Moving, moving.

Finally, the last box is unpacked. Who knew one could acquire so many things in one year? I came here with three suitcases and a cat. I moved with four suitcases, seven boxes and a cat. Everything is in its place. Now I need to finish off with the things I deem necessary but evidently my land lady doesn´t deem necessary for a furnished apartment. Like a paper towel holder and bathmats and a dish drying rack that is well designed. Oh yes, and the internet and cable.

The cable isn´t that crucial. But internet, that´s serious. I´ve been internet-less for one week now (hence the lack of productivity here on Lady in Lima). I have never been more thankful for my iPhone and its internet. That is until last Friday when my iPhone was flooded by a rouge water bottle and I saw the flashing white light of my phone heading off to the iCloud. On Friday, I was completely internet-less. No contact with the world wide web. With a last shred of hope, I used a blow dryer to dry it out and my phone spent the night in rice. The next morning, a saw a faint screen. I plugged it in and it was alive! An iPhone miracle! There was a small water mark on the screen that eventually dried out over the last few days and now it´s like nothing happened. Thank you, Apple & dear Steve Jobs, for your amazing technology.

My cable company came last Saturday to install the antennae. The guy tried to install it on the roof for thirty minutes and then left to "go get something from [his] car". Five minutes later, Alvaro got a phone call from the company saying that the techinican left because he can´t reach the place to put the antennae since it is "out of normal height range". They would be happy to send another technician to install the system once we found "a tall enough later for him to reach it". Hm. Forgive me for thinking that was his responsibilty.

Needless to say, I´m switching to digital cable which doesn´t require an antennae and thus an extra tall ladder.

We are settling in. Miss Emmaline loves all the extra space and I am constantly amazed at the enormity of my apartment. It´s only 90 square meters, but easily double the size of my last place. Walking from the kitchen to my bedroom takes an eternity! And the best part? For the first time since December 2008, I have laundry in my apartment. Cheers all around!

Success!

I can now add something to my list of Lima firsts. Right after taking a Lima bus, eating cow hearts, arguing with taxi drivers and teaching children, I have looked for an apartment. Growing up, I lived at home and then in dorms, when I moved off campus, my mom found the apartment for me because I was studying abroad that semester. For my first apartment in Lima, Alvaro and his mom found it before my arrival. This was my first real estate endeavor. Needless to say, it was a lot harder than I expected.

I spent the majority of last week trying to find a balance between price, interior and location. Ideally, I want completely redone bathrooms, new kitchen,  modern interior,  beautiful building and the picture perfect location. Around Wednesday I had a reality check: My teacher budget won´t pay for all of those things. Then I began to make compromises and in this process discovered the one thing I was unwililng to compromise on: location.

I had singled out an apartment and it was the main contender. The location couldn´t be better, the price is right, the decorations are pretty good but the kitchen and bathroom are older. Here was my compromise. I am able to admit that I am horrificly indecisive (somewhere in Nashville my mom is reading this and smiling) and it took the hard truth to accept that this was the apartment, old kitchen included.

But I did it! I signed a preliminary document last week and will get to see the apartment fully ready to go this weekend. Then begins the process of thoroughly removing every shedded Emmaline hair from my current apartment so the owner doesn´t realize there was an expat cat living there for a year. I think she´s worth all the cleaning trouble, but I am afraid my landlady won´t agree.

And that´s that. As I am approaching the one year anniversary of my big leap to Peru, I can add finding an apartment in Spanish to my list of accomplishments.

Bringing your pet to Peru

After I decided to bring Emmaline with me to Peru, I began the tedious process of trying to figure out exactly how to bring her with me. I was coming from the United States and most likely the regulations vary a little by country, but I imagine that most of the rules are similar.

1. Check with your airline before purchasing a ticket. Some airlines do not travel with animals to South America, or they only do so certain times of the year. They are various rules related to animal type, whether they are traveling in cabin or in cargo, origin and destination and time of year. So check with the airline first.

2. Also, you need to make a reservation for all animals, especially in cabin travelers. Most airlines only allow up to five per flight.

3. Contact your vet and let them know you will be needing an International Health Certificate. For Emmaline, we updated all of her vaccines the week before we left. She was vaccinated for rabies and FVRCP. Peru requires a recent rabies vaccine, if I remember it correctly it was within ten days or your departure.

4. She was also given a microchip pet ID, we decided to go with Home Again.

5. At this vet visit, your vet will fill in the required information regarding vaccines, microchip and general health. Then you must take the completed IHC to the local USDA office where it is authorized by the State Veterinarian.

6. Once arriving in Lima, we had to stop by the SENASA (The Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture) office before going through Customs. Here I presented her IHC and paid a S./65 fee. After they looked her over, we were good to go!

