El Centro

Last Sunday I finally went to downtown Lima, the old colonial center. It was great! Alexandra was hosting a visitor and wanted to take show her around, so the three of us met up and headed to the centro. We didn't do anything special, just walked around, but the weather was perfect to enjoy the various parks and pretty buildings along the way. Everything seemed to sparkle! The colonial architecture in Centro Lima is beautiful, and it's so strikingly different from both anything in the newer parts of the city where we live and almost anything in Santiago. You can just feel the former opulence of the various casas, iglesias, parques, and important government buildings, and on a bright Sunday afternoon it didn't even feel all that "former." I didn't bring my camera because I wanted to get a feel for things first, but I'm sure I'll go back and I also made a deal with Alexandra's friend to get her pictures. We walked through various squares and also to the river, which was significantly less opulent but still interesting, especially when we foiled some guy's attempt to open Alexandra's bag. We then walked over to the central market and to Chinatown, which was a one pedestrian street paved with fundraising bricks, but hey at least now I've been there. We also spent well over an hour at lunch (not in Chinatown, but rather at an upscale chicken outlet off the Plaza de Armas) discussing languages and linguistics, since Kate (Alexandra's guest) is an language teacher and studies language education. It was a fascinating conversation about teaching styles and the cultural aspects of language learning, although I still don't think I buy her argument that if I had been taught in a much more conversational style that my language acquisition would have been significantly easier.

In other news, this past week was crazy (thus not updating the blog until tonight). On Tuesday night there was a going-away party at my boss's house and I got home at 11. On Thursday there was a conference that the Bank was putting on to release some publications, and although I was only slightly affected directly I was definitely sucked in emotionally to the stress of all my coworkers. But at least we're all bonded now because we had a staff retreat the week before last! Seriously. I'm happy to report that I come out the same on personality tests in Spanish as I do in English--I am a logical thinker and a planner. But I'm also happy to report that after the retreat and the various events last week I finally feel like I know the people in the office better and therefore am more comfortable there (i'm talking about the whole office, not just the 3 other people I share a room with)

Taylor's also been super busy, with the election in full swing and him trying to accompany candidates on their trips. Tonight he's north of Lima with one of the candidates, after 2 unsuccessful attempts to catch up with him in 7 days. This time he neither had to get up a 3 am nor go to the airport without a ticket, and it worked!

Speaking of elections, we watched the inauguration of Bachelet on CNN en Espanol on Saturday, and it was pretty cool. Well, the ceremony itself was not that exciting (they signed paperwork for 5 minutes live on TV), but it was just cool to watch after being there for the campaign and the election. I chatted with a Chilean friend the other day and she said that people were dancing the in the streets and all the women were wearing presidential sashes. Pretty freakin' cool (or "mostro" as they would say here in Peru).