Arequipa day is coming!

This weekend I moved into my new place. It´s just an upstairs room in a family´s house, but it´s nice and the family is soooo friendly. They even invited me to have Sunday lunch with their whole family that was in town. They had fish soup, fried fish, Civeche (a traditional Peruvian dish that is just raw fish cooked by mixing it with lemon juice and onions- really good!), corn and sweet potatoes. I think I´m going to learn a lot of Spanish in this house. Especially because Giovanna (in the middle in the picture with the kids) is actually one of my students and loves to hang out and use her English and teach me Spanish, and everyone else in the house only speaks Spanish with a few words of English for fun.

August is a big celebration month here in Arequipa because the 15th is the anniversary of the city, Arequipa day. So starting last weekend they have all kinds of different celebrations and parties leading up to Arequipa day.

When Giovanna went with me to the center of the city to buy a few things we were walking past the Plaza de Armas (the very center of the city) and they were having a parade where groups from all around Arequipa come and do their traditional dance. Giovanna is from Puno, the city next to the famous Lake Titicaca which is a glacial lake up in the Andies and on the Peruvian border with Bolivia, and so she pointed out the traditional costumes and dance from Puno.

And also can you believe that this is winter here in Arequipa? 75 and sunny, everyday!

Then we went to the market. You can see it´s really different than the Chinese markets, but still stacked full of different fruits. And Peru has so many kinds of potatoes, so there´s Giovanna showing me all the potatoes.