Pics

Finally there are some pics:

These are the ladies from the floating Islands at the Titikaka-Lake. The even sang a song for us, which was in English and quite touristy, I doubt they even knew what they were singning.

Isla del Sol, Lago Titicaca, Bolivia. Incredible. One of the highest lakes in the world, in the background you can see the snow-covered mountains!

Machu Picchu, it was incredible!!

I will miss the fresh, cheap fruit juices. Really tasty!

The ultimate tourist pic in Cusco ;)

Peru, Peru, Peru is on fire!

This is a rather quick update, but this week has been so awesome that I felt it would be the right moment to update my blog.

Lima, city without sunshine, but lots of contamination. Too much traffic, but no green areas. All these things about Lima are true. But this also is:

Lima, city with a sea, cultural importance and millions of possibilities. Last week I grabbed two of these possibilities, the first one on Thursday when I went to a David Guetta concert and the second one on Saturday, when the Black Eyed Peas made 33 000 people go crazy in the night of Lima. And I was one of them!!! And boy, I went crazy!! It was easily the best live show I have ever seen. On top of that, the Peas performed their 100^th and also last show of their world tour in Lima, which could be easily noticed. The energy they transferred was incredible and addictive. Their theme of the night “Peru, Peru, Peru is on fire” and their constant involvement of the crowd by speaking Spanish made everyone head over toes and completely lose themselves. Their last song of the night “I got a feeling” with confetti raining over the crowd was the perfect finale to an incredible night. You might thing: great, what’s got to do this with Peru? You can go to a BEP concert in every part of the world, you don’t have to be in Peru for that.

That’s right, but for me it was as special as for the Peruvians here. I was reading the newspapers today about this concert and all different Peruvian newspapers agreed on the fact that this concert was the biggest and most spectacular show Peru has ever seen by any artist, and knowing that I was a part of that makes me feel pretty great. Although it might sound a little bit crazy, but yesterday I felt proud like a Peruvian for hosting such an event.

But let’s change topics and let me tell you something about the travel possibilities in Peru. I must start off by saying that Peru is a country with one of the highest biodiversities in the world. You can relax at nice beaches in the North, have an adventurous trip in the Amazonian jungle, do hiking tours in the snow-covered Andes and go sand boarding down the dunes in the desert. All of that is possible in Peru.

I for my party enjoy the mountains the most. Perhaps it is because in Holland and my hometown in Germany there are no mountains. Another reason is that the air is so fresh and clean compared to Lima, that whenever I am in the mountains I feel like I haven’t breathed in a long time. Living in Lima for six months probably has the effect like 10 years of smoking would have on my lungs. Yay, great that I haven’t smoked so far, so I still have a buffer!

It is pretty easy, cheap and safe to get around in Perú. To all the major cities there are good bus connections. Of course it depends on the budget you would like to spend, but for a pretty decent price, you can get excellent service here, which is not at all comparable to buses in Europe. It is sooo much better. The buses here are what the Hiltons or the Marriots are in hotels. But then, I wouldn’t really know that, I have never seen one from the inside. On the buses you get served food, watch poorly subtitled movies and play bingo. Of course if you decide to take the cheaper option, you might end up in a pretty shitty motel, but even that might turn out to be a fun ride. Sitting in a cramped bus, which is only suited for Peruvian bodies (man, their legs are short); old, fat, but really nice Peruvian ladies trying to hook you up with their sons and after hours having a sore back and legs. But in the end you don’t really mind, because you saved a great deal of money and had some fun at the same time. This is why I love Peru. Everything is just a little different here, often unexpected and mostly fun.

At the end I just would like to mention my friends here in Peru, who make collective reading sessions with my blog here. They deserve special mentions, because mostly they are the reason I am having so much fun here. So the special honors of this blog go to:

Eva, in this blog you don’t even have to make up your name, I am gonna do that all by myself. Thank you for eating clowns for breakfast and making us laugh!

Elisabeth, I always think it is great to be pushed to my limits, but seriously, that riding horses session in Cusco was way too much even for me!

Emilia, thanks for sharing my passion for consuming. Without it, we would never have found out about the delicious “tart aleman” in Papa John’s!! I have never come across anything as German as that so far. By the way, when are we going there again? Or to Starbucks? Or to the movies? Or anywhere really?

You all rock!

