The adventure continues…

Hello everyone,

it’s been three weeks since I landed in Peru. A lot has happened during that time, I don’t even know where to start…

• The first week was harder than expected. Not understanding the language, not really knowing anyone and living in a completely chaotic (at least from my point of view) city made me realize that not everything is bright and shiny during the exchange.

• I went surfing for the first time ever. I bet there are a thousand nicer beaches to surf, but nevertheless, it was awesome. A bit cold though. No sunshine and frosty 15 °C. Can’t wait for the summer when it will get warmer and sunnier.
• I experienced the Peruvian Nightlife. My judgment: I like it a lot. One cool thing about the nightlife here: at most places it is quite cheap. I don’t have to think before every drink whether I can afford another one. And being a girl has quite a few advantages here. But the best thing about the Nightlife is that the Peruvians seem to be so much more open to dancing than I know it from Germany or Holland. If there is an opportunity to shake their hips, most Peruvians don’t have to think twice. Unfortunately my dancing looks quite poor compared to my dancing partners. I must have looked completely lost on the dance floor, with my arms dangling in the air like I was trying to wave someone over. Perhaps that was the reason why so many people wanted to dance with us “Europeans”.

• My Spanish improves slowly. It is still incredibly hard to have conversations, but at least my understanding improved a lot over the last three weeks thanks to my Spanish classes. I really like our Spanish course, since it teaches us exactly what we need: practice. We don’t waste too much time on grammar, but instead are forced to talk the whole time. With a group of five people (4 of us are from Tilburg) this works really well. I even enjoy giving Spanish presentations every day. Remembering my horrible, humiliating presentation at the end of my Spanish-2 class in Tilburg, I am really proud of my improvement.

• Orientation day. Whoooo! I got to meet my fellow exchange students. My verdict: It is too German and French. We are relative small group of about 60 exchange students and at least half of them are either German or French. Not really what I expected, but I am happy that at least in my house there are many other nationalities and the main language is Spanish.

• Universidad del Pacifico. Having witnessed the chaotic life in Lima for three weeks already, I was amazed by how different the university is: It didn’t seem chaotic at all. Everything was well organized, clean and really modern. They even use Blackboard here and seem to be really proud of that. There is nothing better than being positively surprised!

• La Comida Peruana is awesome and delicious. The food is incredible good. And with my lack of Spanish skills it is always a surprise what ends up on my plate. Last time it was antichuchos, which is beef heart. But someone only told me after dinner what I had eaten. I guess I will go for the guinea-pig next time, which is at least recognizable at first sight.

• Peru is a great country to discover. Since we had one week off, I used the chance to discover what Peru has to offer. I went to Ica with some friends in my house. Ica is located right in the desert. It was my first time in the desert and it was awesome. Sun, sand , Sand-Boarding and Pisco Sour. Happy times :)!

These were just a few thoughts of what happened during the last few weeks. After only four weeks I can see why students always talk about “having the time of their lives” while being on exchange.
As each day passes by, I discover so many exciting places and I have met awesome people so far. I will be travelling to the jungle for 5 days on Wednesday and after that my classes will start. I am excited and afraid at the same time…if I don’t manage to understand the menu in restaurants, how am I supposed to understand my teachers at uni?

Saludos de Lima to everyone. Enjoy your exchange everyone!!

First days in Lima

¡Hola Chicos y Chicas!

For everyone who doesn’t know me: My name is Katrin and I am going to spend the next six months in Lima, Perú to hopefully have the time of my life. So far, everything looks really promising for that to happen.

I arrived in Lima three days ago after a long journey from Frankfurt via Caracas to Lima. I already got a glimpse of what I could expect in Lima on the plane when I accidentally ordered a strong, alcoholic drink, because of my lack of Spanish skills. It was probably not such a good idea to just say “el mismo” (the same) and referring to the drink my neighbor ordered. However, these two words were the only words I could bring myself to say to the only spanish-speaking flight attendant. As it turned out, he had ordered a coke with rum, too bad that I had missed the part where he said “with rum”.

The next adventure happened at the Immigration desk. The Universidad del Pacifico advised me to get a visa before I entered Perú. I send all the required documents to my host university weeks before the deadline, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. But when it was time to contact the Peruvian embassy in Germany, I found out that they received none of my documents from the authorities in Lima. I was non-existent in their system. In general this is not a big problem, since tourists have the right to stay up to 183 days without a visa, but in my case it was another story. Basically the people working at the German embassy told me that I might not be let into the country. So you can imagine that I was quite nervous when I was waiting at the Immigration desk. However, no need to worry. Although the screen of the Immigration officer said in big, red, bold letters “requiere visa”, the officer just turned up the volume of his Peruvian music, ignored the screen and gave me the permission to stay for 183 days. I started loving Peru from that moment on.

I had already arranged my accommodation in Tilburg, so I didn’t have to worry about that here in Lima and could move in the same day that I arrived. I chose to live in an international student house with eight other young people. At first I thought that a drawback of living here would be that I wouldn’t be able to practice my Spanish, but as it turns out I don’t have to worry about that, since everyone is speaking Spanish here, except for me. The two courses we had to take at Tilburg University were in no way preparing me for my adventures here. However, I will start attending Spanish classes by the Universidad del Pacifico from the beginning of the next week, so hopefully I will catch up very soon.

I have had some time to discover some parts of Lima, especially the district of Miraflores, which is the touristy neighborhood here. Lima is just crazy. First of all Lima is covered in a cloud of smog all the time. It is just grey. No sun, but no rain either. It is just grey the whole time. And loud. Lima is incredibly busy, hundreds of taxis rushing by with drivers trying to get me to use them. I had a small city tour with two of my housemates yesterday and we took a bus…I don’t know if I will manage to ever take a bus alone. Crazy. Apparently there are no bus stops, but you just indicate where you want to get off. How to do that still remains a mystery for me. There are also no official bus routes, every bus goes somewhere else. You may wonder how to know which bus to take…well, if I will ever find an answer, I will tell you. Right now it is safer for me to just walk.

Tonight I will dive into the night life of Lima. Stay tuned…