Monday, June 20, 2011

The weekend

       So this weekend, we finally took pictures! But first, a teaching update. Thursday was Extreme’s equivalent to “casual Friday” so that means staff could wear jeans –which I loved! And the students could order pizza if they wanted. So my first class, being high school-ers, of course wanted to and we did. It took away from class learning as I expected but at the same time, I liked interacting with the students at a more relaxed level and to get to know them a little better. It was good class bonding time as well, so I let I didn’t enforce quite as much that they only do school work. We had a review day, and a more relaxed day with pizza.

       Then Friday came. During the day Friday, Karlene and I wandered to get some lunch. The waiter laughed at us when we walked in since we are now “regulars” there. I’m sure it is not common because it is not a very touristy restaurant so I’m sure we are the only “foreigner regulars” at this place. However we enjoy it. It always has good music, usually has good food, good staff and a good price. So we go almost every day. It is called “The Meeting Point” which Karlene and I had to laugh about.

     But back to class-who wants to still go to class at 5-7 or worse 7-9pm on a Friday night to practice English? So I did my best to create fun activities for them while still learning a bit. It turned out to be a nice evening, but it was a long week so Karlene and I went out with two of our co-workers for a beer and relaxing night. It was fun to joke around with them. We ended up running into a few other co-workers and even some students! We chatted a while with them and had a nice time.

      Saturday, I had class with the little munchkins. Because they are getting more comfortable with me, they were joking around and talking a lot amongst each other. This was a bitter sweet moment. I have a soft spot for children and more so when they are playing and laughing together. It was beautiful. But I am suppose to be “teaching” English so I had to draw back their attention to the activity and then while doing it- they could still talk among each other a bit.

       Afterwards, I had some time to kill so I took a few pictures of the house- late I know, but better then never! (and by the way, some good news is that we don’t have to move out! I think the director realized part of the agreement was that we would be living here, so he is allowing that until August but no one else will be living here after us). So below are a few images of the house!
The outside

Living room that we have only used once since it's so cold. We do have a Foosball table but  no balls.


Our kitchen.

Our dinning room that is almost way to cold to actually ever sit in and eat without parkas.

A nice little computer room we have. There is internet but it is very picky about when it wants to work.

My room- can you tell which side is mine?

Here is a picture of one of the classrooms I teach in- it is also (illegally) in the house.


My students' artwork

A days hard work!

This is Karlene's room


    After sitting on our porch for about a half an hour, enjoying the few hours of sun and warmth we get, we wanted to find a new place to eat lunch. Our friends had mentioned a place over by their place that they liked so we thought we’d try to find it even though we had no clue exactly where it was. After about an hour of wandering, our stomachs gave up and said just eat anywhere. So we stopped and had a decent meal. We continued walking after and found the nicest park in this neighborhood we were in. Below are some pictures. But by now it was about 4:30 and the sun was heading down- meaning it was getting chilly to just be outside in a t-shirt so we went home to take a little nap.

The entrance


Beautiful flowers everywhere!

      Saturday evening we made plans to go out with a friend. We went to this nice, swanky little bar. There was about 4 levels to it and each level had a different atmosphere. Due to the prices, we each only had one drink, but we stayed a long time having a fun conversation (on the third floor). Then we went to the first level which had a disco / dance place. We went in and had a lot of fun dancing there. Because we decided to wear our new high heels out, we probably spent half of the time sitting and resting our poor feet. Our friend asked why we would even buy such shoes. Karlene and I laughed saying for one- we look cute! But also that he is a guy so he just wouldn’t understand. Besides our sore feet, we had a great night.
This was the first time we really saw Arequipa. Pablo took us on a ride around all of Arequipa. It was huge! It now seems like a city of 1 million people. I guess we just didn’t get that impression before since we had always only explored by foot. There was a lot to seem, and seems like a fun city. It was very nice of him to give us a tour of town. He also explained the good beaches to go to- so hopefully karlene and I can get over there one weekend. It is only about 2-3 hours in the bus. Only downfall is that it is winter here, so it is cold! But we have to at least go to see it, even if we don’t go swimming.

Cute girls

     Sunday got cut a bit short since I didn’t wake up until 2. I guess I needed sleep! Then it turned into a nice day. With no specific plans, we walked in a new direction to find a new place to eat at. We found a new ceviche place to eat at. The staff was friendly and it had good food. My favorite part was the wall art. There were names of all different famous music artists painted on the wall (from the Beatles to U2 to Coldplay to Lenny Kravits – a random collection). This was such a little place it was not as if all the artists had visited. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture when leaving.

Octopus in clam shells!

      However that reminds me of another amusing fact. Famous people. There is something attractive here about name-dropping even if there hasn’t really been anyone here to visit. The restaurant above is one example. Another one is we saw what appeared to be a kinder-care or some sort of children’s care center. Yet is was called the “Bill Gates children’s place” or something to that affect. It was such a small place, and in a little neighborhood that I’m 99% sure Bill Gates doesn’t actually have any connection to the place. Secondly, we walked by a hair place that had a picture of Paul Walker on their sign, possibly advertising his hair style? But again, there is not a chance Paul Walker has gotten his hair cut there before. I’ll have to try to remember to get a picture next time. Lastly, I saw an advertisement for a local restaurant that had a picture of Brad Pitt- again highly doubtful he has been there. How funny the ideas the people have here of what will draw the people in to their businesses.

    After lunch, we explored a new part of our Yanahuara neighborhood. Below are a few pictures.

A creepy little mini door we found. We actually realized it was a house- we think abandoned. It was too creepy for us to actually walk in to explore, but it was interesting enough to capture the picture. 

Here, again, we found a odd plot of land. To get this picture, we had to climb on rocks and peer around an 8 foot tall black door. It seemed as if no one lived there. However, if you look closely- you can see a cow head. Oh goodness, how funny but really, how bizarre. We were not sure if it was their protector or just decoration. You decide for yourself.

An interesting statue of a colonel from 1880.

Lastly, some stolen flowers and a quick snap shot of the lovely Caitlin.
        For dinner, we experimented with making our own squid. We bought a little one from the grocery store and Karlene (being a better cook- I suppose I should say the only cook since quite frankly I don’t know how to cook much of anything) cut it apart and cooked it up. We don’t have many spices or extras so it tasted a bit fishy, but good.

YES- that is a squid. eye balls and all.

We found the ink sac. 

Thanks to Karlene, it turned out well!
      The only bad part of the day was that our internet is down for a couple of days so I didn’t get to Skype my dad for Father’s Day. I love you dad! Hope you had a great day. And happy (belated) Father’s day to all the other wonderful dads in the world. 

Even though it is doubtful he will actually see this and it is not from Peru, I had to put it in because I love him and I miss you, Dad!

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