and I went out to the discos. Ceci (daughter) was nice to show us around. We went to Miraflores to a place called Calle de los pizzas (street of pizza) because all there is on the street is like 20 Italian pizza/pasta place and some discos (clubs). Outside of the pizza places they have workers yelling at you to come into their pizza place. The disco we went to was pretty small but met up with some girls who lived in my house 3 weeks ago. I learned some new Latin dance moves, people here are SO good at dancing. I know I look like an idiot but its still fun. They discos are blasting really loud Latin music with strobe lights and smoke etc. Normally it’s hard to understand people in clubs like this, but trying to understand Spanish was a very interesting task. I epically failed at conversation inside of the club and would just make up answers whenever someone would talk to me- I just assumed the usual questions. 1) Where are you from, 2) what are you doing here, 3) how long are you here, 4) when did you get here. We were all pretty tried from the day so we decided to head home around 2 which is very early in Peru; most people stay out until 4 or 5am.
Sunday I did nothing. We all just relaxed, hung around. Enrique took us for a drive around Miraflores and San Isidro. We saw some cute parks I want to go back to, one has the Nazca lines made in flowers with lights that are on in the night time.
Monday I had a useless orientation at La Catolica. It was 30 min long and was the same information that we received in an email a week ago. Trevor arrived from Virginia and I took him for a walk around Magdalena, San Isidro and Miraflores. We went to that park w/ the Nazca Line and it was really cool. The other boy from Virginia missed his flight and will be here on Tuesday. Kat introduced me to some of her friends from Holy Cross that are in her group here, we all went to a market in Magdalena. They have everything from clothes to household items and food. One section had just meets that were sitting out at room temperature all day. Whole chickens with their heads and feet still on them. It was the worst smell I have ever smelled in my whole life, at one point I was very close to puking. I wanted to plan a trip for this weekend to go up north but no one is able to go with me so I think I’ll be spending the rest of the week in Lima.
Sunday I did nothing. We all just relaxed, hung around. Enrique took us for a drive around Miraflores and San Isidro. We saw some cute parks I want to go back to, one has the Nazca lines made in flowers with lights that are on in the night time.
Monday I had a useless orientation at La Catolica. It was 30 min long and was the same information that we received in an email a week ago. Trevor arrived from Virginia and I took him for a walk around Magdalena, San Isidro and Miraflores. We went to that park w/ the Nazca Line and it was really cool. The other boy from Virginia missed his flight and will be here on Tuesday. Kat introduced me to some of her friends from Holy Cross that are in her group here, we all went to a market in Magdalena. They have everything from clothes to household items and food. One section had just meets that were sitting out at room temperature all day. Whole chickens with their heads and feet still on them. It was the worst smell I have ever smelled in my whole life, at one point I was very close to puking. I wanted to plan a trip for this weekend to go up north but no one is able to go with me so I think I’ll be spending the rest of the week in Lima.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Answers
So some people posted questions so here are a few answers:
The knit coverings are i think to keep bugs out but there really aren't too many bugs here so i dont really know.
The turtles are pets of the daughter.
Its very overwhelming to be here. Its like an overload of everything. Lima is a huge city so lots of noise and action all the time. I have been just dead tired at the end of every day because i have to concentrate a lot more on what people are saying, where i'm going, what i'm doing and look out for my safety. I can't just go on auto pilot, ever.
We have a housekeeper who cleans my room everyday so i cant ever make a mess, she makes us food and gets us anything we need. Its pretty cool but i often feel bad and ask if I can help with anything but they never let me.
The knit coverings are i think to keep bugs out but there really aren't too many bugs here so i dont really know.
The turtles are pets of the daughter.
Its very overwhelming to be here. Its like an overload of everything. Lima is a huge city so lots of noise and action all the time. I have been just dead tired at the end of every day because i have to concentrate a lot more on what people are saying, where i'm going, what i'm doing and look out for my safety. I can't just go on auto pilot, ever.
We have a housekeeper who cleans my room everyday so i cant ever make a mess, she makes us food and gets us anything we need. Its pretty cool but i often feel bad and ask if I can help with anything but they never let me.
