Our new life in Peru

A few new aspects of our lives here in Peru:

• Earthquakes - mild earthquakes seem to be fairly regular occurrences here.  A fairly regular topic of conversation with our classmates at language school is regarding who felt or didn't feel the most recent tremor.
• Fireworks - they like to shoot it off pretty regularly here...
• Focusing on breathing - I now realize that there are many times throughout the day that I hold my breath in order to focus on something else.  These instances are now always followed by a couple minutes of concentrated breathing, to reintroduce the oxygen that has been lost.  (Altitude issues)
• Wearing hats and sunscreen.  I've been told that there's a hole in the ozone layer over Peru.  I don't know how accurate that is, but it does get some of the highest UV levels of anywhere in the world (ironic considering Peru was the ancient center of sun worship).  So we gringos have to wear lots of sunscreen and hats.  I've never considered myself much of a hat person, but I'm learning to become one.
• Walking.  We don't have a car here, so we walk a lot.  We do taxis a lot too, but walking is good for us, so we do that when we can.  It never rains here either, so the weather's always perfect for walking!

Things we miss already:

• Cheeseburgers, sour cream, frozen vegetables, Campbell's soups, quick comprehensive shopping trips (because of no car, we do lots of little trips).
• Wifi
• Colder weather.  It's so weird to hear Christmas music and see Christmas decorations when it's sunny with a high of 75.  We don't complain, because the weather's beautiful, but I do miss the fall weather that I see in my friends' Facebook pictures!
• Our bed.  The one in our apartment just isn't all that comfortable :(

And now for a few pictures:

 Finn loves going for walks.  We use the stroller when we're going to leave our neighborhood, but we let him walk until we get to the gate of the neighborhood.

Derek got to play the keyboard at church this past Sunday, and really enjoyed it.

Finn is learning little by little to stay busy during the church service.  There is a room with toys where I can take him when he get's rambunctious, but no nursery workers, so we try to keep him in the service as long as we can.  Everyone is very understanding and forgiving, too, so we are thankful for that!

Some of my Spanish vocab and doodles.  We're trying to internalize a ridiculous amount of vocabulary words right now, so we're using any and all means to try to help them stick!

 Finn watching some ants on the sidewalk.  He also likes to point them out in our apartment.  Fortunately, they don't ever seem to come in hoards like they did sometimes in Alabama.

In the evenings Finn often asks for music, so we have lots of dance parties!  He's developed his own signature dance moves, which are really entertaining to watch.

That's all for now!

Laura