Its a three day weekend, today is the dia de los pescadores, I guess because fisherman are really awesome. Its a good thing too because working every day is really really tiring in the long run. There is a parade down the road about 20 minutes away for the holiday.
The project I'm working on now is building a house out of scrap wood in el molino, an area of town where most people relocated after the earthquake. The family there are fun to talk to since they understand that we suck at Spanish, and the woman who lives there, Maria, is a fantastic cook. Most of the dishes here are based around chicken and potatoes, usually accompanied with delicious sauce.
There isn't too much else to say, lots of people have left Pisco and others have shown up recently, theres a pretty high rate of turnover.
Pisco is awesome.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Day 6 - Pisco
Pisco is a pretty good place to be. After about 24 hours you know everyone here, which is a total of about 40 people. It has also been sunny every day and about 70 something degrees. Today 11 of us did a concrete roof pour, which is exactly what it sounds like. Normally these projects are supposed to take 3 hours, we ended up working from about 9:50 until 6:30, just moving concrete from the mixer on the street to the roof of a building. I partially fell through the roof twice while carrying cement, and now I have small leg cuts with cement in them. Along with that my left forearm is bruised from carrying buckets and a lot of the skin has been rubbed off, but its not that gross.
Yesterday at a work site I saw a kid, probably 4 years old, pick up a cockroach off the ground, a big one. He would pull off a part of its body and put it on the ground and let it crawl away. He would grab it again, tear off more cockroach parts, and then let it go again. He would even just hold it in his hand for a while with it squirming trying to escape. Eventually after he had picked off enough body parts, wings, e.t.c. he killed it. Peruvian toys are different than American toys.
Peruvian churros are also different than California churros. They are soft, kind of like croissants, but a little longer and narrower. They are fried and coated with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and the inside has something like a donut glaze, street vendors sell them for under 1 sole each.
Yesterday at a work site I saw a kid, probably 4 years old, pick up a cockroach off the ground, a big one. He would pull off a part of its body and put it on the ground and let it crawl away. He would grab it again, tear off more cockroach parts, and then let it go again. He would even just hold it in his hand for a while with it squirming trying to escape. Eventually after he had picked off enough body parts, wings, e.t.c. he killed it. Peruvian toys are different than American toys.
Peruvian churros are also different than California churros. They are soft, kind of like croissants, but a little longer and narrower. They are fried and coated with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and the inside has something like a donut glaze, street vendors sell them for under 1 sole each.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Day 4 - Van Helsing Sucks
Today on the way to Pisco, we got to watch Fast and Furious, the fourth one, and were later forced to watch Van Helsing, which is probably the most terrible movie I have ever seen.
That being said, we are now in Pisco. Its good to be here, because Lima really isn't a very enjoyable place. There are very few things to do, and most of the city is just dirty. On Saturday we went to the Plaza de Armas which is the most historic part of the city. Its got a really old cathedral as well as the governor's palace, which is pretty nice. Outside of the main plaza there is hardly anything to see.
It is interesting walking around in Lima because unlike Mexico, which has lots of white people and Americans, there are absolutely no white people. We walked around for about 3 hours on Saturday and probably encountered about 6.3 white people, the point being that you feel very much like a minority. This would probably be bad if Peruvian people were all angry racists, but most of them are really nice, at least the ones that we have spoken to. We got a roommate at our hostel, Zena, from Brazil. We went to dinner on Saturday night and ate Chinese food, because as it turns out, there are a lot of Chinese people in Lima, though we haven't seen that many.
Sunday we went to Barrancos, an artsy district in the south of Lima, which was actually very clean and beautiful when compared to most of the city. We had our first Pisco Sours, which are traditional Peruvian drinks, as well as ceviche, which was also pretty good. Later that night we headed to the Circuito Magico del Agua, which is a park with a bunch of gigantic fountains with lights shone through them. The biggest fountain shoots water about 100 feet in the air, and another one shot up a wall of water which acted like a movie screen, they used lazers and projectors to broadcast images on the surface of the water, pretty cool. At this time we had also met some other people, Eva from Lima and Sebastian from Columbia. We had to struggle to speak in Spanish with them.
TODAY we are in Pisco. It is basically a shanty town, most of the houses on the way in are made of sticks, tarps, and loosely thatched wooden rooves. We met up with the poeple here, there are about 35, almost exclusively from Australia and England, but a good number of Americans showed up today along with us. The beach nearby is very nice, but it will be a little rough living here. The rooms are not well enclosed, there are doors and walls and everything, its a normal building, but there are gaps in the doors and permanently open windows e.t.c. The shower also electrocutes you if used improperly. Pisco will definitely be an interesting experience, we start working tomorrow morning.
That being said, we are now in Pisco. Its good to be here, because Lima really isn't a very enjoyable place. There are very few things to do, and most of the city is just dirty. On Saturday we went to the Plaza de Armas which is the most historic part of the city. Its got a really old cathedral as well as the governor's palace, which is pretty nice. Outside of the main plaza there is hardly anything to see.
It is interesting walking around in Lima because unlike Mexico, which has lots of white people and Americans, there are absolutely no white people. We walked around for about 3 hours on Saturday and probably encountered about 6.3 white people, the point being that you feel very much like a minority. This would probably be bad if Peruvian people were all angry racists, but most of them are really nice, at least the ones that we have spoken to. We got a roommate at our hostel, Zena, from Brazil. We went to dinner on Saturday night and ate Chinese food, because as it turns out, there are a lot of Chinese people in Lima, though we haven't seen that many.