Paracas
I talked to this guy Nic who is another student in my program from Madison. We decided on Wednesday night that we would meet up at La Catolica on Thursday morning and plan a weekend trip. Kat showed me how to get to La Catolica by bus on Wednesday morning because she had a Spanish class all week. It’s about a 5-10 min walk to the bus from my house and the bus takes about 15, costs 1 sole and drops us off right in front of the main gate at La Catolica. The school is completely surrounded by a huge cement wall like a lot of the houses. You have to have a student ID card to get onto school ground. I explored the campus for a while; it’s really pretty and big. There are all kinds of art sculptures and statues on the lawn and tons of deer just walking around. I met up with Nic and we went to the international office because he was put into a bad host family situation and wanted to get out of it. They found him another house right away so we moved his bags there and ate lunch with his new family.
Almost every meal we have some sort of chicken and rice dish. The food here is so amazing! There are so many things I have never tried before but all of it has been awesome. All of the juice is freshly prepared and probably the best thing I have ever tasted. We have pineapple, strawberry, and even juice made from black corn. The corn juice is made with a little bit of lemon and sugar, it is a very dark purple naturally and is just delicious! Another interesting food I had came wrapped in a corn husk, and was a cream colored paste. At first I thought it was going to be gross because it looked like oatmeal but it was a desert and had a caramel sauce in the middle.
Nic and I packed up our backpacks and headed to the train station with intentions to go to Pisco for the weekend. The bus cost 20 soles (not even $10) for a 3.5 hour ride down the Pan-American Highway. On the bus we drove by some of the worst poverty I have ever seen. Outside of Lima all along the coast are neighborhoods of "houses" made of random boards, paper, and woven together palm tree leaves etc. It was really sad to look at these places and try to imagine the people who have to live their whole lives like that. The bus dropped us off on the side of the highway and we had to find a way into Pisco. There was a taxi waiting there so we negotiated a price of 7 soles to take us to Pisco, which was for sure a rip off but we really didn’t have any other option other than walking. The taxi driver was really nice and suggested we go to Paracas (20 min away) because Pisco was more dangerous at night.
We took his advice and went to Paracas, found a tour agency and signed up for the morning tour of Las Islas Ballestas and an afternoon tour of a national park. The cost for both tours together was under $20. There was a hostel close by that we got a room at for under $15 each, got settled in and went out to tour Paracas.There wasn't much to see there because the whole area had been destroyed by an earthquake on Aug 15th, 2007. Paracas wasn't much nicer than the shack towns we had driven by. The only thing that keeps that city going is tourism. In the 10 small blocks that are the city 5 hostels can be found, 5 "nice" restaurants and numerous tourist agencies. There are stray dogs everywhere that just eat trash. They were breads I have never seen before, some were really cute but others were just scary and ugly. We saw a group of men carrier roosters that they had just been cockfighting. Those roosters kept me up all night because they were too retarded to know when it was morning.
In the morning we woke up at 6:30am, went and got a little food and met to take at 8am tour of the islands. By 8am all kinds of little stores were set up on the beach selling Peruvian goods. There was about 100 people waiting to take the 8am tour which was a lot more than we expected, naturally everything was very chaotic but we finally got on a boat with about 20 people. First they showed us part of the peninsula that has an ancient drawing of a cactus or something on it similar to the Nazca lines. There were all kinds of cool birds lining the cliffs on the coast. Then we went 11km out in the pacific to the islands. They had beautiful arches that the wind and water had carved out. The islands are known for their supply of guano which is the poop of one of Peru’s native birds. The guano is collected and sold as a very popular fertilizer. There is such high demand for guano that they have to regulate the collecting of it because the supply that has been building up for centuries is getting low and the population of birds is getting lower. It smelled like poop too. We also saw sea lions and dolphins swimming around. The tour was about 2 hours then we went back into shore.
