It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Guzman the Merman, and Other Peruvian Christmas Classics

Faithful readers, in the spirit of the season, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-along. Or rather, since this isn´t a live performance and I´m not about to upload any videos of me squeaking my way through ¨Silent Night¨ or ¨Joy to the World¨, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-in-your-own-head as you read-along.  Only this isn´t your typical holiday special; it´s Christmas done south of the Equator.

I've talked before about how the inversion of seasons south of the Equator has messed up my psyche, and now that the holiday season is upon us, that claim couldn't be any truer.  While folks back home are bundling up in their warmest scarves and sweaters, I've spent my weekends at country clubs and beaches. While they´re browsing the local nurseries for the perfect pines, I´m growing fond of palm trees.

While the local supermarkets, casinos, and department stores have strung festive garlands over their edifices  and stocked their shelves with bearded, bundled Santas and hot chocolate, I just can´t seem to find the holiday spirit amidst the ocean fog and muggy weather. But perhaps my sentiments would better be demonstrated in musical form:

Guzman the Merman

Sing along

Guzman the mermaid is a fairy tale they say/He was made of sand but the betchy girls know/how he came to life one day. Oh! Guzman the merman was a jolly happy soul/with one bottle cap and one lime nipple/and all the rum his gills could hold…

It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Sing along 

It´s (not) beginning to look a lot like Christmas/Ev´rywhere you go/Take a look at the sand, glistening once again/Beneath the Lima sunset all aglow…

O Palm Tree

Sing along

O palm tree, o palm tree/ much pleasure doth thou bring me.

Where´s The Snow? Where´s the Snow? Where´s the Snow?

Sing along

 

Oh the weather outside ´s delightful/but our beach burns are so frightful/To Chincha and back we go/Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow?

Mashup Finale: Up on Diego´s Beach House Rooftop/ We´re a Couple of Misfits/Deck the Halls

Sing along 1, 2, and 3.

Up on Diego´s beach house rooftop Jennie paused/Out jumped Josué Córdova/Down to the kitchen for chips and dogs/All for the little ones Christmas joys. Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn´t go? Ho, ho, ho! Seriously: Who wouldn´t go? Up on the rooftop beer tops went click!/ Down through the gullets of all us misfits.

Ohhhhhhh! We´re a couple of misfits/ we´re a couple of misfits/ What´s the matter with misfits/ That´s where we fit in. We may be different from the rest/Who decides the test/Of what is really best?

Fast away the old year passes/fa la la la la la, la la la la/ Hail the new,ye lads and lasses/ fa la la la la, la la la la./ Sing we joyous all together/ fa la la la la, la la la la/ We rejoice for sunny weather/ fa la la la la, la la la la.

I´ll be home for Christmas. Expect more caroling. And next time, please, stay on pitch.

Not Your Average Travel Guide

Over the past two months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Jason Demant, founder of Unanchor.com, on a 3-day travel guide to Lima’s best attractions. What makes this start-up itinerary site unique from other travel websites is that Jason is 100% committed not only to providing daily schedules for the independent traveler, but also doing everything he possibly  can to ensure he/she won’t get lost. Unanchor guides include clearly-marked routes and pictures with live hyperlinks that jump to Google maps and websites with more information about each destination. Every detail of the itinerary is designed with the tech-savvy traveler in mind: no more lugging Lonely Planets around or popping into internet cafés to double check your direction.

Peru´s new logo, scrawled into a mountainside in Central Lima.

As for my part, my itinerary just went live this week and is now available on the Unanchor site.  Writing my first itinerary has given me an even greater awareness of what this city has to offer.  My tour de Lima includes stops in Barranco, Central Lima, Miraflores, San Isidro, and Surco to visit everything from catacombs and ruins to art galleries and world record-breaking fountains.  I think it makes a pretty compelling case for Lima, whose reputation has been smeared by its crowdedness, its pollution levels, and its seeming lack of “cultural importance” in a country that holds both Machu Picchu and the Amazon.

