After our first 3 nights in Miraflores at a hostel, we've spent the last week staying at a family home in San Miguel while we searched for an apartment and Spanish school. The family we are staying with is the parents of our Oklahoma City Spanish tutor. It's been really interesting living in a Peruvian family home and we've really enjoyed the experience. They live on the 3rd floor of a building which previously used to be the single story home of the mom's parents. As the some of the daughters have married, they built a new level above for their new family. As an Oklahoman, it is interesting that their home doesn't have either an air conditioner or heater.  Back home that would be horrible, but because of the consistent ambient temperature in Lima (usually between 54°F and 84°F year round) there isn't much of a need for either. Instead, they always have have a lot of air flow with their windows opened at both ends of the house.



Although I'm ashamed to admit, we were a bit intimidated by the neighborhood at first; walls were topped with either sharp spikes or broken glass in concrete, sections of the neighborhood were closed of with gates, etc.  But after spending a few days here, we got over our bias of how different our surroundings had become. Inside the home was very inviting and mostly built of hard woods.

We have been searching for an apartment closer to Miraflores so that it will be easier to attend one of the Spanish language schools (where they offer weekly classes instead of by the semester) and also to be closer to the running paths along the beach. Yesterday we finally locked in a permanent place for us to stay.  Nowhere near luxurious but it will be our home until we head back to the States on September 1st.


We had previously planned on starting school this week, but because of the Peruvian Independence Day (July 28th) and it being a 3 day work week, we decided to take a quick trip and start school next week.  We don't move into our apartment  until Sunday because we are going to take a quick trip to a beach town in the north.  We were lucky to find a seat on any bus going north because everything was book solid due to the holiday. So tomorrow afternoon, we jump on another 9 hr bus the small beach of Huanchaco, near Trujillo in the north for 3 nights.