June 20th - Arequipa - Class Begins

Today's blog is posted later than usual. It's been a very busy day. We started this morning with breakfast at 8, and then went off to start our textiles class at 9. We were in class all morning, stopped for lunch at a yummy seafood place, and then worked through until 5pm. After walking home, we had just 40 minutes until we all were to meet again for dinner, so we had no free time at all until 7:30 or so. Whew!

My classmates are great. It's a small group - there are only 5 of us. My roommate is Francesca, who is great fun. She's a very experienced traveller at the sage age of almost 21, and is going to be a junior in college next year in Wisconson, although she's originally from Vermont by way of India (the list goes on and on). We're getting along fabulously. There is also Kate, who's a grad student in Classical Archaeology at Brown and Miriam who's attending college in Olympia, Washington. The four of us have bonded, and just got back from a walk downtown to raid the supermarket for late night nibbles. The fifth is Ellie, who is from San Francisco by way of New York. She is a lifelong weaver, and has been enjoying time on her own while we're not in class.

The class so far has been mostly practical, rather than instructive. We started our looms today, and almost the entire day was spent wrapping the yarn onto the looms (warping, I think), in preparation for our weaving samplers. The others all seem to be textile geniuses, and I'm feeling a bit challenged by it all, but I never really expected to have a beautiful sampler. I just want to appreciate the tecniques. The class schedule promises to fill the days, and the teacher seems to want to fill our weekends as well, so I don't know when I'll actually see Arequipa, but hopefully we can work something out.

Arequipa itself is enchanting. It's full of gorgeous old stone churches and wrought iron gates and cobblestone streets. There are parks full of flowers, and chocolate shops and lots of tempting restaurants. I'm looking forward to spending three weeks in this great city. And I'll tell you all about it as I explore.

But for now, I need to run up and meet the girls again. We have yarn to roll for tomorrow!

Hasta mañana,

Karen