Semana Santa

Semana Santa essentially translates to 'Easter Week.' Most restaurants and stores are closed or have curtailed schedules. It is also completely illegal to buy and sell alcohol for the level of holiness that this week represents. Many Peruvians travel to different cities, like a mini vacation (the equivalent of Spring Break in the U.S.) and because of this, The Point opens its doors to Peruvians. Our hostel is strictly a backpacker's hostel for non-Peruvians but to take advantage of an opportunity for significantly more income for the hostel by filling up our facility to capacity, we allow it for this one week in April. We also raise our prices 3 Soles per night because we know people will pay it for a place to stay. I have heard of stories for Carnaval where hotels in Rio and Sao Paolo charge hundreds of dollars per night during the week of festivities because they know that both tourists and locals will pay. I suppose the same happens in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We are not only filled to capacity, but Matt (my Scottish bartender), Jin (our awesome German receptionist who is the same height as me and originally from Seria) and I were asked to do some switching around. I threw a fit and got to stay in our room but Matt has temporarily moved up to the penthouse suite where there is a private room with a twin-sized bed, separated by a wooden partition from the actual dorm room thats on the roof and Jin is sleeping in a sectioned-off area of our manager's office where there is a queen-sized bed for staff who don't live at the hostel, but may occasionally need to spend the night if they have an early shift the following morning. I understand the desire to sell beds, but I don't think it's okay to sell staff beds. Luckily it's only for one night and I think that Matt and Jin may have been bribed with a free drink from the bar. Although it is prohibited to sell alcohol during Semana Santa, The Point does it anyway because we relay on the business in our bar for financial success as The Point is notorious for being a party hostel. And boy do we sell! Luckily there are no other places (except for the other party hostels with bars) to consume alcohol in the center of Arequipa so everyone stays in at night because they can't drink in discos. We've been playing beer pong for the last 3 nights and other various drinking games involving cards, cups, and sometimes removal of clothing when a shut-out occurs. It's quite fun. Pong initiates much beer consumption, which means a lot of money spent resulting in fun times and financial gain for the Israeli-owned hostel. Beer pong is a new concept to Peruvians and pretty foreign or never-been-played when it comes to Europeans, and people from Central and South America. Boy do they love it but boy do they suck! I finally understand a big reason why North Americans, especially people from the States play so many drinking games; we can't legally go to bars until we're 21 so we rely on college (and for many, high school) house parties. Because of this, I am the bomb diggity and somewhat of a prodigy in the eyes of Peruvians. People who know that I can play beer pong pretty damn well fear my skillfully accurate shooting ability when I approach the table set neatly with six cups in the form of a pyramid (3 in the back row, 2 in the middle and one front cup). When outsiders see me play for the first time, they are amazed at my proficiency. I guess I have my parents to thank since they didn't make going to college to choice and look what I have to show for it! With a long list of people signed up to play beer pong, we sell a lot of beer on top of the non beer pong-playing people. Last night I had a drink special of 'all you can drink rum' for 25 Soles from 8-11pm. I sold 4 packages which is great considering there were 8 people in the bar! Until 10pm and at that point not worth buying the special. Each bottle costs us 15 Soles and we used 1 and a half bottles of dark rum and a half of a battle of white rum. Not too bad!

Today we went to the futbol field for out Saturday afternoon hour-long game. I cheer leaded- shouting vulgar comments and curse-words at fouls, misses, and general mess-ups but I don't necessarily root for a team. The Peruvians laugh at the gringa yelling such phrases and I get a kick out of it as well. We walked back around 3:15 and I got ready for my afternoon shift. Today was organizing day and I turned my bar around re-arranging cartons of beer where we store our empty bottles that we trade with the beer company for full cases and dug out the supplies for our hat party tonight; free jello shot with a hat, 2 if it's awesome. I also helped Guillermo collect money and organize a shopping list for the evening asado- a latin american BBQ. The cost was 10 Soles and 17 people signed up! Everyone got 2 Arequipeña style sausage sandwiches although there was a vegetarian option of 3 vegetable skewers or a chicken option which also included 2 bread rolls and condiments. My chicken was delicious and juicy! I'm relaxing now before I head into the bar to participate in our Saturday night party. Lastly- I hope everyone had a nice seder, beginning of Passover, or Eater- whatever thine holiday is!

