Well, I’m not sure where I should start… I haven’t been doing anything outrageous lately- I’ll start writing, and then I may remember- we’ll see.
Since coming back from Bolivia I’ve moved into the Greens place, just down the road from where I was before. My bedroom is on the roof, with an ensuite and double bed Funnily enough I’ve seemed to move up a ‘notch’ in quality/luxury at each long-term stop on my trip- starting with the tiny room in Santiago, to a big bedroom in the last place, and now an ensuite- way to experience the hardships of Missionary life - I guess it’s a time to be content when ‘abounding’ as the Apostle Paul says. Anyway, now to some stuff that I’ve been up to:
His last weekend I got to go to the Futból again; this time against a more popular team- Universitario. I was a bit late in arriving (as I went to Puquina that morning with Ronny) so I waited in the line outside the stadium, with my ticket and with a Melgar shirt on. The shirt got me heaps of comments/questions/respect from other fans, and lots of laughs too. I guess not too many gringos go to the games and sit in the cheap seats. I got in about 10 minutes into the first half, spotted Julio waving at me way up the stand. So I pushed my way up, and just as I got seated Melgar scored. Melgar seemed to be lacking impetus in attack. Universitario had some quiet good players, and looked far more dangerous; however we had improved immensely in defence from the shocker we had vs. Sport boys. La U scored right before half time, by some brilliant play from their Colombian striker. We played a bit better in the second half, but still lacking creativity around the goal- although there was some improvement. With about 10 minutes to go we scored, sending the sell-out crowd into hysterics for a few minutes (and much relief personally, I was starting to wonder if I ‘jinxed’ the team). While we were leaving I got more comments etc. due to my shirt, and some friendly security advise (“wear that bag on your front”, I generally don’t do that, but in a crowd like that they had a very valid point) Fun times all round, can’t wait for the next big game.
I’ve restarted Spanish classes, but now only two classes a week (instead of the 10 a week with the full time schedule), which has been great. In general my fluency is improving at a good rate. I’d say, for only having been here for 3 months and having arrived with really crappy Spanish, I’m doing quite well.
My schedule is quite chilled out, which has its pluses, including time to be able to read (I’ve nearly finished The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther- deep aye- respect!), think (this may sound really weird/mystical but having time to be able to, dare I say ‘meditate’ about stuff, things I’m coming into contact here, my future, issues in general – think things through is probably a better way to put it) hang out with locals and indulge my internet addiction (surfing the net, not the blog posting or email writing variety unfortunately). As well, there’s a Gym down the road that’s really cheap ($1.25 a time) so I go there every so often to blow of some steam.
I was hoping to play in a Basketball comp here, but the season starts in July. But I’ve had the chance to play a few time at ‘club international’ and would’ve done really well- due to my size, mad skills and from what I saw of the competition (hahaha, but seriously I’m a decent size here somehow, this one kid told me I could play centre if I was on his High School team). So it looks as if there won’t be involvement in any team sports here like Touch Rugby (they only have rugby in Lima at a few posh schools).
On the language front I have possibly my biggest/funniest mistake yet. I was chatting to one of the girls from the church and she told me some ‘goss’ about her sister and one of the guys at the church (that they were an item) and she asked me if I understood who/what she was saying. So I said “el está con su hermano” or
“so-in-so (I’m not telling you who-I’m sworn to secrecy) is with his sister” I accidentally said ‘su’ (his/her/its/polite your) instead of “tu” (your) which got us laughing- as I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I said it. I quite often have problems with tu and su, as grammatically speaking I can use both to refer to ‘your’ … I mix up formal and informal far too much when I speak…
I’ve had some problems about my ticket the last few weeks (finally resolved).
It was really all my problem, as I didn’t get a flexible enough ticket (I wasn’t really aware of the 1 year restriction I had on the other ticket). So, to make a long story short, I had to cancel my ticket, and buy another with the credit and extra cash. Thankfully it wasn’t prohibitively more expensive. The main problem was that, at the start, I was trying to sort it out remotely/via Email with an agency in Chile. I was only aware of there being one office in Peru (Lima)- however I discovered (after a few weeks of trying on the net) that there was an office in Arequipa- Which annoyed me no end… (It wasn’t in my info about overseas offices- so I (naturally) assumed that there wasn’t one here).