But the city limits of Lima occupy only a tiny space on the Unanchor itinerary map.  The site includes guides for all over the world, helping travelers plan their next vacations in Seoul, Sydney or even to little-known sites and attractions in their home cities.  I know I’ll seek the expertise of Unanchor guides on my upcoming trips; I encourage you to do the same. 

Pittsburgh and Peru: Dynamic Duo?

The Lost City and The Steel City make the ranks of National Geographic´s ¨Best Places.¨

The normal sequencing of this blog is being interrupted to bring you a special announcement.  National Geographic Traveler just released its ¨Best Places to Visit in 2012¨ and I am quite pleased to say that both Pittsburgh, PA and Peru have made the list.  The criteria used to create such a list is unclear--especially since small cities are given the same consideration as entire countries--but I for one have always been an advocate for the natural charm and social character of both destinations.

Peru offers countless manmade and natural wonders--it houses not only the awe-inspiring architecture of the Incas, but also the deepest canyons and one of the largest bird varieties  in the world; Pittsburgh´s city skyline via Mt. Washington offers stunning views of the city´s three rivers, bridges, and the steel edifices that forever revolutionized city architecture. Peru draws visitors seeking to learn about the history and culture of fallen empires; Pittsburgh attracts those who want to celebrate America´s football empire, as well as film directors looking to give their characters a new home. 

Perhaps the comparison is far-fetched for the average reader, but for me, the two places are inevitably tangled. They´re my two favorite places in the world, however big or small they may seem.

Read the full National Geographic article here.

The Real World Lima Soundtrack: Now on Sale!

It´s everywhere. Each day on your walk to work, you pass Steven Tyler´s larger-than-life lips.  Your fine dining experience comes with a side of old-school Bon Jovi tunes, before he shaved his shaggy ´do and went country.  In the hippest bars and clubs, you tap your feet alongside twenty-something-year-old Peruvians to A-Ha and Pat Benetar.  You might have thought your teasing comb and cut-offs had reached their final resting place in a New Jersey junkyard years ago, but you thought wrong.  The ´80s epidemic has merely migrated south—to the Miraflores and Barranco districts of Lima, Peru. 

For the past three months, I have been conducting a hard-nosed investigation of this musical phenomenon.  The shocking truth? Foreign musical acts were once heavily taxed in Peru, triggering reluctance from big name ´80s, ´90s, and early millennium bands to make concert stops in Lima. Any Peruvian hoping to catch a whiff of aerosol hairspray had to travel outside the country to Argentina, Brazil, or (brace yourself) Chile, that skinny—but feisty—pisco-making rival to the south.  An entire generation of English-speaking, rock-music-loving Peruvians were robbed of genuine encounters with their favorite ´80s acts.  So they did the only thing they could do: they passed the unforgettable melodies onto the next generation, and they waited.

Flash forward to 2007.  The tax was lifted, opening the floodgate for ´80s musical icons to plant their leather boots on Peruvian terrain for the first time and revive (or maybe just perpetuate) the electric guitar fever.  Grumble as you may, you know you can´t resist bopping your head to at least one song on this playlist.  Go ahead and try:

1. queen & david bowie - under pressure (1981)
2. soft cell – tainted love (1981)
3. the smiths - there is a light that never goes out (1986)
4. depeche mode - personal jesus (1989)
5. the cure – just like heaven (1987)
6. depeche mode - just can't get enough (1982)
7. A-Ha – take on me (1985)
8. michael jackson – billie jean (1982)
9. michael jackson – beat it (1982)
10. dire straits - money for nothing (1984)
11. bon jovi – living on a prayer (1986)
12. guns n' roses - sweet child o' mine (1987)
13. aerosmith – janie´s got a gun (1989)
14. simple minds – don´t you forget about me (1985)
15. ac/dc – you shook me all night long  (1980)
16. INXS – need you tonight (1987)
17. the smiths - bigmouth strikes again (1985)
18. george michael – faith (1987)
19. new order – bizarre love triangle (1986)
20. dead or alive – you spin me round (like a record) (1984)
21. beastie boys – (you gotta) fight for your right (to party!) (1987)

Complete playlist available here.  Music brought to you by Daniel Noriega Reto, ´80s enthusiast.

