Nuestro Departamento Nuevo

It's official. Mike and I have both signed and fingerprinted the contract for our new apartment in Arequipa, Peru. Yesterday was an especially long day, but after we finally completed the transaction, we went out to check the keys, take a few measurements, and of course take some pictures! We didn't get very many good ones (most were close-ups of cracks in the wall...), and of course we will have more when it's actually furnished and looks better, but here's a first peek! -->

Yes, very pink....We're probably not going to spend the money or time on paint, so pink cabinets we have!

kitchen/dining area.

living room.

hallway down to the 3 bedrooms.

This will be the bathroom all of you use when you come to visit! It's super bright orange. They like their bold colors here, that's for sure. :)

We are meeting up with a local friend we've met here in Peru on Saturday to help buy our major appliances - fridge, range, and washer. Then we'll spend next week buying all the smaller stuff to make it a home! We are so thankful for the family we are living with right now, but we are very excited to have our own home soon. Yea!

Living With a Peruvian Family

First, just FYI - for those of you with whom we discussed the idea of doing a monthly newsletter, we have decided to only regularly update the blog. We would be duplicating so much information, and this is a better and easier outlet for us to communicate the happenings in our personal lives as well as updates on the Extreme Peru Project.

We just wanted to share some pictures of our current home with all of you:

Here is our water stash under the desk. We recently discovered that "Cielo" brand is bad on our tummies, so we just buy "San Luis" brand now. We probably go through a bottle (2.5 liters) a day together.

Mike sprawled out on our bed.

The front of our bed.

The desk and the closet we share. The desk holds our pants, our snacks, our electronics, our books, and my computer.

I bought that mirror hanging on the desk from a lady sitting on a sidewalk somewhere after I used that 2"x3" mirror next to it for 2 weeks. :)

Our laundry bag. We usually have to do laundry when two of those bags are full.

The view from our window - to the left.

The view from our window - to the right.

The bathroom we share with 4 or 5 other people.

Either the toilet or the shower has been broken about 50% of our time here so far, so it's been quite an adventure! I usually am the one that receives the effects of the broken shower - icy icy water! But the family's good at getting them fixed quickly.

Mike studies out on the couch in the living room. He can concentrate with the noise out there, so I usually study in the bedroom.

In front of our building.

We live on the 3rd floor.

And last but not least, my favorite snack here! It's called maiz tostado - toasted corn. And it is heavenly. It's kinda close to corn nuts, but softer. Very yummy.

Our Address

In response to many of you desiring to send packages down, we have discovered the best way to receive them. We technically do not have our own home yet (hopefully next week), but it is difficult to deliver to homes anyway - it only works when we happen to be there at the same time. If we miss the delivery, it becomes much more challenging to collect the package. Going through the post office and customs guard can cost us quite a bit of time and money.

All that to say, it would be best to send all things to our office. There is always someone there, and, for some reason, the charges are much less frequent when it's a delivery to a business.

Our address is as follows:

Extreme Nazarene Ministries/**Drinkwater

Avenida Lima 110

Yanahuara

Arequipa, PERU

**If you want this to go to only one of us, just put "Mike" or "Sydney" in front of Drinkwater. :) Easy enough!

Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day was quite unique - our first as a married couple and our first in Peru!

Here is my Valentine's gift from Mike. It is probably the best chocolate I've ever tried.

I just had to show this - the expiration date of the chocolate is our 1-year anniversary.

We took a couple hours in the afternoon to go see the Santa Catalina Convent. It's one of the most popular places to see in the city, and it was certainly beautiful. Here are several pictures from our tours:

After the Convent, Mike, of course, needed his daily dose of ice cream. So we bought some and sat in the Plaza de Armas for a long time, just people watching. I feel comfortable saying that Valentine's Day is celebrated more in this country than in the U.S., mostly because it's not just the "Day of Love," but also the "Day of Friendship." If you don't have a special someone to spend the afternoon/evening with, you spend it with your friends. So everyone was out that evening.

Then we walked around for a while, going down some streets we hadn't been down yet, looking at shops and just hanging out. We were at another small Plaza/park when a band of young guys started setting up their instruments. We eventually found out they were from France. They were very entertaining, and we probably stood there for an almost an hour watching/listening. It was really fun.

After we watched the band, we went searching for a place to eat dinner. We eventually decided on a little pizzeria where they cook the pizzas in wood ovens. It was incredibly yummy. Then, surprise, Mike wanted another ice cream cone. We walked down the street a little, found his favorite place, and we could hardly get inside! The streets were officially packed - with lovers and friends. I waited by the door while he waited for his cone.

Overall, we had a terrific first-as-a-married-couple Valentine's Day. Being in Peru made it all the more special.

Language Training

We are attending class from 9 to 1 every weekday. They pack so much information into every day, it's hard to keep up the studying in the afternoons/evenings. It's definitely intense, but we've both already learned a ton of Spanish. Of course we're nowhere near fluent, but we can at least get around the city with what we know.

Labor is very cheap in Peru, so the school can afford many teachers. There are probably 15-20 students right now and each one has a teacher. I meet with Carlos in the morning for 2 hours while Mike meets with Manolo. The second 2 hours, we switch - me with Manolo and Mike with Carlos. It's been a very efficient system so far, and I know we wouldn't have learned as much in a larger class setting. This is great.

The school building itself is not terribly big, so most of the "classes" meet outside. There are small tables with 2 chairs each - all separated by whiteboards. All of them have either an umbrella or another type of head covering. For those of you who know me, the sun and I do not work well together - my skin basically glows. So my first day was tough, being out there for 4 hours. Come to find out, there were a couple more pairs that met inside the building, Mike being one. The next day we switched, because he didn't mind the outside. So now everything's good!

It's a really fun school - all the teachers are always so happy and nice - and we are learning a lot. Yea!