Dee See

Our world is huge. At the same time, it's teeny. I met Liel on Saturday. He's from Israel. Liel came with us to Mr. Fish- the daytime party disco I went to on Saturday with 2 other backpackers and 3 staff from The Point where we had the time of our lives shaking our tush's, consuming overpriced beer, and making eye contact (mostly me) with handsome men (but also the fabulous Mateo). Liel and I were chatting about where we were from and when he told me Israel, I responded 'beautiful country!' So of course he asked if I had been (duh-twice! Thanks mom and dad!) but he didn't ask me anything about it, just where I was from. I always say Washington D.C. because it's where I was actually born and it's much cooler than saying Maryland. The normal response is 'Ohhh Washington.' Then I correct them, adding the 'D.C.' and explaining the difference. Well Liel was different. He said 'but where are you actually from? Because no one is from D.C.' Well i begged to differ! I explained my story and Liel told me he lived in Rockville. Then we got to street names and I asked if he went to Walter Johnson. He sure did! He graduated in 2007 but I didn't know anyone from that year. Teeny world, ey? The next day we were talking about vegetarian food and vegetarianism as a group of about 5 people and the topic of falafel came up as a delicious vegetarian option. I then proceeded to tell Liel that both the best schwarma and falafel I have had in my life has not been from Israel, but in fact in Maryland, at the kosher deli where I (and Jason adn Hariel) used to work, Max's. Well not only does Liel know Max's, he's been to Momi's house- the man who makes the falafel and schwarma. Whatttttt???? The world is freakishly small. Well last night I decided to grill out on the terrace so I took counts as to who wanted to contribute a few Soles to my vegetable-only barbecue. I grilled eggplant, zucchini, red onions, spring onions, and pineapple over a wood-burning fire. I had 7 people with me eating warm veggies as they came off of the wood-burning grill. I offered Liel the use of my computer for his ipod touch as he told me he didn't have any music and I have over 50GB. No problemo! My taste in music is eclectic and there is something for everyone- except country and heavy metal lovers (though probably not the same person...). Liel connected his ipod and wasn't sure how to respond to the message that popped up. I came over to assist and thought I knew what I was doing and quickly/without thinking too much, clicked the option that said 'restore ipod.' Mistake. Huge mistake. Because what proceeded to happen over the next 30 minutes was that everything that Liel had on his ipod was replaced with the data from Thomas' ipod. Now you're probably thinking, 'now wait just a second there Lauren, who is Thomas?' The strange thing is- I have no freaking clue. Somehow Liel ended up with pictures, messages, phone numbers, and icons from a complete stranger's ipod/iphone. There was 1 Thomas staying at the hostel, but he took a look at the data and it was all foreign. Plus Tom didn't own any Apple products. The worst part- Liel's 1129 pictures from South America had all been replaced with Thomas'. Liel went to the lower level to acquire internet to see if he could undo what had been done in some magical way. He was unluckily unsuccessful. While I felt horrible, Liel seemed surprisingly calm as I would have been flipping out if that had happened to me. He told me that he had accepted the situation and that there was nothing he could do. Apparently there is still a possibility that he can recover his old data but I don't think he was feeling too optimistic. Luckily I didn't have to feel the embarrassment in front of his face too much longer as he had a 12 hour bus ride and left 30 minutes later. I bought him a beer, didn't make him pay for the BBQ, and sent him on his way with a hug and another 'sorry...'

On anther note, I had a letter waiting for me in the bar yesterday from Matt. It read:

"Hey Lauren, I can't bare to tell you this to your face so i've written you this note. First of all thanks for taking me on for these few days on the bar. It's been a ball but a few days ago I also applied to work at The Wild Rover and today they got back to me to offer me a position as bar manager. I've gone to check it out and I'm afraid to say i've taken the position. It's a paid job and they have a pool! So anyways, thanks again and see you soon. Matt. P.S. I'll be back later to collect my stuff.'

My heart jumped into my throat. I had just hired this guy, turning down an awesome couple from New Zealand simply because Matt could stay for at least 3 months. He really had grown on me. The reception Manager, Kate from Montreal walked by and I showed her the note with a blank look on my face. She looked at me and said 'well the good news is, he'll have to pay for the last few nights he has slept here because he doesn't yet qualify for free room and board since he didn't stay for 2 weeks. I was pissed. I mentioned that when I met Eoghan, the general manager and bar manager from The Wild Rover, our hostel competitor and rival here in Arequipa, he told me that he had heard a lot about me and that if I didn't like working at The Point that I could go work for him. Kate told me that it was common for Eoghan to do that and that apparently he had won Matt over. Again- frustrated! I couldn't wait for my afternoon chat with my read-headed ex employee about how much I didn't appreciate what he was doing. I went on with my day, ran some errands, and returned to the hostel to see Elsa, my almost no longer bartender as she left this morning. I showed Elsa the note from Matt. While she was holding the note, I saw something on the back of the paper. I took the paper from Elsa's hands and read aloud 'April Fool's Amiga.' I had officially been April Fooled. I walked into the kitchen where Matt was preparing his dinner. He looked at me with a grin that said it all: 'Gotcha!' I was still angry from thinking I was going to have zero bartenders after the weekend, but so incredibly relieved that my little leprechaun man was staying! I am in the process of planning revenge.

On a final note- yesterday was my parents 33rd wedding anniversary. We skyped last night and briefly caught up. Love you guys! Tomorrow marks 4 weeks until my flight home. Yikes!