Museo Larco After Midterms

After an incredibly hectic and stressful week studying for midterms, I’m finally getting to post again about life here in Peru. Last week, I spent almost four days straight reading scholastic articles in Spanish to prepare for midterm exams. Reading in Spanish takes a lot more focus and concentration for me, as well as the occasional assistance of Google Translate for words I don’t know yet.  My first day of studying was incredibly frustrating, because it was so difficult for me to understand a lot of the scholastic vocabulary, but by the end of third and fourth days, I found myself reading things and comprehending them much faster. Still, at times the studying could be really dull and tedious, so my roommate and I tried to find a few different study spots around Lima so we wouldn’t just be stuck in our living room. We ended up finding a cute cafe within walking distance from our house, with french pastries and free Wifi.

To reward ourselves for having survived our week of midterm exams, we visited a beautiful museum in Lima, Museo Larco. The museum hosts a collection of art and artifacts from before Peru’s colonization, showing the history that is often ignored in favor of the history of Spanish colonization. The works inside the museum are impressive, but equally so is the exterior of the museum.  As soon as you walk into the museum gates, it feels like you’ve been transported to a new world. Outside of the museum is a beautiful floral garden, with bright red and pink flowers growing up and along the walls of the museum. It was the perfect little escape after our week of exams.

Weekend in a Desert Oasis

This weekend I got to on a much needed vacation to a desert oasis. I was feeling really down last week, so this trip was the perfect chance to get out of my usual routine and be reminded of some of the incredible opportunities I have here. The weekend was packed with amazing views, including gorgeous sunsets every night, and outdoor adventures. Before Friday, I never knew how much fun you could have so much fun in the middle of the desert. We traveled to a city started around a small desert oasis in the desert, a short ways from the Pacific Coast. There, I got to try my hand at a few adrenaline filled actives including ATVing through the desert at sunset one day and sandboarding from the top of massive sand dunes the next. At certain points I was pretty terrified to accelerate down one of the dunes on an ATV or ride down one on a skateboard sized plank of wood. But if I have learned anything so far from being in Peru, it’s that when something that excite you and terrify you at the same time, it’s probably worth doing. So I held my breath, gunned the accleration, or pushed off the dune,  and for a second I got to fly. And yeah, it was worth it.