Weeks have
passed and stuff has happened. That about covers it for today’s post, I think…
Well somehow I feel like my mom won’t be quite satisfied with that. And, yes, I
do have to take that into consideration now, because one of my supposed friends
sent her the link to this blog. If I ever find out who exactly is responsible
for that… Alright, as I said in the past couple weeks a lot of things have
happened. Some are fine, some probably shouldn’t be mentioned, and some that I
don’t want to talk about.
I used my
free time to take a long hike through Surco, Barranco and Los Chorrillos. Surco
is a typical part of Lima, alternating between nice houses, run-down shacks and
beautiful small parks. Sometimes you will see all three of those in less than a
minute walking. The parks always have a couple artists doing their thing, but
only few people seem to notice since Pokemon Go made its way over here, too. PUT
YOUR PHONES DOWN, GODDAMMIT!
Barranco is a district right on the ocean. There
is a fantastic ocean-view walk and Barranco also sports a ton of nice little
bars and clubs (some of which we already tried out). In general it is one of
the most artsy barrios with graffiti on nearly every house and lots of nice
buildings to look at. Barranco might be my favorite part of Lima so far. Los
Chorrillos is the southern frontier of Lima. There you can find the fishing
boats and lots of nice viewpoints. On top of a hill on the outer edge of Los
Chorrillos I found a planetarium and the “Cruz
del Sur” which is huge and lights up at night. You can see that thing from
the whole coastline. A bit further down the road they erected a Jesus statue
very much like the one in Buenos Aires, just a bit smaller. I guess they just
aren’t as devoted as the Argentinians ;-)
Last week
was the first with courses in the university. The courses do seem manageable
but you actually have to do homework assignments all the time. What the Fuck
Usil (name of the university)!? I came here to mostly have a good time and travel
on the weekends, not prepare presentations the whole time. Other than that uni
started out good. The people are nice and we went to a couple parties together
to celebrate the start of term. All the clubs and bars here have a tendency to
play Salsa and Reggaeton. So I better learn Salsa if I wanna fit in. Too bad
the salsa class in Usil is already full. Good thing then, that I am the most
obvious “Gringo” of all, so there’s
enough specimen of the female persuasion that are quite willing to teach me. Timeframes
are a bit different here, though. If you leave at 5am the parties are still
raging. This, of course, brings with it a chronic lack of sleep. But I’m only
here once, so I say let the good times roll!
Next up,
the stories I really shouldn’t write about in a public space. I won’t. Deal
with it.
As for what
I don’t want to talk about… For one Lima is not what you’d call a safe city.
Especially at night. Several of the international students have already “lost”
their phones or wallets. The taxi drivers aren’t the most trustworthy people
either. There are stories of drivers bringing people into deserted alleys where
their partners wait to rob the passengers. Me and Roberto (roommate) already
got ready to jump a guy when he drove us all over the place, just not in the
direction of our house. After we pointed that out to him and told him exactly
where to go he obliged, though. Turns out the idiot just didn’t know where the
address was (or at least that’s what he told us). Anyway, you never know… One of
my friends here was almost mugged right in front of us (That’s really all you
need to know about that). Anyway, don’t let your guard down. Ever.
Back to
more relaxed topics. I already mentioned Roberto, my roommate from Puerto Rico.
Joining us in the house are two Mexican girls, two Mexican guys, a Spaniard, a Colombian
girl, a girl from France. Since me and Lisa are the only ones who don’t speak
Spanish as a native language I landed in the perfect spot to improve my
language skills. All of my roommates are pretty cool. We go out quite a bit and
if we’re in the house we’re really only doing one of two things. Cooking,
talking and listening to music in the kitchen, or watching movies in the living
room. The cooking part is pretty awesome since we have two chefs here (Roberto
and Gabi, the Colombian). And now it’s time for me to make lunch. So while the
others show off their impressive cooking skills I’ll just go ahead and hope I
don’t burn my spaghetti…
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