Its been a really long time! Sorry! In my defense, we have been trying to get internet installed in our apartment for 6 weeks sin exito (unsuccessfully). On the upside I've been getting a lot of opportunities to practice making complaints in Spanish.
We're back in Santiago and we've gotten mostly settled in a new apartment. We are now living in an awesome neighborhood called Ñuñoa. It is, as my Spanish professor says ´Barrio Barrio´. The look of it makes me think of what W. 32nd Avenue in the Highlands must have looked like in the 50s. There's a butcher, and a vegetable store and a French bakery ( where I am currently using the internet and drinking coffee while listening to La Vie en Rose) near our house as well as several really good restaurants and coffee shops. There's a little old woman who sits outside her house and makes comments about the weather to passersby. And everyone is so friendly! Usually in Santiago the standard of customer service is fairly poor by American standards but down here in Ñuñoa people make eye contact and ask you how you are and the owners of cafes and restaurants drop by to ask how you are and to invite you to come back anytime you like. Even people on the metro are nicer, when you say excuse me to get out, they say ' of course! Go ahead and have a great day!' Its awesome!
Last month we took a little anniversary trip for a couple of days to Lima, Peru. It was so nice to get away for a couple of days and we really enjoyed relaxing and partaking in the main activity of Lima- eating! Peruvian food is excellent. They have so many great flavors and use really good ingredients. We tried tons of new kinds of fruits ( my favorite was Lucuma in a milkshake!) and ate tons of fresh fish and tried Cuy (guinea pig) which is traditionally eaten in Peru. A few photos for you!
Us at the biggest water fountain park in the world!
Ceviche we made at a cooking class we took. It was so good! Ceviche is fish that is soaked in lime juice with onions and cilantro and in this case, a spicy pepper, a sweet potato and 2 kinds of corn
Me making ceviche like a cooking boss:
Look at all the kinds of fruit! Peru has more kinds of fruit than you can possiby imagine and they're all delicious
And one of my favorites, the Lucuma milkshake!
And last but not least, we got to meet up with Ryan's cousin Katrina on our last day! She was in Lima as part of a missions trip with her friends and we got to hang out for a few hours and have lunch before we had to head to the airport
Other than that, we've been very busy with work. Ryan is teaching and translating and I'm teaching and have a new job at a company that works with kids which is really fun and interesting. Our schedules are so full though! We're out the door everyday by 7 and we don't get home most days until 8 or 9. But we've still been making time to hang out with friends old and new.
Right now we're getting ready for a big trip to Brazil. In September Chile has its big national holiday and things kind of shut down for about 2 weeks or so. Last year we only had 3 classes over the course of 2 weeks so this year we decided to take the time to travel! We are so excited! We're going to meet up with my good friend Morgan and travel around Rio, Ilha Grande, Paratay and take a quick run down to Iguazu Falls. Its going to be so nice and so warm and I can't wait to see Morgan- its been way too long!
All for now!
