It is time to update! There is much to tell! I will start with the Lima Contact gathering. Lima Contact is an expat group of mostly women. There are also Peruvians who attend activities as well. Honestly, I am not completely sure what the group does but there was a Christmas brunch that was organized by a very active expat who does things with various groups including expats married to peruvians. The lunch was really great and there was champagne to start and a delicious buffet. There were also really cute gifts for everyone. I got two little cacti in a bowl. We are slowly but surely growing our plant collection in the house. I met a few women including one who has lived in Peru since the 70s. I also met a Peruvian woman who is a tour guide and a professor. I love gatherings like this. There are always super cool people to talk to.
Marco and I had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with Emma, my yoga instructor and her friends that included Peruvians, Americans, a German and and Irish. It was really nice and I made pumpkin pie. I tried to make whipped cream out of egg whites which is technically a meringue but it worked. Marco wasn't expecting to get filled up by the food but it turned out that he like pretty much everything. We ended up passing out in a tryptophan induced sleep at the end of the night, content and very thankful. We will be celebrating Thanksgiving every year no matter what. It is my favorite American holiday. I know that Marco has no complaints especially if we don't have to make the turkey but we get to eat it. Haha!
We had the pleasure of going out to dinner with Marco's best friend from Acari, his wife and sister in law with her daughter. We ate at Javier, this great seafood place on the bajada de los baños in Barranco. The service isn't great but the food is fantastic and there is this delicious drink called Cielo del Inka that has pisco and vermouth in it. Anyway, it was really great getting to know everyone and we ended the night by coming back to our place and staying up til 3 in the morning! We were invited to Acari for New Years. We might just make it! We shall see.
On Sunday Marco and I set up our Christmas tree and our nativity scene. I think I mentioned in a post last year in my Cusco blog about how nativity scenes are customary here. In Cusco you could buy fresh vegetation to use as grass. We had our set and all of our little animals from last year and we will continue to add a few animals each year. I have a feeling when we have kids they will be getting animals each year along with ornaments like my parents to my brother and me. We only have two personal ornaments on our tree right now and neither belongs to us. One is Marco's son's and the other belongs to Pepe. It says "Dogs love Christmas too". If Pepe is good Santa might be rewarding him with his stocking filled with treats. The other ornaments are typical round ornaments that are purple and gold. We never had those when I was growing up but that is because we had so many ornaments as gifts throughout the year. I think having personal ornaments is much more fun not only for sentimental reasons but because it is fun to look at all the different ornaments on the tree. Soon I will have all the ones that I got while growing up. I taught Marco how to properly put lights on a tree to make it look like they are part of the tree and not just slung about. We still lack a skirt for the bottom of the tree and a star to put on top but it is coming along very nicely!
Finally, the choir that I sing with (Coro Arpegio) had a concert on Monday night. We sang some Christmas songs, some criollo songs, a few songs for weddings and some jazz. It was super fun and we looked so cute with all black and red pizazz. I absolutely love singing with Arpegio. Not only is it a bit of income but the girls are so much fun and we have such a good time together. That's the best part. We are going to be giving another concert next Tuesday and we are going to be broadcast live on radio filarmonica 102.7 in Lima. How cool is that?
There are still some more things to update everyone about including the Christmas Bazaar concert at the school where I taught this year and a NEW JOB for next year. I am so happy to say that the end of my first year in Lima is shaping up to be a complete 180 from the beginning. I will make sure to put up a new post soon. For now, it's time to catch up on some sleep and recuperate some energy after all the craziness of finishing up school this week.
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