Anyway, you can circle the 26th of July on your calendar as the date that the prodigal son returns to NZ (with a few months to spare before the Rugby world cup- (¡Vamos All Blacks!). Those reading in Chile/Argentina can expect me to be hanging around in their respective countries for 2 weeks each before I leave. I’ll be sorting out the exact dates in the next few weeks.
anyway, that me for this post, and (finally)here are the photos from the trip:
Me, on top of a hill near by Desaguadero
Right by the immigrations office in Bolivia
From left: Jessica, Ader's friend, and Ader
The houses by the lake
And an overhead view ofthe peruvian side of Desaguadero
Since coming back from Bolivia I’ve moved into the Greens place, just down the road from where I was before. My bedroom is on the roof, with an ensuite and double bed Funnily enough I’ve seemed to move up a ‘notch’ in quality/luxury at each long-term stop on my trip- starting with the tiny room in Santiago, to a big bedroom in the last place, and now an ensuite- way to experience the hardships of Missionary life - I guess it’s a time to be content when ‘abounding’ as the Apostle Paul says. Anyway, now to some stuff that I’ve been up to:
His last weekend I got to go to the Futból again; this time against a more popular team- Universitario. I was a bit late in arriving (as I went to Puquina that morning with Ronny) so I waited in the line outside the stadium, with my ticket and with a Melgar shirt on. The shirt got me heaps of comments/questions/respect from other fans, and lots of laughs too. I guess not too many gringos go to the games and sit in the cheap seats. I got in about 10 minutes into the first half, spotted Julio waving at me way up the stand. So I pushed my way up, and just as I got seated Melgar scored. Melgar seemed to be lacking impetus in attack. Universitario had some quiet good players, and looked far more dangerous; however we had improved immensely in defence from the shocker we had vs. Sport boys. La U scored right before half time, by some brilliant play from their Colombian striker. We played a bit better in the second half, but still lacking creativity around the goal- although there was some improvement. With about 10 minutes to go we scored, sending the sell-out crowd into hysterics for a few minutes (and much relief personally, I was starting to wonder if I ‘jinxed’ the team). While we were leaving I got more comments etc. due to my shirt, and some friendly security advise (“wear that bag on your front”, I generally don’t do that, but in a crowd like that they had a very valid point) Fun times all round, can’t wait for the next big game.
I’ve restarted Spanish classes, but now only two classes a week (instead of the 10 a week with the full time schedule), which has been great. In general my fluency is improving at a good rate. I’d say, for only having been here for 3 months and having arrived with really crappy Spanish, I’m doing quite well.
My schedule is quite chilled out, which has its pluses, including time to be able to read (I’ve nearly finished The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther- deep aye- respect!), think (this may sound really weird/mystical but having time to be able to, dare I say ‘meditate’ about stuff, things I’m coming into contact here, my future, issues in general – think things through is probably a better way to put it) hang out with locals and indulge my internet addiction (surfing the net, not the blog posting or email writing variety unfortunately). As well, there’s a Gym down the road that’s really cheap ($1.25 a time) so I go there every so often to blow of some steam.
I was hoping to play in a Basketball comp here, but the season starts in July. But I’ve had the chance to play a few time at ‘club international’ and would’ve done really well- due to my size, mad skills and from what I saw of the competition (hahaha, but seriously I’m a decent size here somehow, this one kid told me I could play centre if I was on his High School team). So it looks as if there won’t be involvement in any team sports here like Touch Rugby (they only have rugby in Lima at a few posh schools).
On the language front I have possibly my biggest/funniest mistake yet. I was chatting to one of the girls from the church and she told me some ‘goss’ about her sister and one of the guys at the church (that they were an item) and she asked me if I understood who/what she was saying. So I said “el está con su hermano” or
“so-in-so (I’m not telling you who-I’m sworn to secrecy) is with his sister” I accidentally said ‘su’ (his/her/its/polite your) instead of “tu” (your) which got us laughing- as I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I said it. I quite often have problems with tu and su, as grammatically speaking I can use both to refer to ‘your’ … I mix up formal and informal far too much when I speak…
I’ve had some problems about my ticket the last few weeks (finally resolved).
It was really all my problem, as I didn’t get a flexible enough ticket (I wasn’t really aware of the 1 year restriction I had on the other ticket). So, to make a long story short, I had to cancel my ticket, and buy another with the credit and extra cash. Thankfully it wasn’t prohibitively more expensive. The main problem was that, at the start, I was trying to sort it out remotely/via Email with an agency in Chile. I was only aware of there being one office in Peru (Lima)- however I discovered (after a few weeks of trying on the net) that there was an office in Arequipa- Which annoyed me no end… (It wasn’t in my info about overseas offices- so I (naturally) assumed that there wasn’t one here).
Anyway, you can circle the 26th of July on your calendar as the date that the prodigal son returns to NZ (with a few months to spare before the Rugby world cup- (¡Vamos All Blacks!). Those reading in Chile/Argentina can expect me to be hanging around in their respective countries for 2 weeks each before I leave. I’ll be sorting out the exact dates in the next few weeks.
anyway, that me for this post, and (finally)here are the photos from the trip:
Me, on top of a hill near by Desaguadero
Right by the immigrations office in Bolivia
From left: Jessica, Ader's friend, and Ader
The houses by the lake
And an overhead view ofthe peruvian side of Desaguadero
and a view of La Paz
I'd put up more photos but Blogspot is really slow today with uploading.
posted by Nathan Sinclair @ 12:35 PM
6 comments