We had an hour to kill between tours so we shopped around the tiendas (stores) at the market and bought some little things. We took a bus at 11:00am out to the national park about 30 min away. It was the desert, like everything in this area so it really wasn't that cool. The bus took us around to a couple interesting stops though. We saw flamingos, small lizards and some huge cliffs to the ocean. They had red sand beaches in some parts because the area is really rich in minerals like iron. Driving through the desert there were groups of animal bones everywhere. There was this place called "La Catedral" which was a cool arch carved out by the wind and sea but it was destroyed by the earthquake so we saw where it used to be. We stopped for an hour at a place w/ two restaurants in the park that of course were extremely over priced. I had a beer and some seafood/Chinese/rice/something. It was pretty good. Nic had fried fish with some attempt at French fries. The ketchup they have is was NOT ketchup but just some red liquid paste stuff that tasted horrible. The restaurants were cool though because they were right on the ocean, literally the waves came right up on these rocks the tables were sitting on. There was an otter and some pelicans playing in the water that we watched the whole time. We also met two cool guys from Italy, there was a huge language barrier but we went exploring around with them for a while.
After the park the bus took us back to Paracas and we were planning to go get a bus to Nazca that night. We took a taxi, and by taxi mean a random car driven by a friend of the tour guide to the Pan-American Highway. There was tons of people just waiting a long the highway for a bus to come, a few people would get off and everyone would try to push onto the bus. It was going to take forever, and it was getting dark so we crossed the road and got a ticked to go to Lima instead. Why they sell actual tickets to Lima and not to Nazca I have no idea. The bus rides are very scary. There are no rules on the roads of Peru. These coach busses would pass other busses, tucks and cars, usually numerous at a time. Once we passed two buses and a car, very scary. Also people flash their brights at other drivers like it’s their job so many of the drivers are probably blind to begin with. We got back to Lima and took a cab back to our houses and I was tried and went to bed.
Almost every meal we have some sort of chicken and rice dish. The food here is so amazing! There are so many things I have never tried before but all of it has been awesome. All of the juice is freshly prepared and probably the best thing I have ever tasted. We have pineapple, strawberry, and even juice made from black corn. The corn juice is made with a little bit of lemon and sugar, it is a very dark purple naturally and is just delicious! Another interesting food I had came wrapped in a corn husk, and was a cream colored paste. At first I thought it was going to be gross because it looked like oatmeal but it was a desert and had a caramel sauce in the middle.
Nic and I packed up our backpacks and headed to the train station with intentions to go to Pisco for the weekend. The bus cost 20 soles (not even $10) for a 3.5 hour ride down the Pan-American Highway. On the bus we drove by some of the worst poverty I have ever seen. Outside of Lima all along the coast are neighborhoods of "houses" made of random boards, paper, and woven together palm tree leaves etc. It was really sad to look at these places and try to imagine the people who have to live their whole lives like that. The bus dropped us off on the side of the highway and we had to find a way into Pisco. There was a taxi waiting there so we negotiated a price of 7 soles to take us to Pisco, which was for sure a rip off but we really didn’t have any other option other than walking. The taxi driver was really nice and suggested we go to Paracas (20 min away) because Pisco was more dangerous at night.
We took his advice and went to Paracas, found a tour agency and signed up for the morning tour of Las Islas Ballestas and an afternoon tour of a national park. The cost for both tours together was under $20. There was a hostel close by that we got a room at for under $15 each, got settled in and went out to tour Paracas.There wasn't much to see there because the whole area had been destroyed by an earthquake on Aug 15th, 2007. Paracas wasn't much nicer than the shack towns we had driven by. The only thing that keeps that city going is tourism. In the 10 small blocks that are the city 5 hostels can be found, 5 "nice" restaurants and numerous tourist agencies. There are stray dogs everywhere that just eat trash. They were breads I have never seen before, some were really cute but others were just scary and ugly. We saw a group of men carrier roosters that they had just been cockfighting. Those roosters kept me up all night because they were too retarded to know when it was morning.
In the morning we woke up at 6:30am, went and got a little food and met to take at 8am tour of the islands. By 8am all kinds of little stores were set up on the beach selling Peruvian goods. There was about 100 people waiting to take the 8am tour which was a lot more than we expected, naturally everything was very chaotic but we finally got on a boat with about 20 people. First they showed us part of the peninsula that has an ancient drawing of a cactus or something on it similar to the Nazca lines. There were all kinds of cool birds lining the cliffs on the coast. Then we went 11km out in the pacific to the islands. They had beautiful arches that the wind and water had carved out. The islands are known for their supply of guano which is the poop of one of Peru’s native birds. The guano is collected and sold as a very popular fertilizer. There is such high demand for guano that they have to regulate the collecting of it because the supply that has been building up for centuries is getting low and the population of birds is getting lower. It smelled like poop too. We also saw sea lions and dolphins swimming around. The tour was about 2 hours then we went back into shore.
