Alfredo got back into town last week for about 9 days and we hung out for the first time in 4 months. It was a lot of fun and we went to his friend's bar, Inkaria, for most of the evening. I know Lucho, the owner, and it was just like old times (old, as in 4-months-ago-old).
We planned to get together again on Sunday and he never showed up. He also didn't answer his phone all weekend. When he finally texted me on Monday, he apologized with some lame excuse. So disappointing. He's all of a sudden become MIA and that hurt a little. Maybe he's got some shit to work out (he's pretty dramatic), but I'm not really interested in having a friendship with someone if I'm doing all of the work. And I can't stand unreliability. We'll see what happens.
I went out for pizza with Julio Cesar, the tutor at my school, on Friday night. He had lived in Queens for a few years and so I trusted that his standards in pizza were higher than most Peruvians. We walked up to San Blas (or the neighborhood next to it, I'm not sure) and into this little pizza joint (there were a few next to each other and he directed me to this one). There was a clay oven in the middle of the main room and it smelled sooooooo good. We ordered a veggie pizza and, after about AN HOUR it showed up nice and crispy and yummy. Still no comparison to NYC pizza (or New Haven pizza, which is even better), but it definitely wasn't some shitty Bisquick crusted, sauceless pie.
The funniest part of the meal was the condiments they brought to the table. We got a small bowl of salt, some spicy sauce, a small container of dried oregano, a spicy red powder, and the last -- wait for it -- mayonnaise. I really want to understand the Peruvians love for mayonnaise. I've heard that the obsession is just here in Cusco, but still. Cusquenians: Mayonnaise does not belong on your pasta or your pizza. You might want to give tomato sauce a try (it's sorely missing down here).
Pizza!
Funky condiments!
Saturday was an attempted work day, but kind of unsuccessful. I tried to pull together lesson plans for the upcoming week, as I would be student teaching one class for the entire week. My level is Pre-Intermediate 1, which means that the students aren't novices, but they're also not advanced. Kind of right in the middle. No matter -- I still didn't get much done. I was waaaaay too tired. I called it a day around 3 and went home for a nap. We were all going out later that night, and I certainly wasn't going to function without more sleep.
Becca and I met up with some friends (including Sabrina, our teacher!) and went out for some dinner and dancing. I haven't gone club hopping in ages and it was kind of fun. Definitely not the way I plan to spend most of my Saturday nights, but still fun. I crashed around 2 and woke up in time to get over to Niki's (my new house -- soon) for yoga by 11 am.
Yoga in the courtyard of my new house is amazing. Yoga in Peru is mind blowing. I swear I can do so many more poses here than I ever could at home (including inversions -- yes, I can stand on my head!) and I can actually feel the spiritual connection here. I was close to tears a few times. And to think that this will be happening outside of my room every Sunday...holy crap!
The past few days have been full immersion here in school. I teach at 8 pm and every day after class ends at 1 (and we go for a nice, cheap lunch), I'm back at school preparing my lesson for that evening. I go home for a couple of hours to nap, change clothes (we have to dress professionally when we teach) and mentally prepare. The first night was terrifying. I had crazy nerves leading up to showtime, but as soon as I got in front of the class it was awesome. We all had a blast and some of my students even hung out with me in our school's cafe afterwards. The second night was fun, too, and hopefully tonight will go just as smoothly.
A quick update on Becca: She technically got hired to start in August, but the school fired a teacher last week and asked her to step in. She's now teaching 7 classes a day and, while she's enjoying it, I hope she doesn't burn out. She still has to finish our TEFL program to make it official, but she's working like a full-time teacher right now.
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