Back to School

  Today was our first day of classes at the Spanish Language School of Peru called El Sol. The walk to school from my host family's apartment is about 25 minutes so me and 6 of my friends from the group walk together to classes because we all live near each other. Since we live so far away we left really early leaving around 8:15 and arrived at El Sol 20 minutes early! It was better this way because then we got to speak a little to one of the director of the school (have to practice as much as you can!) and she quickly explained how our program would work.

    She then split us up into our specific level classes and I am in an higher level intermediate class. My class has eight students and each day we start with 2 hours of Spanish grammar with our professor Andres. Andres is extremely patient and a great teacher. One of the things I like most about Andres' class is that on the top of the whiteboard he puts sections for regular verbs, irregular verbs, reflexive verbs, nouns and adjectives and then whenever we don't know a word he writes it down so we know what words we need to work on. It's kind of like a growing vocabulary list and its really helpful.So after grammar class we have a 20 minute break where we can go to the bathroom, get some delicious coffee in the cafeteria or just rest before we have 1 hour of conversation  class and 1 hour of Peruvian culture with Romeo (pronounced Row-May-O). Romeo is another great professor and I really enjoy our conversation class with him. It's challenging but fun because he talks to us about topics that we relate to. For example all 8 of us had to try and explain co-op to someone who had no idea what that meant in Spanish. It was a great time though.

   After class we went to el museo de Ricardo Palma where the famous Peruvian national hero lived. Ricardo Palma was a writer and government figure that became a national hero after he rebuilt the National Library. But before all that he started as a writer becoming famous for his book Tradiciones Peruanas.  He also wrote over 500 other books during his lifetime. His big role with the National Library came after the Chileans invaded Lima during the Pacific War and destroyed most of the library. After the Chileans departed Palma became the director of the National Library and began on the amazing feat of rebuilding the Library to its glory before the war. Unfortunately all his work was destroyed when the library burned down in 1943.After the tour I returned home and had a delicious dinner and very nice conversation with my host mother Nora. She made me a Peruvian dish called Rocoto Relleno.

     

Rocoto Relleno is basically a stuffed pimiento pepper that my host mother said is prepared to be less spicy. The stuffing is usually meat and cheese and in mine she had a hard boiled egg. I normally don't like peppers at all but I want to try everything here so I tried it and loved it. I ate every last bite. The side dish that is in the picture is just a simple vegetable mix but my host family has an olive farm in the south of Peru and they make that most delicious olive oil I have ever had and that was mixed in with the vegetables. Also for a drink I had Chicha which is purple corn juice. I has a strange taste but I like it and I often have it with meals here but I still would like to try Inca Kola.