Sunday we went to Barrancos, an artsy district in the south of Lima, which was actually very clean and beautiful when compared to most of the city. We had our first Pisco Sours, which are traditional Peruvian drinks, as well as ceviche, which was also pretty good. Later that night we headed to the Circuito Magico del Agua, which is a park with a bunch of gigantic fountains with lights shone through them. The biggest fountain shoots water about 100 feet in the air, and another one shot up a wall of water which acted like a movie screen, they used lazers and projectors to broadcast images on the surface of the water, pretty cool. At this time we had also met some other people, Eva from Lima and Sebastian from Columbia. We had to struggle to speak in Spanish with them.
TODAY we are in Pisco. It is basically a shanty town, most of the houses on the way in are made of sticks, tarps, and loosely thatched wooden rooves. We met up with the poeple here, there are about 35, almost exclusively from Australia and England, but a good number of Americans showed up today along with us. The beach nearby is very nice, but it will be a little rough living here. The rooms are not well enclosed, there are doors and walls and everything, its a normal building, but there are gaps in the doors and permanently open windows e.t.c. The shower also electrocutes you if used improperly. Pisco will definitely be an interesting experience, we start working tomorrow morning.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Day 1 - Inca Cola
First let me say, Inca Cola is bomb. It tastes like bubblegum and Katherine hates it, but she also hates cheese and meat, Diana is indifferent.
Both flights were crappy, we had to fly around weather the entire way to Miami and it was turbulent the whole way, and then most of the way to Lima it was also turbulent, and each flight took about 5 hours. Recent quote from Diana, "I don't know if this couch smells or if its just me." We are all very tired even though we haven't done much today. We walked down the main avenue through Miraflores and to the beach just to see what was around. It was all really really crappy looking, but then we found the main square where all the tourists hang out and watched a pudgy Peruvian woman fall over and hurt her arm, we stood there and did nothing for a little bit until we sort of helped her up, she kept screaming "El brazo! El brazo!" Food is ridiculously cheap, and we ate delicious fried potatoes, chicken, and steak, for about $1.50 each. The hostel dog here is also pretty sweet, her name is Kahlua, and she might be secretly evil because she gets angry sometimes. We met a Peruvian guy named Hugo on the plane from Miami who thought Katherine and I were married, probably because he eavesdropped on our spanish convo in the airport. We really wanted to sit first class and were trying to think of all options available, and marriage seemed viable to get us a first class seat, which had massage chairs. It didn't work. We have internet until Sunday, we leave for Pisco Monday and we don't know if there will be easy internet access there. We'll try to keep you updated.
We will probably venture out and find some dinner soon, we are only two hours ahead of west coast time instead of three. Our Spanish is improving literally by the minute, which we all like. Katherine is probably the best, and we can all sort of communicate what we want to say, but understanding is still difficult. We're working on it, and some of the people talk rather slowly so its easier to understand them, like our driver from the airport (Salome, sounds like salami) and the woman who works here at the unmarked hostel, which is tagged with graffitti on the outside but nice on the inside. It is also the house of the a former president of peru and his wife.
It doesn't feel like we are in Peru, for all we know we could be Mexico. Cusco is probably going to be more quintissential Peru, and one woman we met at the hostel says its one of her favorite cities in the world, so we're psyched.
Long blog entry, I'll write again when I have important or interesting things to say. See you in 56 days. Abrazos.
Both flights were crappy, we had to fly around weather the entire way to Miami and it was turbulent the whole way, and then most of the way to Lima it was also turbulent, and each flight took about 5 hours. Recent quote from Diana, "I don't know if this couch smells or if its just me." We are all very tired even though we haven't done much today. We walked down the main avenue through Miraflores and to the beach just to see what was around. It was all really really crappy looking, but then we found the main square where all the tourists hang out and watched a pudgy Peruvian woman fall over and hurt her arm, we stood there and did nothing for a little bit until we sort of helped her up, she kept screaming "El brazo! El brazo!" Food is ridiculously cheap, and we ate delicious fried potatoes, chicken, and steak, for about $1.50 each. The hostel dog here is also pretty sweet, her name is Kahlua, and she might be secretly evil because she gets angry sometimes. We met a Peruvian guy named Hugo on the plane from Miami who thought Katherine and I were married, probably because he eavesdropped on our spanish convo in the airport. We really wanted to sit first class and were trying to think of all options available, and marriage seemed viable to get us a first class seat, which had massage chairs. It didn't work. We have internet until Sunday, we leave for Pisco Monday and we don't know if there will be easy internet access there. We'll try to keep you updated.
We will probably venture out and find some dinner soon, we are only two hours ahead of west coast time instead of three. Our Spanish is improving literally by the minute, which we all like. Katherine is probably the best, and we can all sort of communicate what we want to say, but understanding is still difficult. We're working on it, and some of the people talk rather slowly so its easier to understand them, like our driver from the airport (Salome, sounds like salami) and the woman who works here at the unmarked hostel, which is tagged with graffitti on the outside but nice on the inside. It is also the house of the a former president of peru and his wife.
It doesn't feel like we are in Peru, for all we know we could be Mexico. Cusco is probably going to be more quintissential Peru, and one woman we met at the hostel says its one of her favorite cities in the world, so we're psyched.
Long blog entry, I'll write again when I have important or interesting things to say. See you in 56 days. Abrazos.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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