Peru #2: First Day of School

On Monday morning, neither my roommates nor I wanted to wake up.  We had to get up very early to be at the school at 7am.  After getting ready and having a quick breakfast of pineapple juice, bread, and jam, the three of us took a taxi to school.

The school, Maximo Nivel, is located in the middle building.  (This picture was actually taken the following day.)  If you look closely, you can see words and pictures etched into the side of the mountains.

After arriving, we were placed in a room with all of the other new students, which only included the American boy I met the previous day.  We were given an orientation about the school and the local area.  Then it was test time!


In order to know which level of Spanish class to place us in, we had to be quizzed.  The test started out alright, with some multiple choice questions regarding grammar and verb conjugation.  Then there was a listening section.  The instructor played a CD on a small boombox.  There were fifteen sentences spoken in Spanish at a normal pace, and only said once, and we had to choose the correct multiple choice answer based on the sentence.  The sound was kind of fuzzy, but regardless of that, I still had pretty much no clue what was said in any of the sentences.  So I just guessed.  Another part of the test was reading and writing, where a scenerio was described in Spanish and we had to write a response.  That was pretty hard too, but I think my response was fair.  The last part was a one-on-one question and answer conversation.  That wasn´t too bad.

I was very nervous to get my score.  I scored 80% on grammar, 30% on oral, and I believe 60% on whatever the other category was.  (Yikes!  But that´s why I am here to study.)  There are many different levels, and I ended up scoring between high basic and pre-intermediate, so I got to choose whichever I preferred.  Not wanting to be ¨basic,¨ I chose pre-intermediate.  No other current students were in either of these levels, so my class ended up being a private two-hour class, rather than the typical four-hour group class.  My class time was 2pm to 4pm.

Seeing as I had a lot of time to kill before my class started, I hung out in the small cafe on the second floor of the school with my roommates.  We also happened to meet one of our other housemates, another girl from Brazil.  She has already been in Peru for two months, so she explained a lot of things to us and was very nice.  We learned that her room is in the apartment below ours, which is where our host mother´s son lives.  (That´s how so many of us fit into the same ¨house.¨)

The cafe at school.

Since we still had a few hours to ourselves, she took my Brazilian roommate and myself for a brief walking tour of the old town.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with the sun shining and few clouds.  We walked up the street and within 7-10 minutes we were at the Plaza de Armas.  It was very beautiful.

My first view of the plaza.

 After a boring normal photo, my photographer asked me to strike a pose.

Overall, the plaza was not very crowded and there seemed to be only a few tourists walking around.  As we walked and sat in the plaza, many local peddlers came up to us trying to sell this or that (sunglasses, jewelry, artwork, llama key chains made of yarn...massages, cigarattes!)

One of the girls had to use the restroom, so we went into a Starbucks on the plaza.  This was the view from the entrance on the second floor.  (Side note: I didn´t order anything but looked at the menu out of curiousity.  The drinks are a little more expensive here.)

Fun fact: This is the highest Irish pub in the world.

11,195 feet!

After exploring the area a little bit, we walked back to school to meet up with my Canadian roommate who was getting out of class at 1pm.

Our Brazilian housemate said she knew a terrific restaurant that offered a vegetarian buffet for lunch for only 10 soles (a little more than $3.)  So we all went there, and we all ended up loving it.

You can vaguely notice in this photo that some locals wear traditional clothes and some wear modern clothes. 

The restaurant's entrance.  It is a steep climb up some wooden stairs to get to the main door on the second floor, but it's worth it!

El café Restaurant Aldea Yanapay:

http://yanapay.facipub.com/index.php?fp_ver_bk_interno=1194&fp_abrirmodulo=enviocorreo&id_frm=4

The place was decorated like a child's room, with a stuffed animal sitting on a chair at every table.  Also, the menu was placed inside a children´s book.

The buffet itself was delicious.  There was guacamole and wonton chips, a potato mush casserole (much more appetizing than I can describe), soy meat stew, rice, tortilla española (though that pan was empty), and two diced salads.  We were able to get our food and eat very quickly, which was good because I had to be back at the school very soon.

A great first taste of Peruvian restaurants.

My instructor is Julio César.  (Side note: I thought this meant that his first name was Juilo and his last name was César.  But I later learned, after forgetting his name and thinking it was Pedro, that Julio César is his first name - as in, Julius Cesar.)

In the class, he spoke entirely in Spanish except when needing to translate a word for me, and even then he tried to act out the meaning rather than speak English.  (It was like learning Spanish while also playing charades, so obviously that was fun.)  My lesson focused on verb conjugation, which is something I desperately need more practice on, so I was happy.  Even after studying Spanish for seven years between high school and college, I swear some of the stuff we covered was brand new to me.

 My classroom, room 6.  The best room at the school...

...because of this amazing view!

The other girls had already left since their school day ended earlier, so I had to take a taxi by myself.  I was rather timid to hail a taxi because in Cusco nearly every car is a taxi, though most are not official taxis.  As I walked, I tried to keep an eye out for an available official taxi, but it was too difficult to notice them until they had already passed.  After walking for about 15-20 minutes in the direction of home, I knew I just had to hail a taxi and hope for the best.  Luckily, my driver (an older man) knew exactly where he was going and did not try to overcharge me.  (Side note: The typical fare in town should be 5 soles, which is a little less than $2.  Taxi drivers are not tipped.)

When I entered the apartment, I met yet another housemate.  This one was an American guy who has been here for a few months.  I also found out that Monday through Friday, my host mother has a housekeeper help her.  Her name is Toti (not certain of the spelling.)  She is tiny, cute, older Peruvian woman and she does not speak any English.  She works so hard and also seems to be smiling and happy.

I was pretty exhausted, since I had a really long day, but I did not want to sleep.  Instead, I decided to mend my suitcase which somehow developed a tear on the flight from Lima to Cusco.

This suitcase is junk.  I bought it less than a year ago, and it has so many scrapes and now this huge hole.  Not to mention the broken zipper handle thanks to TSA during a previous trip.  To be fair though, it has traveled many miles in it's short life - to the UK, Ohio, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Chile, Ohio again, Colorado, and Peru.

Dinner was very late that evening, at 9pm.  (I've learned that this is not typical for Peru.)  We all had a cauliflower souffle/pot pie with carrots.  They both tasted really good, but my portion was way too huge!

For dessert there was marble cake with fudge sauce.  This was a favorite dessert of two of the Belgian girls, so I gave them most of mine since I was pretty full.

Side note: There was no word on my missing suitcase on Monday.

Next up: Taking the bus!