Peruvian Dating for Expat Dummies Cheat Sheet

*Warning: The following article is based on true stories. This could happen to you.  

Dating can be tricky and uncomfortable in any culture, but for me and my roommates, it has soared to new levels of awkwardness during our time abroad. Many incidents have arisen where intentions/motives/customs have gotten lost in translation, so for this entry, I thought we should review the popular For Dummies Dating Cheat Sheet, making a few uniquely Peruvian revisions.

Asking for a First Date:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Offer a specific opportunity (as well as alternative days).¨ 
• Revision: Offer a specific opportunity, as well as alternative days, locations, and times.  Don´t take ¨no¨ for an answer. If she says ¨no¨ she really just needs to be worn down until she says ¨yes.¨ Don´t be afraid to call. Don´t be afraid to call six times in a row, because though she´s clearly avoiding you after the second call, there´s still a chance she might answer the phone by accident.

Tips for Flirting:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Pay attention. No looking like you´re trying to remember if you fed the cat.¨ 
• Revision: Pay attention. Track your desired female at all times. If she says she needs to go to the bathroom, escort her and wait patiently outside.

• For Dummies tip: ¨Lighten up; don´t bulldoze. Telling your date she is incredibly hot isn´t flirting; it´s steering your dating experience into a mountain.¨ 
• Revision: Bulldoze, never lighten up. Telling your date she is incredibly hot is flirting. So is cat-calling or honking at passersby on the street. Who can resist you as you cruise down the streets of Miraflores in your Volkswagon bug? Steering your dating experience directly into a mountain is exactly your intention; doesn´t everyone want to go to Machu Picchu?

Making Safe Connections:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Don´t wait more than a week or two before arranging to see each other in person.  Any longer than that, and you´re just perpetuating a fantasy and building a false sense of intimacy.¨ 
• Revision: Don´t wait more than an hour or two before arranging to see each other in person. Any longer than that, and she may think that you have a life outside of creeping on her.

Using Technology Wisely When You´re Dating:

• For Dummies Tip: ¨After a date, don´t text your date repeatedly hoping for confirmation that the date went well. You wouldn´t call this person again and again, would you? (Would you?) Have some confidence in yourself, and give your date some breathing room. 
• Revision: After a date, text your date repeatedly hoping for confirmation that the date went well. You would call this person again and again, wouldn´t you? (Wouldn´t you?) Don´t give your date breathing room—she might forget about you and start dating other people.

Affirmations:

• For Dummies: ¨A date is only a date—it´s not do-or-die time.¨ 
• Revision: It´s do-or-die time.

Top 5 Most Difficult (Mundane) Things to Do In Lima

A traveler´s truth that my roommates and I have come to know well is that the things we take for granted at home (i.e. buying groceries or mailing a letter) can be big adventures in a foreign country.  At one point or another, the most mundane activities have left all of us puzzled, looking for clarification and explanation from Peruvian friends and co-workers.  Cultural confusion—as opposed to culture shock—is the most accurate label for classifying the following five mundane activities: 

5.) Buying a cell phone
By the third week here, a few of the other interns and I were feeling nostalgic for the convenience, portability, and privacy that a personal cell phone offers. Thus we traversed afar (down the street) to the neighborhood Claro store, one of the biggest cell phone providers in Peru. 

It was a Thursday night, but the place was teeming with disgruntled businessmen and disinterested teenagers, all with one cell-phone related issue or another. But the problem with the phone store wasn´t the sheer volume of traffic: it was the number of lines.  If you´re hoping to get an issue resolved at Claro, you´ll have to stand in at least three separate lines: one to discuss your problem/purchase, one to pay for your problem/purchase, and one to pick up your purchase.

