Paris & I have been trying to keep ourselves occupied by looking for places to volunteer here. Since we decided not to come here using a big volunteer organization to plan everything for us (it's super expensive to do it that way!), we are having to get a little bit creative with finding things to do. Of course, if we actually KNEW Spanish, that would be extremely helpful so that we could go places and talk to people, but our speaking ability is really limited, so we can't really just walk into an organization and get our point across without someone there to help us.
We DID manage to go to the laundromat by ourselves today SUCCESSFULLY! The people that worked there looked at us like we were stupid because we couldn't exactly say what we wanted to, or ask the questions we needed to, in Spanish... but we tried! And that's all that matters, I suppose. It's a learning experience and it's good to see things from the perspective of someone who doesn't know the 'language of the land.' And we managed to put in an order to have our clothes washed, dried, folded, & ironed (about $13 total for 3 big loads). Next time we go though we are going to just wash them & find some place to hang them dry to save money. But we thought that wasn't a bad deal for our first trip to the laundromat anyway.
Yesterday we wandered around and found a tennis club that's about 5 minutes from where we live (everything is so close to our house!). And Paris had enough guts to go up to a man in a Wilson tennis shirt with the hopes that he might just understand what we were saying. I wasn't so eager because I figured he would think we were crazy, but Paris wanted to, so we did. And what do you know???? (Mom, dad, you'll like this!) He's the tennis pro there & he lived in the U.S. for 16 years, so his English is perfect and he's very outgoing. He runs tennis camps for the kids there at the local club, and he works at another main tennis club in Lima as well. We sat and talked with him for a while and we are going to meet up with him at the tennis club next week to watch him teach the kids. And hopefully we'll get to help!
Of course, he couldn't believe that 2 American girls who are tennis enthusiasts just randomly walked into a small, Peruvian neighborhood tennis club at the exact moment he was about to leave, but I guess it was meant to be. And he's going to let us borrow some tennis raquets since we didn't bring ours, so that we can go there and play tennis a couple times a week. So that is VERY exciting! I might get to help his daughter with English too...
Tonight we are going to go to the Salsa Club to go dancing. Erik & Giselle have been taking Salsa lessons, so they are supposedly pretty good. Since you are reading this, it MUST mean that you know me pretty well & won't be suprised when I say that sexy dancin' isn't really my thing. Ha! But I'm gonna try! :) I might surprise myself!
And we've been to the movies twice so far here to see Wolfman & that Valentine's Day movie with all the super-celebrities. Wolfman wasn't of our choosing (of course!) but the guys loved it. It was freaky. The Valentine's Day movie...I can't remember what it's called in English, in Spanish it's La Dia de Enamorado (or something very close to that)... anyway, that movie was pretty cute. A nice change from Wolfman, lol. All of the movies at the movie theater are American movies, which surprised me for some reason, so they are in English with Spanish subtitles. So I try to practice reading the whole movie so I can pick up some more phrases and vocabulary. It's good practice. I need to watch more movies that are actually in Spanish with Spanish subtitles though so it really makes me think.
We've made friends with Edmundo's sister Elisa who lives across the street as well. So me & Paris and Edmundo & Elisa all went to the movies together last night. It was good to give Erik and Giselle some alone time as well because I don't want them to feel like we are hovering over them all the time. Elisa has a 3 year old (Mateo) who is adorable and I told her to give me a call if she wants me to go to the park with them or anything and she seemed actually happy about that, so maybe that will give me something else to do as well :)
Alright, I need to get ready for some Salsa dancing. I'll let you know how it goes! It's okay to go Salsa dancing in flip-flops right???
