New Car Smell

Yaaaayyyyy!!!! Today was the day! 

>> Wilfredo finally got his new car! << 

After a month of doing research, a month of doing paperwork, and a month of waiting (at least that is what it seemed like), Wilfredo's 2013 Hyundai Tucson has arrived! 

Wilfredo took the combi to Miraflores, where we met up after Spanish class. Then, we hopped in a cab and scooted on over to the Hyundai the farthest away from convenient as possible. Awaiting us there was this lovely new silver SUV. 

After a short meeting and then a full walk through of all of the features inside and outside the car, we finally got to experience the new car. 

It is sweet! Unfortunately, it is a manual transmission, so I will not be test driving it. However, the ride is so much smoother and quieter and safer than in Wilfredo's 21 year old Diahatsu. Also, it has heating and air conditioning! Plus, there is an adapter built in to plug in your Apple products and 2 (not 1, but 2) sunroofs! Today, was a good day for transportation.

Wilfredo's first destination in his new car was to El Coral, for lunch of course. He had a buddy that was a cook there, which was pretty cool. We had awesome service and the food was delicious. I wanted to get Japanese food as it was the first time it had been an option, but opted for the fried fish covered in garlic. Oh man, it was delicious...and hours later, I can still taste the garlic. Hahaha. It was an excellent celebratory lunch! 

Now, we just gotta get Wilfredo accustomed to all the cool gadgets and gizmos in his car..and the breaks (sensitive suckers)! :) 

~ nos vemos ~

Helpful People :)

This is my first time getting sick while abroad. Took 5 years worth of trips abroad, so not bad. I think it was just some food poisoning. Hard to say though as I think this is the first time I have had that too. 

I am so grateful to have such support while being sick. When the sickness set in, everyone jumped into action for me. First, my teacher assisted me with getting me water and paper towels. Plus, she hung out with me for a bit in case I needed her and she talked to me to help me calm down. Then, one of the other teachers went and bought me some medicine. 

When it didn't look like I was going to get better within the next few minutes, I called Wilfredo to pick me up from school, which is not a short trek, btw. He came and got me and got me home as quickly as possible. Fortunately, he was also not grossed out. 

Then, when I got home Wilfredo and Melissa went and bought some Gatorade and Tylenol for me. 

After some 15 hours of sleep and my fever breaking, I feel a lot better. Hopefully, back to 100% by the end of today. (I am supposed to give the sermon tomorrow at Monte Sion...) 

I had quite the team of people here to help me out and I am super appreciative of all of them. Thanks guys! 

And the other part of the wellness team... 

Learning Spanish in a Spanish Speaking Country

At the beginning of the month, Melissa & I started taking Spanish classes at a school called Peruwayna. I knew we would be taken care of the moment they said "you are a special case" because we sort of know how to speak Spanish and can understand fairly well, but we have some major grammar problems. So, we ended up in our own class together!

Side note: I thought about doing the private class so that I could ask more questions and feel comfortable, but it was a bit more expensive. Win for not having to pay more for a private class! 

The first week went quite well. We talked over what we wanted from the class and our teacher, Carolina, recognized some of our weaknesses and adjusts the lesson plans as we go. It sucked sometimes to have to go back over super basic things, but if you don't know why you do something it is hard to put it into context. At the end of the first week I felt like I was worse at Spanish than when I started because I could recognize more things I was saying incorrectly. *Womp womp* The bright side, was that we made it through pre-intermedio 1 and started pre-intermedio 2 in a week and had relearned the past indicative, past perfect, and imperfect tenses, which are all very important when trying to tell people stories (which you do a lot of when telling people about your experiences and life)!

The second week of class was a bit different as we had a 3rd person in our class. Her name is Emily and she is from London, living with her fiance in Peru for about 2 years as he is there for work. I learned that suckers are called lollies and that people do not talk to each other on the train when commuting about London. Haha. It didn't drastically change the tone of the class, but it was different as I feel like we covered fewer things and individually we had less time to talk and practice. We still learned important things, like the subjunctive for expressing wishes and desires for other people, the future, when to use the imperfect v. past indicative v. past perfect, and some phrases. I like the infinitives most. ;)

Now, we are into our third week, and back down to just Melissa and me. We are developing more of the subjunctive tense and using more complex sentences rather than sounding like beginners all the time (though with how slowly I speak, I am sure I am not fooling anyone). I am making progress.. poco a poco.

In due time, it'll all come together, right?!

At any rate, I am enjoying the experience of learning things in class and then returning home and practicing with the family. I hope they don't mind the stumbling through sentences and I hope I don't offend anyone in the process.

~nos vemos~

An update about the combi experience (and a sign of progress, I think): I didn't have to repeat myself 5x today to tell the cobrador where I wanted to go! Once was enough! And I didn't get charged an extra S/. .50! S/. 2 was enough! Here is the route from Callao to Miraflores on the "S" combi, more or less. It takes about an hour and 15 min to get there in the morning in traffic and about 45-60 min to get home in the afternoon. Just ask Melissa, it is not a short trek, but worth it.


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