Our First Week in Lima

We are one week in and my list of favorite things in Lima is growing. Number one is the district we chose to call home, Barranco. It’s considered the city’s most romantic and bohemian neighborhood. Judging by the young couples making out on every motorcycle, park bench and free inch of sidewalk, it seems pretty accurate. The streets are shady and charming, funky murals cover the stone walls and boutique hotels and cafes are plentiful. Street performers and local artists are everywhere singing American classics or Spanish rap. And in the short time we’ve been here, we’ve seen dance groups, a brass band, an accordion player, a giant book sale, and hundreds of soccer fans rallying in the town square.

Our casita fits right in with Barranco’s artsy vibe. Every wall is a different color – fuchsia, purple, teal – and the courtyard is lined with sky-blue and mustard-yellow tile. There are three other casitas in the building with friendly, English-speaking neighbors. One chica is from Germany, another from Austria (who happens to be a classmate at our Spanish school), and a guy from Philly who’s lived here for two years but leaves today to take up residence in Puerto Vallarta (rough life). He took us out for a drink last week and I had my first pisco sour, a classic Peruvian cocktail made with pisco (produced in the wine-making regions of Peru and Chile), lemon juice, simple syrup and egg white for a frothy, meringue-like layer on top. Me gusta.

We’ve already made a couple home-cooked meals, avoided food poisoning, and made several treks to the supermarket – our first purchases were coffee, soy milk, peanut butter, and 7L water jugs (carrying them home is a great workout). We’ve secured our favorite cheap restaurant around the corner, and Charlie is already stalking the neighborhood churros lady.

We’ve hit the ground running, but I consider our biggest accomplishment of the first week to be figuring out the bus system and taking it to Spanish class each way everyday (we only used Uber once on our very first morning). There’s no faster way to get acclimated than cramming in to an overcrowded bus during rush hour. We stick out like sore thumbs with our t-shirts, sneakers, backpacks, and REI coffee mugs, but the locals seem amused. I’ve made two bus etiquette mistakes so far: not jumping up to let an elderly Peruano have my seat (he made an aggressive beeline for me before I knew what was happening), and not screaming “bajando!” or “permiso!” loud enough when it was our stop, which is the only way you stand a chance of squeezing through. I’m learning that speaking Spanish timidly gets you nowhere, which brings me to Spanish school.

Currently, our home away from home is Peruwayna Spanish School. Last week we completed 20 hours of closed group classes – just Charlie and me with our animated teacher, Fabricio. There are dozens of students from all over the world, with more coming everyday due to Bolivia’s civil unrest. We chat with students before class (I always end up cheating and speaking English), have class with Fabri for two hours followed by a 20 minute break, then another two hours at which point our brains turn to mush. It’s a lot for two introverts. It leaves us both exhausted and frankly, a little cranky. I’ve rarely seen Charlie annoyed, but having his pronunciation corrected over and over for four hours will do it. My brain just shuts down completely like someone yanked out the power cord. Needless to say, we’ve both needed a daily afternoon siesta.

My favorite Spanish word of the week: sánguche, or sandwich. This came as a surprise since Duolingo taught us that “sandwich” was just “sandwich” said with extra flair, like sand-weech. Fabricio got a kick out of this. He’d also never heard of or seen a cashew.

The funniest thing of the week: On our trip to Lima, we transferred flights in Panama. I saw a water bottle filling station and suggested we both fill our 1.5L nalgene bottles. Admittedly, I’m paranoid about dehydration, and I’d been nervous about having enough clean water for the beginning of our trip. Charlie adamantly refused to let us get water at the airport; he didn’t think it was worth the risk and my anxiety started to build. I frantically started researching water at the Panama airport to try and convince him, but he wasn’t budging. Maybe it was the jet lag, but I feared we would both die of dehydration before we could find clean water again. Almost in tears, I started to panic. Charlie had to grab me by the shoulders, look straight in my eyes and shout, “Ashley! We are NOT in a water crisis!” I immediately snapped out of it and we burst out laughing. We’ve been using our new phrase anytime either of us starts to stress. It works like a charm.

Best meal this week: Last night was date-night. We went to a restaurant called La Muelle and ordered pescado alpaltado, a simple ceviche of thinly sliced fish in tangy lime juice topped with fresh avocado (or palta). It was served with skinless, soft-baked sweet potato (papa dulce), which seems to come with all ceviche here. Amazingly, we spoke Spanish to each other the whole time, which is always easier to do with beer. It was the perfect way to cap off our first week.