Water from the SKY!

Hola todos!! I have much to tell you!

1. Oh man. Last night I went to the cooking class!! Mary and I took a taxi together... and we eventually arrived. There was a parade. That slowed us down a bit. But most of our group got stopped by the parade, so it's all good. This class was supposed to go from 7 until 10, but instead we finished up at 11:30. It was super fun! I took some pictures, but I'll have to post them another time because I haven't uploaded them to my computer quite yet. There were 9 of us, plus our chef, Javier. With his help, we made aji de gallina, ceviche, queso helado, and pisco sour. Aji de gallina is really yummy. It's chicken with this pepper sauce served over potatoes. And ceviche is raw fish in lime juice!!! (Okay, it's more than that. There were also lots of other sea food and some spices and onions. And, it was quite delicious. Though... the mussels... I just don't know about the mussels... they were really really really really chewy.) Pisco sour is a Peruvian alcoholic beverage that contains egg whites and lime juice. And queso helado is a desert that does NOT contain cheese, but it's still good. (Cheese, of course, would make it better because cheese makes EVERYTHING better). We had a great time making food, and I will attempt to reproduce some of these delicious things when I get back to the states.

2. This morning I went to the Club Internacional with Sydney. We went swimming. We did a couple laps, but swimming laps is HARD. So we just stopped, and created a synchronized swimming routine.

3. After lunch con mi familia, I went on a shopping expedition with Sydney and Amy. Some of you know that I don't like shopping very much, but this was a fun (and successful) afternoon.

4. IT RAINED!!!!! While I was walking home from our shopping trip, I started to feel drops of water! Indeed, it was water from the sky! Rain!!! It has not rained here the entire time that I have been here, and I am told that it is really weird that it rained in October.

5.This evening I went to younglife. Younglife is an international organization that's like a youth group. I know some people in the States who are a part of younglife. Anyway, there's a group here in Arequipa, and Alonso is a part of it and he told me about it this past week. I went with Emily, and it was fun! The people there were all really nice and it I quite enjoyed being in a less formal fellowship atmosphere again! There was between 20 and 30 people there, and we played UNO, sang some songs, and danced a bit before one of the leaders shared a message about having an intimate friendship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the closest friend that we could ever have, and that is JUST SO COOL!!!

On that note, I think I'll end this post! Much love to you all from Peru!