Tilt Your Head

First off before i say anything about the trip itself i would like to thank my dear wonderful tio Folke for letting us use his car. Our time in Lima is much more comfortable and relaxed knowing we have a car to use whenever we choose and can go wherever we'd like when we want to. I'm so lucky to have such a generous uncle. :]

OK! This is the start of my 6th day of our third vacation in Peru, and i have to say third time is the charm. Everything is much easier this time around...Dad can actually navigate himself around Lima and is SO much better at working is way around the crazy Lima drivers. Getting together with all of the family members is no longer awkward. We're all very comfortable and small talk is a thing of the past. And apparently, based on every single person telling me so, my spanish is much much better. Which leads me to wonder, How awful was my spanish before? My actual knowledge of the language hasn't really improved drastically, really it's the fact that i finally grew a pair and am willing to speak even though i don't know how to say it perfectly.

First few days in Lima were chalked full of meeting up with each family member and eating great food (which my Dad and I paid for later). I've seen every member and i'm happy that this time they won't be left with the impression "Alyssa isn't quite comfortable speaking spanish" but instead maybe they'll think "wow, Alyssa's funny!" or witty, or nice, or idk something besides my lack of conversation.

First day, Friday, we went to this restaurant called La Mar...wonderful food, awesome ceviche, tasty causa. Small portions, meant for trying not really consuming, but good nonetheless. I probably would've been satisfied if i ate the pulpo, but i hate pulpo so no chance of that.

Saturday we went to Lagunas so the three brothers could finally be together for the first time in i don't know how long... but a long time. Just that day itself was worth the 15 miserable hours spent traveling here. The dynamic between the three is very amusing, you can see the similarities but they're all so different. I think dad definitely fits the character of the oldest brother, Folke the middle, and Wieland the youngest.
(by the way, Wieland says his mother must've been drunk when she named my Dad Cornelius, my reply to that was if that was true then she must have been wasted when she named the other two as well...i got your back dad).

During this time together we ate a lot of food (best causa i've ever had) and chatted with everyone. Karina came too so it was a ton of people all with a lot to say. Wild. After lunch, the majority of the rest of the day was spent taking pictures. Pictures of the brothers, pictures of the brothers with their wives, pictures of the brothers with one of his brother's wives, pictures of just the wives...we have enough pictures from that day to last us the rest of the trip. In these pictures there's a nice new twist to the usual...it's the tilted head. Apparently at one point sometime before that day Cami had told Lucia that her photos would come out better if Lucia would tilt her head to the right or left. So next time Lucia had her picture taken she tilted her head and found she liked the result. This story was told to us that day and after that every picture taken involved someone tilting their head, not really because they thinked they actually looked better but just because it was really funny to everyone. We all looked unbelievably foolish.

Sunday we stayed in the Lucho's house and i consumed more Chifles than anyone should. They're addictive. For lunch we ordered what Leila said is the best Chifa there is. Chifa = Chinese food. though the Chifa was tasty, i fault it for my upset stomach these past couple of days. Guillermo and Luis and Rocio came for this Chifa lunch as well as Leila's sister's kids and husband. Tons of people, tons of Chifa. After lunch while part of the family sat down to watch the movie Mamma Mia (i hate musicals on film) i chose to go with Rocio and sons to Starbucks for a coffee. During this time i found out lots about my cousin Guillermo. In our efforts to converse in a mix of spanish and english i learned what he's studying...law (i think) as well as how many credits each class is worth..3 or 4...how many exams in each class...midterm + final = 2...and the fact that his ex girlfriend is a tad nuts and still calls his brothers and mother but not him. he also taught be the word "bamba" which means illegal, in reference to pirated movies.
That night i went with Leila to go get myself a triple at La Baguette. what originally started out as a triple run for Alyssa turned into a Butifarra, triple, empenadas of every form, and tostaditos run for everyone. We waited there for about 40 minutes for our food...ironically enough the reason it took so long was because of my triple...has to be made fresh.