We had an hour to kill between tours so we shopped around the tiendas (stores) at the market and bought some little things. We took a bus at 11:00am out to the national park about 30 min away. It was the desert, like everything in this area so it really wasn't that cool. The bus took us around to a couple interesting stops though. We saw flamingos, small lizards and some huge cliffs to the ocean. They had red sand beaches in some parts because the area is really rich in minerals like iron. Driving through the desert there were groups of animal bones everywhere. There was this place called "La Catedral" which was a cool arch carved out by the wind and sea but it was destroyed by the earthquake so we saw where it used to be. We stopped for an hour at a place w/ two restaurants in the park that of course were extremely over priced. I had a beer and some seafood/Chinese/rice/something. It was pretty good. Nic had fried fish with some attempt at French fries. The ketchup they have is was NOT ketchup but just some red liquid paste stuff that tasted horrible. The restaurants were cool though because they were right on the ocean, literally the waves came right up on these rocks the tables were sitting on. There was an otter and some pelicans playing in the water that we watched the whole time. We also met two cool guys from Italy, there was a huge language barrier but we went exploring around with them for a while.
After the park the bus took us back to Paracas and we were planning to go get a bus to Nazca that night. We took a taxi, and by taxi mean a random car driven by a friend of the tour guide to the Pan-American Highway. There was tons of people just waiting a long the highway for a bus to come, a few people would get off and everyone would try to push onto the bus. It was going to take forever, and it was getting dark so we crossed the road and got a ticked to go to Lima instead. Why they sell actual tickets to Lima and not to Nazca I have no idea. The bus rides are very scary. There are no rules on the roads of Peru. These coach busses would pass other busses, tucks and cars, usually numerous at a time. Once we passed two buses and a car, very scary. Also people flash their brights at other drivers like it’s their job so many of the drivers are probably blind to begin with. We got back to Lima and took a cab back to our houses and I was tried and went to bed.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
La Casa
I woke up today, Wednesday Aug 6th, at 8:45. Cecilia had breakfast all made for me for when i came downstairs. I ate bread w/ jelly, this really good juice which i'm not sure what kind it was, tea, and cereal. She had all the bowls and plates covered with these cute knit things. In the courtyard they have two big snapping turtles which we fed bananas.
The house is a lot bigger than i expected. There is a cement wall probably 12 feet high with a door that leads to a front yard area. Then you go into the main house; to the right is the livingroom, dining room kitchen and courtyard; and to the left is the stairs. My bedroom is the first one up the stairs to the right, Cecilia (the daughter, not mother, both have same name) is to the left, and Cecilia (mother) is straight. There is also another exchange student living in the house who i have not met yet. She is from boston i want to say. Cecilia made it a big point though that english is not permitted in the house.
I'm not sure what i'm going to do the rest of the day. After lunch Cecilia and i are going to go shopping for a cell phone and some shampoo etc.
___________________________________________________
I met Kat the other girl who is staying with us. Also we got a another girl who is living here from brazil.
Wednesday night Cecilia and Enrique took Kat and I on a ride through the old part of the city. All the buildings here lit up (it gets dark at 6:30) and everything was really pretty.
The house is a lot bigger than i expected. There is a cement wall probably 12 feet high with a door that leads to a front yard area. Then you go into the main house; to the right is the livingroom, dining room kitchen and courtyard; and to the left is the stairs. My bedroom is the first one up the stairs to the right, Cecilia (the daughter, not mother, both have same name) is to the left, and Cecilia (mother) is straight. There is also another exchange student living in the house who i have not met yet. She is from boston i want to say. Cecilia made it a big point though that english is not permitted in the house.
I'm not sure what i'm going to do the rest of the day. After lunch Cecilia and i are going to go shopping for a cell phone and some shampoo etc.
___________________________________________________
I met Kat the other girl who is staying with us. Also we got a another girl who is living here from brazil.
