Adjusting to Life in Arequipa

If last week were an action movie star it would be 90's Bruce Willis.  We got beat up a bit but we survived.  Don't worry, there weren't any explosions.

We are now officially in the swing of things in Arequipa.  Our apartment has a fresh coat of less-pink paint, we have the internet, and I am attending language school daily.  The funny thing about language school is that they don't currently have a group class (what they call "Grammatica") for me, so right now I am only attending my "practica" which is an hour and a half of conversation in Spanish.  I don't know near enough Spanish to fill an hour and a half, but my conversation teacher Pablo is cool and tells me about everything from the creation myths of the Incas to racism in Peru.  It is awesome to be immersed in Spanish, and I am slowly building my vocabulary to be more than just the inappropriate words I remember from my high school years.

Emily has been feeling a bit under the weather recently.  Arequipa is about 8000 feet up in the mountains, and it has been a little difficult adjusting to the change in altitude.  There is also a lot of dust due to the fact that we are in the middle of a high desert.  And for those of you who know Emily well, you know that her allergies are comparable to Steven Segal after finding out terrorists have kidnapped his daughter.  In less actiony words, her allergies are raging.  On the plus side, there is an allergist down the street so we will be making an appointment this week.  It will just take a little time for us to adjust to a new setting.

Speaking of a new setting, the food here is great!  Emily and I went out with a Peruvian named Victor for lunch (we met him at a church we visited), and he introduced me to the delicacy of fried cow udder.  It's a bit spongey but the flavor is awesome!  I also ate an Arequipan favorite called rocoto relleno.  It was a chili stuffed with meat and cheese and it almost melted my face off (both in flavor and spiciness)!  I was literally crying uncontrollably at the end.  Victor told me it wasn't supposed to be that spicy.  I told him it was because of my gringo genes.

So we are getting settled into life in Arequipa.  I am loving learning Spanish and being able to put it into immediate practice.  And even though at times it may look like the terrorists have total control over the Nakatomi Tower, we will remember that there are still some unused air ducts for us to crawl through, John McClane style.  #ican'tgetenoughofactionmoviemetaphors