That description might not do justice to the stress. You´re probably thinking that the store has nice, orderly lines right next to one another for speed and efficiency—a sweet, if naïve, thought. So now picture that there are 25 different lines with about a half dozen customers in each, packed so tightly together that it becomes nearly impossible to tell whether or not you´re in the right line. And the most frustrating part? The first salesperson you meet always has easy access to the storage cabinet that contains the cell phone you need. Wanted: efficiency expert.

The most stressful ATM en el mundo.

4.) Using Your Bank´s ATM
Yes, you read that subtitle correctly. This isn´t a grievance against using any old ATM in Peru, but the ATM where I actually set up a bank account one month ago. Insert card, get no cash. I´ve tried to withdraw soles.  I´ve tried to withdraw dollars.  I´ve tried to withdraw different amounts each time. I´ve tried to withdraw it at different branch locations. I´ve tried to withdraw it from checking and savings. Tried to withdraw it holding my breath, with fingers crossed, with one eye open…

3.) Crossing the street
My friend Eric describes crossing the streets of Lima as having ¨a sort of Darwinian logic.¨ In this mad world, a ¨walk¨ sign doesn´t mean walk, and a driver beeping and waving his hand at you doesn´t mean you have the right of way. 

2.) Going to the movies
In the absence of cable or Netflix, my roommates and I decided to venture out for an evening film at Larcomar. We surveyed the not-so-thrilling selection of movies until we found one that caught our eye: Me enamoré de Nueva York (New York, I Love You).  Theater #12—4:50 p.m.  Price: S/. 18. My roommate approached the counter window to purchase our tickets:

--¨Hola. Tres para Me enamoré en Nueva York.¨
The cashier pointed to another line--shocker.  (Why are there always so many lines?) We sauntered over there, confused about the direction we should be heading.  With each line we passed, the cashier pointed to the next one, until finally we were at the exact opposite end of the place we started.  We waited in line some five minutes more before we reached the front of the new line.
--¨Hola. Tres para Me enamoré en Nueva York.¨ My roommate tried again.  This time it sounded more like a question.
--¨Setenta y cinco soles.¨ Seventy-five soles?  Mathematically, that couldn´t be right.
--¨¿Cuánto cuestan?¨ My roommate repeated.
--¨Setenta y cinco.  Es sala bar.¨ 
--¨Que es esto?¨ What´s that?
--¨VIP.¨ The cashier said.  VIP? What did that mean—that they were going to deliver gold-dusted popcorn to our seats?
--¨No, queremos los regulares.¨

The cashier shook his head, annoyed.  Defeated, we got out of line.

1.) Buying 1 Liter Bottles of Beer
There´s not much to relay about this one because six weeks later, we´re still confused.  My roommate managed to buy a liter her first day here but has been unsuccessful ever since.  We´ve been able to buy beer cans and small bottles, bottles of liquor and wine, but not liters of beer.  Here are a few theories we´ve had, in flashes of brilliance and confusion:

•    One liter permitted per customer (Disproven)
•    Purchase prohibited past a certain hour (Half-disproven: Sale of alcoholic beverages in supermarkets ends at 11PM.  But we haven´t been able to purchase the bottles at more reasonable hours either, like 3PM).
•    Purchase limited to Peruvian citizens/banned for expat consumption (No strong evidence to support this, though a leading theory for some time.)

All we know is that the word ¨deposit¨ has been thrown around a few times, but how that deposit is made, and how that first bottle of beer can be purchased, remains a mystery.

Got Milk?

Laive Entera: Look for the smiling cow

Picture It: In Metro last week, I found myself in a milk lover´s nightmare: supermarket shelves stocked only with milk substitutes—rows and rows of coconut, pineapple, and soy parading themselves as milks in flashy blue, yellow, and pink bottles. I frantically searched for the unassuming bottle of Danlac milk I had bought the previous week and began to silently panic about the future osteoporosis that might ensue after six milkless months abroad. Nothing on the top shelves, nothing on the bottom ones.  My bones felt frailer by the minute.  I was just about to resign myself to a milkless existence when I found what I was looking for. Well, sort of. I was looking for bottled milk; what I found was bagged.