Wednesday night Cecilia and Enrique took Kat and I on a ride through the old part of the city. All the buildings here lit up (it gets dark at 6:30) and everything was really pretty.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Getting to Lima... almost
Monday Aug 4th 2008
7:10am- My mom, dad and I left for the airport in chicago
9:45 am- We find out there are major delays due to weather and my flight which was supposed to leave at 12:05 is on at least a two hour delay. I get bumped up to an earlier flight that is delayed only until 12:30 so i can make my 3:55 flight from Houston to lima.
12:30pm- Board my flight to Houston
1:45pm- We finally head to the runway after sitting in the plane for over an hour because of technical problems. We are informed that the flight time will be 2 hours and 7 minutes which would get us into Houston at 3:52 (3 min before my other plane leaves)
3:52pm- We land, i sprint up the plane before the seatbelt sign is turned off and sprint down the airport.
4:01pm- I find out they just closed the airplane door to lima so i have to stay the night in Houston.
4:15pm- I get food and hotel vouchers to spend the night. I had to figure out how to call Cecilia to tell her i missed my flight. I talked to her husband Eduardo and attemped to tell them I'd be there at the same time on tuesday. Hopefully we understood each other.
5:30pm- I have to wait outside in 97 degree weather to get a shuttle to Hilton North Houston
6:30pm- I get into my hotel room, turn on the TV and find out i probably wont be on a flight on tuesday because of Tropical Storm Edouard.
Day One= Epic Fail
Tuesday Aug 5th 2008
9:00am- I woke up, started to track the weather which isn't looking good for the day. There are 50+ mph wind gusts. It is being predicted that the storm will continue into wednesday.
12:00pm- Left for the airport. I dont know what the big deal about this tropical storm was it was just raining pretty much all day.
3:00pm- Met a guy name Guillermo at the airport who is from Lima and told me some do's and dont's of the city.
4:45pm- Out flight was delayed and we finally started boarding the plane.
11:45pm- We land. Immigracion and customs went fine and i got my baggage right away. There were about 500 people waiting outside the airport behind these fences with signs looking for different people but i found Cecilia and Enrique right away. It is about a 20-30 min car ride from the airport.
1:45am- Finally went to bed.
7:10am- My mom, dad and I left for the airport in chicago
9:45 am- We find out there are major delays due to weather and my flight which was supposed to leave at 12:05 is on at least a two hour delay. I get bumped up to an earlier flight that is delayed only until 12:30 so i can make my 3:55 flight from Houston to lima.
12:30pm- Board my flight to Houston
1:45pm- We finally head to the runway after sitting in the plane for over an hour because of technical problems. We are informed that the flight time will be 2 hours and 7 minutes which would get us into Houston at 3:52 (3 min before my other plane leaves)
3:52pm- We land, i sprint up the plane before the seatbelt sign is turned off and sprint down the airport.
4:01pm- I find out they just closed the airplane door to lima so i have to stay the night in Houston.
4:15pm- I get food and hotel vouchers to spend the night. I had to figure out how to call Cecilia to tell her i missed my flight. I talked to her husband Eduardo and attemped to tell them I'd be there at the same time on tuesday. Hopefully we understood each other.
5:30pm- I have to wait outside in 97 degree weather to get a shuttle to Hilton North Houston
6:30pm- I get into my hotel room, turn on the TV and find out i probably wont be on a flight on tuesday because of Tropical Storm Edouard.
Day One= Epic Fail
Tuesday Aug 5th 2008
9:00am- I woke up, started to track the weather which isn't looking good for the day. There are 50+ mph wind gusts. It is being predicted that the storm will continue into wednesday.
12:00pm- Left for the airport. I dont know what the big deal about this tropical storm was it was just raining pretty much all day.
3:00pm- Met a guy name Guillermo at the airport who is from Lima and told me some do's and dont's of the city.
4:45pm- Out flight was delayed and we finally started boarding the plane.
11:45pm- We land. Immigracion and customs went fine and i got my baggage right away. There were about 500 people waiting outside the airport behind these fences with signs looking for different people but i found Cecilia and Enrique right away. It is about a 20-30 min car ride from the airport.
1:45am- Finally went to bed.
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