The Nutcracker

Reada and I went to see The Nutcracker in central Lima last night. It was a beautiful production and it was nice to have a night of culture. I was hoping Tchaikovsky would put me in the Christmas spirit, but it didn't happen. It is just too warm out. I was wearing sandals at The Nutcracker. That is just wrong!

The buildings in central Lima are lit up really beautifully at night. Too bad it is dangerous to walk around there at night.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

I think when I get back in February, I am going to hire a driver to take me around central Lima at night and stop while I take pictures. The buildings and plazas are really lovely, I just could never go down there by myself.

Family Dinner

Since Jen is staying with me, she got to be a part of Reada, Tim, and I's weekly family dinner. It is nice to have special guests every once and a while.

Reada, Jen, Tim, and the 4 bottles of wine we managed to consume in 2 hours.

The family, being silly.

Alpaca

I think this is my favorite photo of all the ones Nick has taken.

Nick's photos

My student Nick, the photographer, took some fabulous pictures that I wanted to share with you. This blog is usually photos from my eye, so I figured a different perspective would be a nice change.

This is in my room at school. We were about to start a Tri-M meeting. It looks like Nicole and Lucas were the only ones on time.


I love this shot of Chris playing the guitar. He is the kid singing and playing guitar in my pictures from Tri-M music night. He is a great musician and just a neat kid. I always enjoy talking to him - he has an interesting perspective on the world.

Summer Saturday in December

Jen, Reada and I had a lovely Saturday. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed being out and about in Lima. After Moore, we took Reada wedding dress shopping. It wasn't a very successful trip, but it at least gave her some ideas. The store we went to wasn't the nicest, but we still had fun making her try on all kinds of dresses. After the wedding shop, we walked around Parque Kennedy and did some shopping. It was just a nice day.

A beautiful church at Parque Kennedy. This is really near to my apartment. It was nice to have a day in Lima where I felt like the city was kind of beautiful. I haven't felt that very often here, so it was nice to have this breakthrough.

The girls at Parque Kennedy. I've become an expert at taking self-portraits. :)

The beautiful Lima coastline. I never thought I would say that, but it was really picturesque Saturday morning.

Moore

Jen and I made our weekly trip to Moore on Saturday. Linda and Reada came too and Linda dragged her boyfriend Richard along. He had heard all about Moore, but never experienced it. In fact, he is the first male friend of ours to brave the world of Moore.

Richard experiencing Moore. He didn't really know what to do with himself. It was pretty funny.














Me and my new bag. It is going to be my carry-on for my trip home.

The girls at Moore - Reada, Jen, me and Linda. Look at all the shoes and bags in the background. This place is incredibly tiny, but packed with some of the best stuff!

FDR Christmas Party

Our school Christmas party was Thursday night (no school on Friday) at a restaurant in San Isidro. It was a great night! We had fun dancing and drinking and just having a good time celebrating the (almost) end of the year. I rolled home around 2am and was very happy to be able to sleep in the next day. Jen and I spent the day watching movies and ordering in pizza. We finally left the house around 5:30pm and met Reada at the grocery store, where we shopped like we were hungover. We looked in the cabinents last night and realized all we had bought was snack food!

Tim, Jen and Dan - it was really fun to see everyone all dressed up, especially the guys.
Richard, Reada and Ben
Me and Jen - we bought fabulous dresses that we were very excited about wearing. We also got to show off our Moore shoes and purses.

Christmas decorations

The decorations inside the shop in Barranco are beautiful. It is interesting to see South American Christmas decorations, especially after 2 years in Germany and the traditional German holiday decorations. I must admit, it is a little weird to see Christmas decorations when it is 75 degrees and I am wearing sandals. Even with the decorations, it doesn't really feel like Christmas yet. I'm ready to be home and see my mom's house all decorated and be with my family - then it will feel like Christmas.

Nothing says Christmas like ornaments hanging on a cactus! :)

Barranco

Barranco is a really cool area of Lima - kind of like Prenzlauer Berg, for those of you from Berlin. It is definitely the hip place to live in the city. It has neat old houses and random little shops, including Moore! Here are a couple of houses in Barranco that I think are really pretty.


This is owned by a cool old British lady who has lived in Lima forever and runs a little shop out of this house. She collects really well-made crafts from around Peru and sells them. I have gotten some beautiful things here.