Bagged milk? While the initial thought might seem puzzling to most Americans (How do you pour it? Where do you store it after it´s opened?), bagged milk—most commonly found in Latin American and Middle Eastern countries—actually makes a lot of sense. For one, its packaging uses less plastic than its plastic jug counterpart. After bagged milk is opened, it can be poured into washable, reusable containers.

Containers That Hold Bagged Milk:  In the absence of a jug or jar in which to pour the bagged milk I bought (and too cheap/lazy to go out and get one), at some point or another I considered transferring my bagged milk into a beer bottle. The only thing that stopped me was that I also lacked a cap to seal the bottle.  Other containers I would have considered for milk storage if readily available: Coke bottle, sugar bowl, vase.

Ironically, in the meantime I found good old Danlac at a grocery store down the road.  So I ended up waiting until I had drunk the Danlac milk and reused its container as a receptacle for my bagged milk, thus defeating any noble intention I had of saving the planet while building stronger bones.

How to Use Bagged Milk: The experience of transferring milk from bag to bottle for the first time is a strange one. In my estimation, it´s a five-step process:

1.)    Place reusable container and milk bag together in kitchen sink.
2.)    Cut corner of milk bag with scissors or kitchen knife, careful not to puncture any part of the bag containing the milk itself.
3.)    Delicately grip corner of bag and tip it at approximately a 30 degree angle to meet lip of plastic jug.
4.)    Begin squirting milk from bag to bottle. Treat the milk bag like a tube of toothpaste: press gently at first, and then, when the bag looks nearly deflated, squeeze the bag from bottom to top to remove the last bits of liquid.
5.)    Cap milk and refrigerate or, if you´re like me, enjoy immediately.

So Much Cooler Abroad: ¨En la lista¨ in Lima

Curious things happen while abroad. Sometimes you find yourself lost in the cultural jumble at the Claro phone store, scratching your head and wondering why you have to stand in three separate lines to buy a cell phone. Sometimes you find yourself unable to understand a word that comes out of the supermarket cashier´s mouth, despite seven years of Spanish classes.  And sometimes you find yourself ¨en la lista¨ (on the list) at one of the hottest clubs in the hippest district of Lima. 

My fortunate brush with exclusivity is thanks to four degrees of separation—a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend.  The mystery man that gets me into Peña del Carajo every week is named Clive. I´ve never met him, and I don´t have the slightest idea what he looks like. Until last night, I didn´t even know his name. But as I am pushing my way through the throngs of anxious club-goers outside the main doors each week, if someone mentions that I am ¨with Clive¨, I get motioned to the front of the line.

Wall art at Peña del Carajo, Barranco.

Those who know me at home would immediately recognize that Peña del Carajo, located in the nightlife hotbed district of Barranco, is too hip for me. By 11PM, the street outside the club is bumper-to-bumper taxi traffic; hundreds of college-aged Limeños push through the crowds in their coolest threads: off-the-shoulder sweaters and leather boots for the ladies, Abercrombie and Gino polos for the fellas.  There´s women selling big, sparkly earrings and men selling packs of cigarettes by the door; inside, there´s graffiti and Warhol-style paintings on the walls.  The music spins on into the wee hours of the morning—it´s suddenly 2, 3, or 4 am, well past the time when even after-hours bars shut their doors in U.S. cities. Yesterday, we saw an artist bring his easel onstage. There, in the midst of thumping music and crowds so thick you can barely swing a hip without bumping into someone, he completed an elaborate profile sketch.

It´s the kind of place I would never think to venture back home, opting instead for a house party or a dive bar.  Yet the unusual mix of salsa and reggaeton, eighties classics and top 40 is strangely satisfying at Peña del Carajo. It´s not that I´ve lost the identity I had before I moved abroad: when I return to Pittsburgh, I´ll probably find myself with the same habits and preferences.

Routine is comfortable, but the word ¨routine¨ itself implies a life played on repeat: nights out at the same bars in the same neighborhoods, having the same conversations. Ready for a new beat.