How many donuts are in a cup of juice?

With our picarones AND chicha morada 

Even though my Spanish is growing and growing, I will never completely rid myself of mistakes that make for awkward situations! This last Friday night Derek, Laura, Mary, and I took a taxi to Parque de Kennedy to walk around, look at the cats that roam there and try some picarones (Peruvian donuts). We got to the little street stand that sells picarones and started to look at the menu. The menu listed different combinations that you could get and one was called "chicha" and it was 1.50 soles. Chicha Morada is the typical drink in Peru. It is a purple juice of some fruit. We all thought that "chicha" was just them trying to be cute when naming a specific size for a plate of picarones. Because none of us were very hungry (we had just downed like a million pancakes that we made at my house) we were going to split a plate. So I went up to the lady and said "Cuantos picarones hay en una chicha? (How many donuts are there in a glass of juice?)" The lady then looked at us weird and told the man who was cooking that we wanted a "chicha". We waited about 3 minutes and then the lady handed us a plate of six picarones and a glass of chicha morada and said 5.50 soles por favor. We all looked at each other and were like "what in the world??" But then after like 5 seconds of complete confusion it clicked. "ooohhhhhhhh it was 1.50 extra soles to have a cup of chica morada with your plate of picarones!!!" We all felt real stupid, paid the 5.50 soles,

and ate our picarones with our chicha. 

Almost the whole group on top of one of the towers

This weekend we also had a field trip for our grammar class. We went to Felipe Real which is an old fort here in Lima. It was a lot of fun! We loaded a bus at 9 am, drank some Coca-Cola that they provided, and drove for 40 minutes to get there. Once we arrived, we took a tour of the towers and different rooms inside. In one room there was a "statue" of a pirate but after about 2 minutes he jumped out and scared the ba-jeebies out of us all. He then lined us up and went around asking our names and acting out his prepared skit. I'm still not really sure what the point of him was, but he was funny none the less! After the tour, if we wanted, we could stay with our teacher and eat at a fish joint. I hate fish, but decided to be adventurous and go for it. The fish place was closed so we ended up at a little place across the street. I had some not so good chicken and everyone else had some not so good seafood but I am definitely glad I went because it was fun to get to know our professor outside of class. After we ate, we walked to a beach, ate some ice cream, then found a bus stop to catch a combi back home. The whole time, our professor kept telling us that we were in a not so good area and needed to stay together. Once we got on the combi he told us in English (to make sure we all fully understood) "Remember how I told you it was dangerous here? Well this district is really dangerous, please shut your windows" This just reminded me that I really don't know what I would do sometimes without the Peruvians. How in the world would I make it around this city without being killed or mugged?! Needless to say though, we all made it back safely.

Also on our field I met Taylor Lautner!!! Well, not really. BUT while we were eating lunch some friends of mine and I realized that one of the guys that came with our professor looked like a Peruvian Taylor Lautner! Sooo, I asked him for a photo. 

Taylor Lautner!

 

My friend Derek has a host sister who has a boyfriend who lives in the “country” of Peru and we went to his house on Sunday. They call it the country but really it is not the country at all! It is most definitely a city! There were stores, houses, taxis, everything! We played soccer, volleyball, swam in the pool, and ate some chicken for lunch. We also told jokes with the family. Many English jokes do not make sense in Spanish! Especially knock, knock jokes. It was hilarious because we would tell a joke and they would all have puzzled looks on their faces and be like “QUE?!” Don’t worry though, it wasn’t just them who were puzzled…some of their jokes took a while to click for us as well.

This week will be a “short” one. We only have classes Monday-Wednesday because Thursday morning we fly out of Lima and head to Cusco!!! We are going to see Macchu Picchu this weekend and I could not be more excited! I am quite scared though that I will get altitude sickness. I have heard from multiple sources that the altitude can affect people so much that they sometimes puke and are too sick to make it to Macchu Picchu. However, if I get sick, I do not care if I have to crawl…I WILL get myself up to Macchu Picchu!!!!