School is a bit different here...

Have you ever traveled to another country and started to realize that what you are accustomed to isn't necessarily the norm? I have been in Lima, Peru now for about a month and since starting school three weeks ago I have begun to notice there are a number of differences when studying in a foreign country. First off if you have ever wanted to be treated like royalty at school and you have never known the key to getting those special treatments, well I have one easy solution for you...GO STUDY ABROAD! While I wasn't seeking to attain special privileges and break the rules I have been realizing that international students get a nice break as international students or "intercambios."

As an intercambio the first thing I noticed that I get slack on is where I enter the school. I do not go to a private school in the United States so I am not used to needing an ID to get into the gated university, but here in Peru all students must show ID to get into school. I, however, get by with being a "gringo" from the US so I don't need an ID. On top of not needing an ID to get into the university I just realized that I have been entering an exiting at the teacher and visitors entrance where Peruvian students are not allowed to use. Since I want to blend in as much as possible I will now take the other entrance and exit in order to follow along with the school policies that were not told to me.

Along with the being treated like royalty and not needing to abide by all the rules I have noticed that time here in Peru is pretty relative. By relative I do not mean we are talking about physics and all, I mean when class starts at 9:00 AM don't expect the teacher or all the students to be there. In the US if the teacher is more than 15 minutes late class is officially canceled, here in Peru I think we have to stay at least half an hour before it is okay to leave. The same goes for a business meeting, don't expect your meeting to have a hard starting or ending time, just go with the flow.

Besides clocks being meaningless and having extra privileges around school there are a number of other things that are a bit different which include:

• Printer paper is not 8.5" by 11" rather it is A4 which technically is 8.25" by 11.69". Since the paper size is bigger that means you have to write more and all your papers will not fit in a normal binder or folder brought from the US.

• Page alignment on a typed paper is also different here. In the US we normally align everything to the left, but here they use "justify text" so that both the left and the right are flush with the page.

• Freshman at the university are also younger, they check in at around 16 to 17 years old compared to the typical 18 years old in the US. While that is not bad it does mean that all the Freshman are still very eager to volunteer to answer questions in class...while we may call those people the teacher's pet in the US, here it is the norm for ALL the younger students.
• Buying books is also very different because rather than buying new books the teacher takes a copy to the copier and they proceed to copy the full text and sell it for very cheap. Here I paid 50 soles which equals about $20 for a full text for my International Business class which has about 800 pages. On top of that all materials given for the class can be copied at the various copy centers around the nearby "copiadoras."

• Assigning homework can also be done over email after class without any forewarning so I have to be prepared to go from having no homework to being swamped with just one email.
• The final thing I will mention is that class attendance is taken daily but you are able to miss 30% of the classes from the semester without any negative affect on your grade besides not getting the material.

All in all I am really loving life here in Lima and I am excited to continue to learn more about the Peruvian culture and the Spanish language!

After reading this post is there anything you have noticed when traveling abroad that is different from your home country's customs?

Comida muy rico!

In general the Peruvians continue to amaze me in all the different foods they have and the rich (rico) tastes that they all contain. The last two days have been full many new experiences when it comes to food and I have enjoyed them all very much! Growing up in the United States I don’t think I ever realized how sheltered I was to what happened outside of Alaska and the United States, so being liberated to learning a new culture and new cuisine is very exciting to me! The one food group that astounds me more than any other in Peru is the massive variety of fruits they have here. In the United States you can buy really delicious fruits in markets and other places that are very sweet (dulce) and fresh, but in Peru they have so many more types of fruit. Above you will see just one more example of a fruit that was foreign to me when I arrived and now is a normal ingredient in many juices (jugos).

Also on the food scene there is a trend to eat spicy foods. At my host family’s house we have a house keeper named Lucy who a very good cook and definitely knows how to pack a punch in the spices she mixes together for our meals! So far my favorite spice I have had is ají, which is a combination of peppers, garlic, oregano, onion, and probably a few other things that I didn’t pick up when she was describing the recipe (receta). Above you will see a magnificent dish the Lucy prepared that consisted of meat (carne), french fries (papas fritas), onions (cebollas), rice (arroz), and the delicious ají sauce!

The final thing I want to point out about my Peruvian diet is that everyone really likes ice cream (helado)! At my host family’s house we have a 5 liter container of ice cream sitting in the freezer waiting to be eaten at any time of the day! Also whenever you go to a mall or supermarket or other highly populated area there seems to be a gelato stand that has many sweet and rich ice cream choices, above is just one example of what one of these stands would look like!

Outside of eating some amazing food during the last two days I have been walking around my neighborhood (barrio) a lot with my host family as well as visiting other cites in Lima. Last night marked the first time I went on my first solo taxi ride without a Peruvian and my driver was so awesome that he told me he knew our address and then ended up trying to take us to some random clinic rather than taking us to the one in our neighborhood, luckily I knew enough Spanish to tell him off and let him know that I wanted to go home, not be fooled into being dropped off in the middle of nowhere. I had a similar experience on my first solo bus ride when riding to my university, University San Ignacio de Loyola, when the driver decided to cut their route short and turn around in order to get more passengers, thus telling us we needed to get off before the destination we paid for. Needless to say we did make it to our university today and we were introduced to some of the staff that works with international students as well as learn our way around the campus a little bit! I have a feeling that I am going to like the university a lot, it has a very warm feel and is very welcoming to internationals, as seen in my photo of all the flags (banderas) when entering the school.

One last thing before I call it a night for my blog… I LOVE how calm the life is around here and I very much enjoy the nap time (siesta) that seems to be very widely accepted after meal times! Everyday I am reminded how this trip was really ordained by God because in all circumstances I am learning new things about myself, the people around me, and how truly blessed I am!