¿Cuántos días hay en un fin de semana?

Repuesta: ¡Hay cuatro días!
If my schedule works out the way that I hope it will then I will not have classes on Thursday or Friday! That means a four day weekend every week! I am excited for some of my classes. They seem like they will be pretty easy, which is what I want since I will be traveling a lot and I'd rather not worry about my homework. They do interest me though. I signed up for: (I will write them in Spanish because they are nearly identical to the English names) Anatomía artistica, sociologia, antropología biblica, Quechua, y Antropología (intro). And my earliest class (Ant Bib) starts at 11 am on Monday and Wednesday. Those classes make up 16 hours, but they told us that we had to have special permission to sign up for more than twelve. I don't know why they put a cap on credit hours for foreign students.

Has anyone ever done a comprehensive study of driving outside of the United States? It seems like whichever country I am in they drive ten times more aggressively than people in the US, yet there are not nearly as many accidents and people seem generally more relaxed while driving. It is a strange phenomenom. I am kinda retreating on my earlier comment about people obeying traffice laws, but I still feel safe while I am in the car. I feel even safer riding around here than I do with some people back home.

I went to my university for the second time today. I was only there for like forty minutes yesterday before discovering how useless the event scheduled was. I was there for much longer today. I went in at about nine and all of the international students arrived ready to register for classes online. So the university admin passed out all of our folders with our names and passwords inside and we all eagerly signed on expected a course registration page. After a few minutes we were all confused because no one could find the course registration area. After asking one of the women in charge, she pointed to a pink sheet of paper where we were to fill out the courses we plan on taking- and that would be our registration. So we all did that then went on got our photos taken for our IDs. Then there was a lot of waiting around and meeting people. I met this girl that is from Tucson too. I didn't catch her name. I think it was Maria something. I met some other people that seemed nice. There are a bunch of people from Europe and I could never understand which country they said they were from when I asked them. So after I asked again and I still did not understanding- I nodded and smiled, then backed away. I kinda distanced myself from meeting people because I really don't want to end up just hanging out with English speakers (though for the first time- and this shouldn't surprise me as much as it did- Spanish is the common language for me and some of the Europeans and Asians. I also realize that I say this as I am writing a blog in English and eagerly expecting people to leave comments that will probably be in English.). After the photo there was a tour and then a welcome speech. The welcome thing lasted way too long because of technical difficulties. Next, we met our compañeros at the University. My compañero is named Fernando. He speaks so freaking fast it is ridiculous. He probably thinks that I don't speak any Spanish because I had to ask him to repeat himself so many times. Peruvians generally do not speak very quickly at all so this guy caught me completely off guard. There are two international students per Peruvian and the other international that I am with fits the Eurotrash stereotype very well. He is Austrian, smokes like a chimney, and one of the first things he told us was that he is still hungover and hungry. He is pretty friendly though. He has quite the mullet as well- I will try to snag a photo at some point.

I came home after that to eat lunch (luckily I was able to use that as my excuse for leaving my compañero and the Austrian- I don't have anything against my compañero except that he thinks I am an idiot, but I wanted to get away from the cancer causer. The food was delicious. I had lentils, rice, and some tuna thing. I also ate some yellow potatoes and this corn that is enormous. I just went down stairs to see if there was one that I could photograph but the only one I saw wasn't as big as the ones I've eaten. Maybe they expand when they are cooked.

To clarify some things that I said in the last entry. By no means am I living in a palace nor do I think that because I am living with a wealthier family (though I was told by my housing director that they are in the middle class) that everyone in Lima lives this way, but it is just like how it is in the US. There are people living in poverty (there are clearly a larger percentage living in poverty here than in most cities in the US, though you can easily see similar disparities in every US city as well) and there is an obvious class gap. I don't think i am getting a false impression of Lima because I am experiencing it in a different way and I am not making (trying not to make) generalizations of Lima's residents as a whole based on my single family just like I don't think anyone can make a generalization of the entire city of Houston or the United States by living in West University or, on the other hand, living in the Fifth Ward (for those reading in Tucson, think: Catalina Foothills compared to South Tucson). So to reiterate, I really like Lima and you can completely disagree with that opinion because it is based on a particular living scenario that is different from how others in the same city live- just don't tell me that authenticity of one's culture is dependent on one's income. I wouldn't cosider someone any less authentically American for living in the Hamptons than someone who lives in a town in West Virginia.

Okay, I've attached some photos of my living area and I am gonna go explore the area a little.

Miami Airport

Big House Dog





I love CuaCuas!