Our arrival in Peru

Hey guys, as many of you know, I am beginning my adventures abroad in South America with my college amiga Ruby. Ruby gave me the wonderful idea of creating a blog so my friends and family can keep up on our travels (although I expect that the blogs won´t always be up to date) as internet is not as accessible in South America, but I am glad that you are taking your exctra time to view this blog about my travels!
We will be studying Spanish in Cusco, Peru, beginning on february 8th for one month.

Our trip thus far...
It is our fouth day in Peru, and we just arrived in Arequipa after a long and very windy 15 hour bus ride from Lima. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru (next to Lima), but we only have two days to explore the city. The cost of things here are extremely cheap...we are paying five to ten dollars a night for a hostel, and a meal only costs about three dollars!
More of Arequipa to come...

Our arrival in Lima (January 30th).
Ruby and I begin our adventures abroad...
We arrived in Lima on friday night, and we were lucky enough to have a wonderful Peruvian family pick us up from the airport and share their house with us for three nights (the family are relatives of a friend of Ruby´s dad). They showed us around the entire city, parts that we would have never seen if we were on our own. My favorite barrio (neighborhood) was the barranco, a traditional and bohemian district with beautiful restaurants and bars overlooking the ocean. It was a great experience staying with the family because they did not know any english, but they were very helpful with helping us understand. They also gave us good tips on safety, taught us about their culture, and cooked us every meal!

Many of you would be shocked to hear about some of the food that I have been eating since I have been here. I didn´t want to be rude by not eating the food that they cooked, so I ate steak, pork, and even ceviche (a popular seafood dish in Latin America).

Lima is huge! The downtown area is packed (tons of traffic, people, etc), it smelled kind of bad...but the main plaza was beautiful...
We went to the beach on sunday, it was a lot different than I imagined. The beach was huge, but there were too many people...it was impossible to get away from the chaos. Travelers of Peru had warned us not to let our impression of Lima effect the way we are going to think of Peru due to the overwhelming amount of people, chaos, dirty streets, and lack of beautiful sights...so we are looking forward to exploring more of the country!