It was a fairly straight forward process once I discovered all the regulations. The hardest part was finding reliable and recent information about bringing a pet into Peru. Once I was beyond that, it was very easy and I'm glad she's here with me.

This list is just a start, please check with your vet to see if any changes have been made. Peru is notorious for constantly changing rules.

What was your experience with taking a pet to another country?

Kindle Confessions

I love my Kindle. Actually, I more than love my Kindle. I can´t believe I used to read books without one.

Last July when I was visiting the States, my dad offered to buy me a Kindle because he thought it would give me access to more English language books than are readily available in Lima. Before this, I had never thought about having one, in fact, I was wary of switching to ebooks because of the "they aren´t real books" arguement. Yes, they aren´t real books, but that´s the point.

Real books are heavy, real books are bulky. Real books take up precious suitcase space that I would rather reserve for boots. Real books are simply too difficult to transport across continents. Ebooks are slim, lightweight and the perfect solution for any bibliophile traveler.

I can read and store an endless number of books. I have access to thousands of books ranging from  historical fiction to cooking to language study. It has changed the way I read. And in recent news, you can now borrow ebooks from your local library. To my surprise, it even works while out of the country. Now I can read, for free, any book available from the Nashville Public Library.

I am a confessed convert, Kindle has changed my expat experience. It´s now on my must have list for traveling. Number 1. Miss Emmaline  & Number 2. My Kindle.

What are your must have items for traveling?

Never thought I'd miss Petsmart

Pet stores simply don't exist in Lima. The "pet store" is simply a couple of shelves of pet supplies in the lobby of a veterinarian's office. Their entire stock could fit in my living room and there's little to no predictability about the products that will be available.

My cat is a picky woman. She likes cold water, preferably as it is falling from the bottle. She only eats crunchy treats. For food flavor, she sticks to seafood unless it's the fancy canned stuff, then she'll branch out to chicken. And for a scratching post, she will only use cardboard. Oh that's right, or my couch.

Months ago I found the perfect cardboard scratching contraption for her but she has clawed it to pieces. I've been searching for a decent replacement for weeks and unfortunately, the abysmal selection in Peruvian "pet stores" just isn't cutting it. Don't Peruvian cats need to scratch too? Where are all the scratching posts?

We've been to nearly a dozen pet stores, even one that my boyfriend's aunts called "grandasa" (really, really big). To me really, really big is Petsmart. To his aunts evidently really, really big is a store that could fit in the cat adoption room at Petsmart. Not quite the same thing.

So I have taken it upon myself to spoil my cat some more (and save my couch) by making a cardboard cat scratching post for Ms. Emmaline. Thanks to the world wide web, I have find some easy instructions. The doorman at my building saved some cardboard for me. I finally found a box cutter and now I'm good to go. Let's just hope this picky cat isn't too picky for DIY projects.

Sweet Emmaline

After I finally made the decision to move to Peru, the next question was: What will I do with my sweet Ms. Emmaline? At this point, she had been with me for about nine months and yet I couldn’t bear the thought of parting with her. I began to think about bringing her to Peru with me but was scared by the thought of something happening to her during the trip. After weeks of agonizing discussions and research, I decided that she would indeed survive her extended field trip and I began making plans for her to move with me.

Part of my decision to bring her was influenced by my mom. When my parents were first married, they adopted Amanda, their very first cat. She was a faithful member of our family for over a decade. One of my favorite pictures of my parents is a studio portrait taken at Olan Mills circa 1984, you know one of those portraits with a cheesy idyllic pasture scene for the background.  In front of the pasture are my mom, dad and then Amanda sitting on my mom’s lap. Really, mom? A cat in a photo studio?

Emmaline is more like a cat-dog. She plays fetch, comes when you call her, wants to eat everything I am eating and follows me like a shadow. The disinterested cat stereotype doesn't fit her at all.

Since arriving in Peru, she has charmed Alvaro’s entire family. He has never had a pet, neither have any of his close relatives. Several months ago, his Aunt Carmen said she wanted to buy Emmaline some food. I told her what brand and flavor and the next day, I was given two bags of food. She asked me how long each bag would last and I said about three weeks. Five weeks later she asked, “Does Emmaline have food? Because by my calculation, she is almost out of food.” The very next day, she bought her two new bags.

Two weeks ago, his Aunts offered to buy Emmaline a cat bed. When Alvaro and I went to pick it up, they gave us not only a cat bed but also two different toys, catnip spray and a glove for grooming. She is the talk of every family dinner and Alvaro’s mom finally agreed to letting her come visit his house. The only condition is that she must stay only on the tiled floor.