Happy December

Hello Everyone. This is my first crack at this so I apologize in advance for my poor writing skills.  I should have paid better attention in school.  Either way, here we go.....So I guess we have been here almost and month and it seems much shorter than that.  Time is flying by.  A lot has happened since our last post so I will try to remember everything. Mafe had her baby, a baby boy named Marek.  It is combination of her name and her husbands name Eric.  They were thinking of Godric as they LOVE "True Blood" but decided against it.  I like both of the names.  Andrea and I left the house around 6:00pm to go on a run.  We returned and Eric joked that we had left at a bad time.  We asked what happened and he said, "the baby is here!" Whhhhhaaaaaaat???  We went on a 45 minute run....I guess he was ready to come out.  It was an exciting night for their family and us as we transition into our move to Peru.  The arrival of the baby meant the arrival of Mafe's family.  First her dad arrived on Thursday and then her Mother and her friend arrived on Saturday evening.  They will be here.....well we are not quite sure, it could be a week or two, or three....the house will be festive nonetheless.

Andrea is dying to get into the Christmas spirit as it is quite strange to be celebrating in 72 degree weather.  She decorated our Holiday Tree a week or so ago, as well as our windows with sticky snowflakes (courtesy Erica Burke Peterson :)) On top of the windows and tree, Michael sent her some Mannheim Steamroller via Skype and I found a few holiday tunes on the internet from Amy Grant.  I am sure my sister Elizabeth remembers "Emmanuel" as she belt it out three months before and after Christmas one year as she was privileged enough to sing it for a school christmas concert.  Almost as annoying as "Intrepid"....drive in, drive in..........

We had our first Spanish test from Jose, our teacher.  It was pretty easy but long.  We had previously had 3 lessons and went over the alphabet, 3 or 4 verbs, and some vocabulary.  In all, there were probably 200+ note cards and 4 posters with letters and their pronunciation.  So for our test, he literally spent 20 minutes, Andrea first, and went through the note-cards one by one.  We hadn't really studied and we both probably missed 7 or 8 note-cards, but not too bad for not studying.  I struggle with some verbs and Andrea struggles with the alphabet.  Jose favors her when we are doing lessons and gives her the easy note-cards....Either way we seem to be very competitive when it comes to the lesson and who is better at learning spanish. 

Yesterday was a great day, Arsenal went top of the table with a 2-1 victory over Fulham.  Arsenal is not playing too well so I'm surprised to see them at the top of the table, albeit, Manchester United have a game in hand.  Either way, the EPL race this year is the tightest it has ever been.  I think it is harder to win the EPL than any other league in the World, including Champions League.  I am happy for at least a week as we play Manchester on Monday, December 13.

We decided to walk around the city, something we do usually everyday, and explore new streets.  After we walked for about an hour we were really hungry.  We went into a little restaurant and order "el menu".  Basically when you order this, some places are different, you get an app, a main course, and desert, for a very low price, usually $4 US.  We didnt look at the special for the day so we had no idea what we they were actually going to bring out.  For our appetizer it was a beef soup with rice and veggies.  Very good.  It also had a baked potato in the broth and it was very filling.  For the main course, they must have run out of the chicken, rice and cheese sauce, because that is what they brought Andrea, and they brough me a Peruvian stir-fry dish.  It was excellent and we both shared the meals with one another because we werent sure why they were different.  The two men sitting behind us order "el menu" as well and they were served the stir-fry dish as well.  Our food and a liter of Coca-Cola was 20 Peruvian Soles or $7.07 US Dollars.....I wish I didnt have any bills to pay in the states because I would never go hungry!

Andrea and I tried to watch the Big 12 Championship on ESPN 3 last night.  We werent able to get a good stream until the 2nd quarter and we were winning at that point.  However, we must be bad luck because I am not sure we saw Nebraska score after that.  We definitely saw them turn it over however.  Nebraska is not that good offensively.  With or without a healthy Martinez.  I felt like I watched the same play 100 times.  Between the score in the game, the bad internet stream, the fact that we had not eaten anything for dinner, and the Peruvian man blowing his cigarette smoke in our faces, it made for a very long night.

We were going to take a cab home but decided to walk instead.  I am glad we did because we saw a Peruvian Santa on the way home.  It brought a smile to both of our faces.  70 degrees, Arequipa, Peru, Peruvian man dressed as Santa but more resembles the Burger King Man.

Adios