I want to summarize shortly what I did during the past few days here in Peru. Christmas away from home is of course something special. New Year as well. But due to the wonder that’s called Skype I was actually able to communicate almost as well as if I was in Switzerland. So on the 24th of December I called some of my relatives. To say they were surprised would be an understatement. My grandparents are still used to the prohibitive high prices from only a few years ago. For example before leaving for Japan (for six months in 2003 and 2004), my dear coworkers at namics gave me 300 CHF worth of phone cards. I don’t think I phoned for much more than three hours with that budget. I think Skype was just coming up then (I remember faintly that one of the missionaries in Hokkaido was using it), but back then SkypeOut was not yet available. So my family and friends in Switzerland would have had to install the Skype client and purchase and connect quite some audio technology. This is getting easier but still a lot more difficult than just picking up the phone (which is almost always installed by a skilled electrician). So this time I set up my mum on Skype but also knew that I’d be able to make use of SkypeOut for ridiculously cheap prices.
So, after that praise (which probably could be applied to other VoIP-companies as well, but I just happen to use Skype) let me finally get back to my topic.
The evening of the 24th I spent with a Peruvian/Swiss family in Lima. We ate turkey, had some more Panetone (as if I had not already had enough in December 2005) and watched the firework over Lima.
The 25th I invited some friends from church and work to eat a cheese fondue. At the Wong supermarket near my house I found instant Gerber fondue that I just had to heat before eating. From the before-mentioned family I borrowed the Rechaud, the obligatory utensil in every Swiss kitchen around the world. Some people quite liked the fondue, while others didn’t really care for it all that much. I was prepared for that occasion and had brought Spaghetti. But no-one wanted them, so it can’t have been all that bad. :-) A few us then spent some hours talking and the idea popped up to do a Peruvian evening the next night. So it came to be and two of my friends at work cooked a nice dinner. We ate it while watching Shrek 2 and The Pianist. The latter I quite liked while the former is simply pale in comparison to the first Shrek (that’s why I’m so glad that Pixar doesn’t do sequels - or rather only when required to by Disney).
The 26th there was a school-end party at the school including a meal for the professors. And two days later, there was the graduation of the 5th year classes. I have made one picture of that available for general viewing at Flickr. All the others are only visible to my Flickr friends due to privacy reasons.
Sylvester we spent almost in the same fashion. Watching a film and eating chicken.