Well, here I am; a week into my four month stay in a foreign country and I think that I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I'm not going to lie, it's been a rough week. Trying to adjust to a different eating schedule, different mode of transportation, different city, different language and overall a different way of life. Not to mention, being separated from my best friends. These are all barriers and obstacles that I am beginning to overcome in order to enjoy and really make the best of my journey here in Perú. But I'll talk about all of that later, first I want to talk about everything that was going on before I got here.

I'm not sure that I was completely mentally prepared to leave when I did. January 6th kind of snuck up on me. This made a couple things more difficult for me and packing was definitely one of them. I scrambled to get everything together from the several half finished packing lists I'd made on my phone. I've ended up buying a lot of things like toiletries here at the local market Vivanda, when I had plenty of space in my suitcase to just bring what I already had. Also, not being mentally prepared made saying goodbye to people more difficult, particularly my boyfriend Tyler.  (Sidenote: I don't want to be that girl who always talks about her boyfriend, but this guy is also my best friend, other half, and the person that I literally do everything with so he might come up a few times.)  My last remaining days in the states consisted of last minute shopping, packing, seeing as many family and friends that we could and just trying to enjoy the time Tyler and I had left together. Also, to everyone that I didn't say goodbye to, I am truly sorry. That's just something that can happen when you're the world's worst planner. Oh and we're not even going to talk about the nightmare of getting my new debit and credit card to me on time.

Other than packing and saying goodbye, it was pretty much smooth sailing from there... Oh that's right, I almost forgot about the three connecting flights to Lima and the 18 hours of traveling. After crying a little (or a lot) in the airport where Tyler and I said goodbye, my friend Shelby and I proceeded to go through security and to find our departure gate. Once we got there we met up with the majority of our group and embarked on our long journey.

So, like I said earlier, I wasn't fully mentally prepared to come to Lima and flip my whole world upside down. Now, please don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I came to Peru and am experiencing an entirely different way of life. But I did pull a 180 and time to adjust has been completely necessary. I started that process of adjustment while sitting in the airport waiting for my second flight. One of my friends Ahnika described it to me very well, "I'm sure that deep down I'm truly excited but right now I'm freaking out." Well, I was right there with her. I was slowly starting to comprehend exactly what I was doing and even began questioning if I was cut out for this.

My biggest concern was the fact that I would be living with strangers, but once I got to Lima and was greeted by them in the airport, I began to feel a little relieved. They are very kind and welcoming people who are truly excited to have me with them. They like to eat healthy and at the end of the day, they all just chill out and watch tv before they go to bed, which is exactly what I like to do. I have a host mother, father and sister. The father and sister are gone most of the time because of their jobs so I spend the majority of my time at home with the mother Patricia. Every morning I eat cream of wheat with fruit at the kitchen table while I visit with her. Every once in a while, like this morning, you can hear little footsteps stomping throughout the house and that means that Patricia's grandson has come to visit. I've only seen him twice for short amounts of time so he's still pretty shy around me.

Now, I already mentioned what I have for breakfast every morning and that never changes, but I've eaten quite a few different things for dinner and supper. Some of my favorites are quinoa and vegetables, tequeños--which I can most closely compar e to mozzarella sticks but can also be filled with shredded chicken-- and lomo saltado.

Even though I've thoroughly enjoyed the food, my stomach seems to have a different opinion. Apparently a complete and sudden change in your diet isn't so great on a sensitive stomach. The culprit could be something else like the questionable fast food burger that I had and will never have again or the fact that while I was swimming in my family's pool, I might have accidentally swallowed a tiny bit of water. Bottom line, I've had to deal with an upset stomach for the past four days, which were also, coincidentally the first four days of classes. Yay. But on the bright side, I seem to be through the worst of it and now I can begin to enjoy my classes and continue to explore the amazing city that I'm currently living in.

So by reflecting back on the feelings I had a week ago, I've realized that I really can do this for the next four months. In this past week I've begun to familiarize myself with the city and start to become comfortable with my new routine. I've realized that getting to this point wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's been just as difficult but in a good way, because anything that is worth it, won't be easy.

And on that note, I think I'll stop there. I have so many more things to talk about like the city of Lima and the different districts, the shopping and the nightlife, but I think I'll save it for another post.
So until then, thank you so much for reading and stay tuned.