Update

Things have been really busy at school this past month, which is the excuse I am going to go with for not updating my blog in so long. Actually, there really has been a lot going on. My seniors finished classes and just completed their IB exams last week. My concert was a week and a half ago and it went well. The kids played great and I was pleased with all the performances. It feels good to have the concert done - the pressure is off and all we need to worry about now is playing at graduation in a few weeks. We have 5 weeks of school left, then I'll be home for a few weeks, which I am really looking forward to.

I had a new, unique experience in Lima yesterday that I figured I would share with all of you. My friend Angie and I went to Chinatown - who knew there was a Chinatown in Lima?? It is in Central Lima, which is the old part of town. Central Lima is where the city started, but then everyone began moving to the surrounding "suburb" areas, like Miraflores where I live, and now Central Lima is where all the government buildings are, as well as amazing old churches and examples of Spanish architecture, and lots of poor people living in very crowded conditions. The Chinatown area is fairly small, but very cool. We took a cab down there and just wandered through a bunch of markets. We were definitely the only gringa faces I saw all day long. As we walked along, the people around us would do double takes as they heard us chatting away in English. Luckily, Angie's Spanish is pretty good, so she took care of all our negotiations for the day. We both ended up buying some neat things - I got a great skirt and some fun paper lanterns and paper stars to decorate my apartment with for Reada's bridal shower.

Shopping in Lima, especially Central Lima, is a unique experience for someone from the States. Instead of having big stores with everything in them, there are tons of little specialty stores selling the same type of things. And all the stores selling the same things are on the same street. We walked along one street with tons of stores selling only party decorations, and another selling only plastic and styrofoam plates, cups and silverware. We drove past the street where stores sell electronic amplifiers and cords, and the street where they sell construction signs and orange cones. The only other place I have seen things set up like this is in Istanbul, where Kristin and I got lost on kitchen appliance street in our attempt to find the tram station. You would think no one would ever sell anything, with stores selling the exact same thing as you on either side of you and up and down the same street, but I guess the people who shop here must have stores they always go to and the shop owners must really rely on repeat customers. It is just an interesting concept. As for Angie and I, we just went into whatever store caught our eye and bought whatever we needed there, as opposed to shopping around. Every store carries essentially the exact same things and the prices are the same. It is really a weird idea of commerce, but it seems to work for Lima.