Monday i woke up early to play tennis with Belen, Rodrigo, and Seancito (Leila's nephew who's real name is Sean who's from Miami but they found a way to make it sound Spanish).
We got to the courts a little before 11 am but had to wait because our court wouldn't open till 12 so we sat and watched what Belen told me to be professional peruvian tennis players as well as an Argentinian one. The Mauricio character was very cute. One of the courts happened to be open during this time and seancito has one of the people in charge (which is remarkable considering he's 7) if we could play on that court while we wait for our. We were given 20 minutes.
We go to the court and start hitting around, Belen y yo against Rodrigo y Seancito. I was terrified of playing a game because every single time i hit the ball it would go out...no matter how soft i hit it! i didn't understand and then i realized, this court is half the size of a real one...each side was a bout 5 feet shorter than what it should be and i began to panic. Omg, if this is what they usually play on i'm going to be awful, i'm going to lose, i can't play on this! Then the 20 minutes were up and we went to our courts...it was normal. Apparently the other one was like a practice one for something i don't even know but i was very relieved. And i played pretty well considering it's been months since i've touched a racquet. I struggled after the first few games, my endurance isn't what it used to be and it was hot and i didn't have water AND i got 4 hours of sleep.
So i lost to Belen...i demand a rematch. But rodrigo and i were champions vs. her and seancito. I'm a doubles player yo, i don't do singles.

That afternoon we met up with Wieland, Lucia, y Cami to inspect their new home. it's HUGE. it's a like a little mansion. From the outside you would have no idea that you were about to enter a house with more hallways than we have bedrooms. That might be an exaggeration but it was much bigger than i expected and very nice. I'm excited to see the finished product next year.
We then went to lunch and then separated from Kafka family 2 to go to the museum of oro. First 10 minutes were interesting and then i was very bored. This guy collected everything in that museum on his own, how or why i have no idea but it was too much stuff. The archaeological stuff was interesting but once we got to the war stuff i was ready to go home.
Then we quickly returned to Lucho's house so i could see Francisco for approximately 10 minutes since he'd been at the beach all weekend and then i left with Wieland and fam to go to Laguna while mom and dad stayed behind for another night and day in Lima.
The drive to the beach was jam packed with Techno music..."you don't like my music Alyssa??" says Wieland..dont worry tio it's growing on me.
When we arrive to the beach Wieland cooks and feeds me pasta at 9 o'clock at night. I forgot the meal times here were so strange. Then i went to sleep and woke up to delicious croissants with this sweet syrup on top and spent the rest of the day on the beach and by the pool only to break for lunch...llomo a la huancaina. it sounded strange to me too at first but his huancaina sauce is very different from my moms...no mayo.
It was delicious. then that night after mom and dad arrived we went to Wong, no surprise, and then to dinner at Pardo's Chicken. Sounds normal enough but our waiter Luis probably thought we were all nuts. Wieland made sure Luis knew that if the chicken wasn't fresh he would send it back...i figured we were going to have to wait for them to kill a chicken before we could get our food. it ended up not being a long wait. Although it could've just felt like that since we were all distracted. Our placemats were like the ones you get at friendlys where it has a cartoon to color as well as a wordsearch and other things. we get our placemats and no one really gives it a second though, me however decided to ask for crayons...which camila helped in doing since i had no idea how to say crayon in spanish...colores. Luis chuckled and a minute later a waitress brough us a variety of very stubby crayons. Camila and i grabbed some and began coloring in the pictures of chickens surfing in what seemed to be Hawaii based on the flowers on the rooster's pants. to our surprise my mom, dad and lucia all grabbed crayons too and began coloring their placemat. Dad did the wordsearch because it was "more intellectual". Poor luis, he struggled bringing us our plates because none of us were done with our drawing for him to put the plate in front of us. Food wasn't bad, and Lucia and i left proud of ourselves for leaving the last rib...that was our diet.

Last night i slept in the top bunk of cami's room and enjoyed the luxury of air conditioning. Today is probably going to be a day for the beach and more sun. If i don't come back to CT as what will seem to be a different race, i will be disappointed in myself.