First Rotary Meeting

So last night I had my first rotary meeting here in Peru, with my rotary club "Our Lady of Grace".  It began at 8 PM (I think it normally starts later but last night they had a special ceremony for the changing of the Rotaract president).  Everything happens later here and I always end up quite tired.  We arrived nearly 25 minutes late to the meeting and I was worried, but of course they were running on peruvian time and it hadn't begun yet!  The meeting was held at my school.  Below is a photo of me, a rebound (someone who went on exchange and now is back) who went to Belgium, and the other exchange student in the club, Emilie, from Denmark.  In september there will be another exchange student in our club, Victor, from Belgium. 

I have a lot of pins now!

And then the next day (today) I went to school for the third day.  I dont remember exactly, but I had several classes including Communications (not even really sure what that was...) and Biology (didn't understand it much) and English.  Me and Emilie have the same schedule.  We had classes with varying age groups, from our own age to children that appeared to be 10 or so. Oh and also, remember how I said that there is no toilet paper in the bathroom?  Well apparently you just have to go in the school office and grab some before using the restroom.  So.. yeah hahaha.

After school my host mom, sister, and I had lunch at a restaurant with a classmate named Mariana, her sister, and her mom.  I had pollo a la brasa, which I have had several times now, and seems to have become my go to dish when in a restaurant and I dont know what to order.  It consists of chicken and french fries (not so foreign haha).  Food here seems to be cheaper in general.  My meal had chicken, french fries, salad, and a drink and it was 14 soles = $5.  And I don't know if I already mentioned this but here in Lima, all over on the sidewalks, are these cool stands selling candy, snacks, soda, bottled water, etc.  I bought a candy bar for 1,2 soles = approx 43 cents USD. 
 

its pretty neat

And there's also occasionally stands selling food like sandwiches, picarones, churros, other stuff etc.  Here's a picture of a guy selling churros on the street.  I tried a churro a few days ago-- it was really good.  they're filled with a thick caramel called manjar.

Also occasionally people (and also children!) will go down the street carrying a box of candies or gum, selling to pedestrians and also weaving in between the waiting cars at intersections and selling to the drivers.  It's quite interesting. 
 
And after lunch we stopped in at a bank to see if I could use an ATM.  I had tried to withdraw money from my debit card using an ATM on about three different occasions and each time it hadn't worked, so I was getting kind of worried that I wouldn't be able to get money to pay for my insurance, alpaca sweaters (obviously very important), and a three day two night exchange student camp I have coming up in about two weeks, among other things.  But to my delight, the machine actually dispensed the money!  So now I just have to return to get some peruvian money for my spending here.  Also, I received a letter from home!!!  It took a week to get here apparently, which I think is pretty good.  So it was a good day.

Tomorrow I have school again, and after that we dont have any plans that I know of.  PEACE OUT
-Ginger