I live in Peru?

Sometimes I still find myself wondering how I ended up here. I find myself in disbelief that I'm actually living here. When I think of what strange events occurred to get me here, and how perfect it seems that I'm here, I can't help but think it's a God thing.

I wasn't planning on studying abroad until this past October. Usually the deadlines to study abroad are March 1st of the year before. But I found out in October that the Uruguay program still had spots open. Since it was my college's first time trying out their own program, they wanted it to be full. About a week before, I found out that I didn't make it into our college's big traveling choir. I was totally bummed. But had I been in Nordic Choir, I wouldn't have been allowed to travel abroad. So I thought, "why not?" I knew I wanted to study abroad, and it just never occurred to me that Sophomore year would be a good time to do it. But things just seemed to be falling into place. I applied. I got accepted. Okay--going to Uruguay.

A few weeks later, we found out that the University in Montevideo, Uruguay bailed on us. We had nowhere to go. So I was starting to think maybe my notions were false. Maybe studying abroad wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. Finally, they lined up a program in Peru with the help of a study abroad organization. I thought, "Peru. Okay, sure, as long as they speak Spanish."

Now, I can't imagine being anywhere else. Peru is an excellent place to study Spanish because the speech is clear and precise. It is quite possibly the coolest country in the world (see post below). And in so many ways, it is exactly what I needed.

Some days I just have to check to make sure this is real life. :-)