Marathon

Hola!
Today was so fun - but I'll start where I left off.

Last night after I updated Kelsey, Jessie, Melanie and I went for a walk to the grocery store, because Melanie was leaving and she wanted to get some Pisco [the Peruvian drink, it's a grape gin I think?]. Anyways, white girls are pretty popular here so we got free samples and basically it tasted like super super strong wine. It was gross and it burned!! Then we came home and met Kent, our coordinator. He is super nice and very helpful. Then we said our goodbyes to Mel and hung out around the house before heading to bed around 10. We go to bed so early because the house was pretty empty and it gets dark so early!

This morning we woke up and there were three new girls here - Melanie, Joanie, and Celine. They are all from Ontario, and French Canadian, but their English is super good. Everyone is so awesome, I love all of the girls and so we are all good friends already! So at 9:00 am we left for a tour of Lima, on a double decker bus. We went through downtown Lima which was so different from where we are - apparently the VA house is in a pretty well off neighborhood and downtown is not so well off, very dirty and falling apart. Our tour bus stopped at a Cathedral called San frasisco (named for St. Francis of Assisi) and we toured the church as well as the catacombs underneath... this is basically a graveyard, but more open. We saw tons of bones and skulls etc. etc., it was gross! but cool... if you have ever read Matthew Lewis' The Monk, then it was exactly like they described it in that novel. We even saw a decomposing body... it was apparently a ´special tomb´, and so they were not taken apart but one entire body that was hundreds of years old. Grooosss. Also, in the cathedral, there were paintings all over the walls, but the strange thing is some of the faces in the paintings were whited out, or scratched off hundreds of years ago and no one know why! It was so weird, like, there were faceless statues, and no one knew why the faces were removed. Also, there was a very famous last supper painting that is particular for a few reasons - first of all, the table they were eating at is round. Secondly, there were children waiting on Jesus and the disciples. You should look it up on google, it's by a belgium man. Then we went outside and checked out a wall that is ruins left over from the wall that used to sorround Peru, or maybe Lima? I forget, our tour guide was Spanish haha.

We came home and left again to exchange our American money into soles, the peruvian currency. Then we went for a walk to the beach and had a talk with a 50+ surfer named Bruno, who promised us lessons and told us to go see his band! ahahaha! He told us that we had a Peruvian friend in him. We continued to walk for about three hours - into Borronco where we got some Pisco sour [Pisco, egg whites, and something else? It tasted like merigue... how do you spell that?] Then we walked home together and arrived around 6:30 - we had left at 2:30! But we weren't even tired, which means we are super strong. Anyways, we are all back at the house now and having a good time! More updates later!

Things I tried today:
Peruvian pasta, it had lime green sauce! But tasted like pesto, so it was good!
Inka Cola, the Peruvian pop, tasted like cream soda
Pisco sour, peruvian egg drink! yikes!

Best quote:
Hi. My car.