New Year's, Arequipa, Katie and William

A lot has happened since my last post, but I am finding it difficult to find the time to write. We recently had a flurry of activity here, starting with the Thanksgiving holiday, then both Anthony's and my birthday celebrations, and ending with the 12 Days of Christmas and the culmination of 2008 with our New Year's Eve van celebation (which includes me, Ali, Anthony and a Nalgene bottle full of wine in a rented van, cruising through Lima on the way to the airport to pick up Katie and William).

2009 already began with a bang, not to mention a totally deserved hangover (read the aforementioned bit about that Nalgene bottle full of wine), and a whirlwind tour of Arequipa. We had friends from the U.S. in Peru for 2 weeks, while I diligently tried to get SOME grad school work done, and now it's time to become a hermit once again, and work my tail off until I finish this annotated bibliography that's kicking my tush. There is a lot of work to do, but when it's done, I'm celebrating by traveling to the U.S. to see family, friends, and doctors, to take a few potentially career-altering tests, and to attend Jeff and Liz's wedding.

In the meantime (i.e. while I continue to ignore this blog), I've posted a couple pictures of what you've missed...

(Yeah, that would be me, attempting to make hot chocolate on New Year's Eve and failing miserably to get it into the cups.)

Katie has this thing about posing for pictures. This would be us skipping (like dorks) through the Santa-whatever Monastery in Arequipa.

Me, Katie and William somewhere in the desert that is Arequipa, with a lonely vicuna in the background.

How I LOVE the baby animals! Chivay is in the background...

I made Katie and William help paint a school as part of their penance for visiting me. Their reward was to watch me and Ali play frisbee on the beach (Punta Rocas).

They're just happy because they were finally going paragliding.

Maggie is now less of a woman

We are the cruel, inhumane parents that took our little baby to the vet to get her spayed. Luckily the hardcore drugs have now worn off and she is able to smile again. She just can't quite walk through doors without slamming into the door frame... (Oh yes, we are laughing.)

Something funny happened on the way to the kitchen

Anthony and I were in the living room, and I was on my way to the kitchen, when we noticed something slightly bizarre. Usually our afternoons are full of the dulcet tones of Grace and Monster Dog (aka Maggie) wrestling, while Pookie the Jungle Kitty sits calmly under the plants in the backyard and surveys his jungle kingdom. Or sometimes, to shake things up, we listen to the dulcet tones of Pookie the Pansy as he whines about the fact that Monster Dog has pinned him to the floor again and is chewing on his ear.

Yet on this particular afternoon, we noticed something awry. Monster Dog was running in pointless circles around the backyard, her uncontrollable puppy tongue slapping the side of her face. Not more than two paces behind her was Pookie the Jungle Kitty, tearing up the lawn at breakneck speed. Our cat was chasing our puppy. CHASING. OUR. PUPPY.

Kudos to you, Master P. Way to grow some.

Birthday wishes do come true

Even though we've had quite an interesting financial go of Peru, we still found a few pennies in the coffers to treat ourselves to a fish lunch for our birthdays. Pescados Capitales is one of the premier restaurants in Lima, known for its top-quality ceviche and economic prices. So this is where we turned our gaze when we wanted to celebrate the fact that we're getting old.

Cheers to raw fish! (That's right, mom. RAW fish.)

Just your typical expat

Many of my friends here in Lima are pretty impressed by the fact that I drive here. I feel that my Massachusetts driving skills have not altered since I first received my license at 16 (which statement, I am sure, is scaring the bejeezus out of my parents right now), but many people find themselves overwhelmed by the traffic here.

There are so many problems with the commute here that it's difficult to find a starting point, but I will try - I will make a list:

1) Many cars here in Lima would never pass a car inspection - the biggest problem for other drivers on the road is nonfunctional tail and brake lights;
2) The dotted lines demarcating lanes mean nothing - a three-lane highway can and usually will hold five lanes of traffic;
3) Many Peruvian drivers do not believe that traffic laws or common courtesy applies - blocking the box, taking a righthand turn from the left-most lane, gunning it through stop signs, and driving straight through an intersection from the turning lane, among a number of other obnoxious (and frankly dangerous) driving behaviors, are common;
4) Traffic police - many people complain, for example, about the traffic police in DC, but Peruvian traffic police take the cake; they stop traffic at green lights, allow lanes of traffic to fill up to the point that cars are fully blocking the box and causing a four-way traffic jam, and, from personal experience, have a nasty habit of pulling over perfectly appropriate drivers who take lefthand turns when the lefthand arrow turns green and telling them to drive more carefully.

I'm sure this list doesn't accurately explain just how quickly one's blood pressure rises when driving around Lima, but I assure you that when you come to visit, you will understand very quickly that traffic here is like nothing you've ever experienced before.

Thank goodness my quaint New England driving skills prepared me to be the most aggressive SOB on the road!

The kids

If there's any question of whether or not the kids are settling into life here in Peru, this should remove all doubts.

Tis the season...

Thanksgiving came and went, and I didn't once write about it. However, it is my hands-down favorite holiday and I really can't let it slip by without a word or two.

This particular Thanksgiving was special for many reasons, the primary of which is that this was my first Thanksgiving in 29 years not spent in MA with my family. We may have long foregone family Christmas celebrations, but we haven't been able to lose our enthusiasm for a holiday filled with food, food, more food, and the entire wacky, extended family, friends and neighbors who always decorate our table with their smiles, their laughter, and their willingness to put up with us.

So, my Peruvian Thanksgiving was a little diffferent this year, since Anthony decided that we should invite everyone we know and plan an Italian/Southern Thanksgiving feast. That means that we had 24 planned attendees (of which 17 or so showed up) and not a single food item that is ever served at my family's Thanksgiving, except the jellied cranberry sauce by Ocean Spray I was able to uncover in the local grocery store! Instead of a full turkey with the crispy skin, the fat-filled "butt" that I hang around in the kitchen to steal before anyone else gets a chance, and the homemade gravy, we had a 4lb. turkey breast stuffed with Italian sausage. Instead of the mashed potatoes, we had candied yams. Instead of the stuffed artichokes, we had meat and vegetarian lasagnes. And instead of Martinelli's sparkling cider, we had bottles upon bottles of red wine.

Yet the holiday wasn't ruined for me because of the lack of traditional food; instead it was elevated into something new, and something almost as equally fabulous. While I didn't end up eating much (I apparently was too busy drinking wine and setting up the table with the food), I was still surrounded by a wonderful group of friends who I have grown to care about and value since I moved to Peru in July. It has been a difficult transition for both of us, and what seems to help the most is having people who you can laugh with, complain with, and just generally kick back your heels with. In a word, friends.

It was my friends who baked me a Thanksgiving/birthday banana pie, friends who stopped at the store last-minute to pick up food for what we thought would be too many people for the amount of food we'd prepared, friends who sang Happy Birthday in both English and Spanish, friends who cheered my health and happiness with a bottle of champagne, and friends who stuck around until 1AM, madly eating the last few crumbs of my first-ever pumpkin pie and debating the relative hotness of Nathalie Portman and Keira Knightley. Thanksgiving just wouldn't have been the same without them.

Therefore, I am eternally grateful to my Peruvian friends for helping to make my first Thanksgiving away from home a happy occassion. And I thank them for leaving me with all these tasty leftovers that I've been inhaling since Thursday. Nothing says post-Thanksgiving happiness like eating banana pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner!