Welcome to Lima, Peru

So I made it to Lima late Saturday night and finally got to the house where I was staying around 3am Peru time (4am NC time). There are other students (around 20) here from Iowa State working on a Nutrition course through the University who got in Saturday as well throughout the day and will be here for a month working on different field placements alongside courses held at the Institute. The unfortunate thing is that they are staying at a hotel quite a distance from me so I may not have friends...haha.

I am living with one of the researchers at the Instituto de Investigacion Nutricional for the next two months and will be working on different research projects. I think I begged hard enough to get here that they accepted me here for my summer practicum even though there weren't any specific projects lined up. I will more than likely be working on pilot projects in order to validate research before it goes through ethics approval. (You have to get all research presented through an International Review Board (IRB) to make sure the work you are doing is conducted in an ethical fashion for any person participating. It is required in all human research.)

I am living about 20 minutes away from the Institute (although about 45 with traffic) and come to work every day with Dr. Mary Penny (the woman I am living with). I however, will have to take alternative transportation home in the evenings because otherwise I will be waiting for hours for Dr. Penny (I have been told). The interesting thing though is that there is no public funded transportation here. Different "micros" as they are called are owned by private companies and have different routes. As it stands, the traffic is a bit hectic and somewhat unorganized (although there are specific routes that are laid out).

I am in the midst of trying to figure out the city. It is huge though, with over 8 million inhabitants and when you include the incorporated areas as well, closer to 9.3 million people. I am looking for a phone and a gym...those are the only two commodities outside of food and water that I have decided I have to have. The phone for emergencies, the gym for my sanity.

I will post soon as more stories occur and I have taken some pictures. I will try and keep the blogs shorter this trip so that you guys don't have to read novels again (like what happened when I was in the Dominican Republic). PS - for all my Dominicans out there - I still love Santo Domingo better...probably because you guys are all there. :)