Besos de Lima,

Katrin

Here are a few pictures of what Peru has to offer:

Well, it seems like once again my Internet connection here is too weak too handle the enormous task of uploading five pictures, so I have to delay that until tomorrow when I have a better connection at uni.

It’s the final countdown…

I am sorry that it took me such a long time to update this blog, but I guess every exchange student can relate when I say that there are just a million things to do while being on exchange.

So, where to start?

Although it seems like the midterms were like a year ago, I just want to give you a quick update on how they went. It was a really hard week, culminating in my 3-exams-horror-day. By the time I was writing my third exam on that day, I could hardly think anymore and I felt like I was a robot, just writing anything to fill the page. Ironically, it turned out to be my best exam. I guess I should make that my next strategy: not to worry too much, just write something, anything really and go home and relax. My grades in the midterms are not extremely good and are lower than my Tilburg grades, but at least I passed almost all of my subjects. Considering that all of my classes are in Spanish and the exams of course were as well, I guess I am quite satisfied with the results. I expect the finals to be better, because my Spanish improved significantly over the last few weeks.

After midterms weeks a friend and I decided that we deserved a break from university and went travelling for a week. The best way to summarize this trip is simply saying WOW!! We started in Cusco, which is the base for exploring Machu Picchu. Awesome. I think I have never been at such an incredible, atmospheric place before. The word I use mostly when I describe Machu Picchu to my Peruvian classmates is “marravilloso”! Being surrounded only by fog-covered mountains and looking at the ruins of the ancient Inca-city, I just felt an incredible happiness and the thought came to my mind that regarding my exchange, I made a truly perfect decision. In an instant, I would choose Peru again. I would suffer through the first weeks of university again. And I would definitely recommend Peru as a possible exchange destination!

Furthermore I want to give a small update about my level of Spanish, because I guess most people who are considering going to a Spanish-speaking country, will ask themselves the question whether his or her level is sufficient. As you probably could filter out from some of my blogs, it is an understatement to say that at times I was frustrated with my slow progression of learning. A good friend of mine told me again and again that there will be a time, in which suddenly it all makes sense and then I would be able to understand a lot and will be able to talk. Although I knew that he is right most of the times, I still highly doubted that. But it turns out that he was right: I think I got to this point. Finally! Just today I gave a 15 minutes presentation, in which I started talking with the help of my notes and by the end of the presentation I realized that for most part, I didn’t even look at them. I talked more or less freely for 15 minutes, which is my biggest accomplishment so far here. These moments are worth all the misunderstandings (which are still happening, actually just yesterday there was another one with one of my “profes”, when I answered his question with “No, please don’t turn on the air-conditioning, it’s cold”, when in fact all he asked me was whether I knew if my classmates were coming to class that night). Of course it is far from being “good” or “fluent”, but considering that during the first weeks I could hardly say anything, this feels like a big victory to me.

So my advice to everyone, who is considering going to a Spanish-speaking country and is unsure of his/her level of Spanish: Yes, it is painful in the beginning (especially at the Universidad del Pacifico, because class participation and group works are big here). Yes, there will be misunderstandings. Yes, there will be frustration and I guess sooner or later the question “Why didn’t I choose to go to an English-speaking country?” will pop up. But there is a point when you suddenly realize that you actually improved and are able to communicate rather freely and without being uncomfortable. And believe me, when you realize that this moment has come: It is incredible!

Wow, I guess this wasn’t a small update on the language part. Next time I will write more on what makes Peru and Lima so special to me. And then…finals…and then…traveling for 8 weeks to Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Columbia. I really can’t wait for these adventures to start.

Besos to everyone and especially to all students who are on exchange right now: Enjoy the final countdown!!!

Katrin

PS: As a final note, I would like to add that so far the support from the International Offices from both Tilburg and Lima has been great during the whole exchange process (although I hardly had any problems). Thank you for making this possible!!! Now that my Spanish is better, I am actually glad that you are encouraging us to go to Spanish-speaking countries. You can expect a little postcard coming your way in the next few weeks, if it doesn’t get lost on the way… J

Nevertheless I would like to add that I wish Tilburg University in general would consider that there are many students on exchange and therefore NOT in Tilburg this semester to attend all the important meetings about the Bachelor Thesis. I don’t know how this was handled during the last few years, but it would be nice if at least there was a note saying that there will be information published online for the exchange students, who are not going to make it to the meetings so that we get supplied with everything we have to know about registering for the Thesis as well. However, this is a general thing and does not concern the International Office in any way.