Stokes in Peru

Wanting to stay on the cutting edge of what's cool, I've decided to write my annual Christmas letter this year via my blog. Happy Holidays! I have been sending out a Christmas letter for a number of years now, doing my best to capture the essence of my year while keeping you all entertained. Upon writing this year's letter I reflect back to a time not so long ago, when I was single, living in a basement apartment, and hawking books at a now defunct book store in St. Paul. That, my friends, was a challenge to my creative writing skills in producing an interesting, entertaining letter. Then there are years where the letter really just writes itself. 2008 is such a year. Didn't make the cut for last year's Christmas photo: A year ago at this time, I was still single, living in St. Paul, speaking mangled English most of the time, and savoring my time on the couch. A lot has changed-the love for the couch hasn't diminished, but I now find myself married, livi

Greetings again everyone, I hope life is treating you all well and that you are staying nice and warm up in the States. I promise, I'll try not to rub in the fact that we're currently on the cusp of summer in Peru. I won't go into detail about the beautiful day we enjoyed today, where I was able to go for a long bike ride. It's probably best that I just update you on what's been going on with us here in Peru lately. We've actually had quite a bit going on, so without further ado: Thanksgiving Dinner As you know, Thanksgiving is an American holiday, so it is not celebrated by Peruvians down here (their holiday involving people with ties to Spain in their country take on quite a different tone :)). Thanksgiving is right there with Christmas as a favorite holiday, so Marianella and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner, which doubled as our first dinner party at the new apartment. We held our Thanksgiving dinner on a Saturday night in December, due to the f

Happy Thanksgiving everyone~ Although by this time of night, I imagine everyone is quite stuffed and thoughts have turned to "Black Friday", at least for some of my audience. I hope everyone had a great holiday, of course, Thanksgiving is not celebrated down here, but Marianella and I will be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner the weekend after this one to commemorate one of my favorite holidays. Fortunately, the standard menu for Thanksgiving is pretty easy to do in Peru as all the food items (except stuffing) are staples of the Peruvian diet. So, it's time to catch you up on what's been going on in our lives. The big news is Marianella and I found our own apartment (or departmento) recently and moved in one week ago exactly. The apartment is located in an area of Lima called San Borja, a very nice suburb that we were hoping to find a place in. We found that apartment hunting was quite competitive in our price range, and after enduring some frustration for a few week

It's with a heavy heart that I update the blog today, as I heard from my Mom that our family dog Snoopy passed away around 5:30 this morning. My parents brought Snoopy home from the dog pound when I was a sophomore in college and she lived an extraordinarily long life for a dog, particularly for a dog living in the country. Consider that my niece Laura who is currently a junior in high school was not born yet when Snoopy became a member of the family and that gives you an idea how long she was alive. While we were lucky to have her with us for so long, it makes it that much harder to say goodbye. Neither I nor any of my siblings lived at our parents' homes during Snoopy's life, but she was an easy dog to grow attached to. She welcomed all visitors into the household, greeting us with a wagging tail and an accepting nature-a great watch dog she was not. She was the first dog allowed to live in the home while we were on the farm and she quickly grew accustomed to the easy li

Greetings again everyone~ I hope everything is going well for you back in the States. From what I read on the weather reports, it looks like it´s starting to get chilly, meanwhile the weather in Lima seems to finally be warming up. We had a couple tremors in the region last week (I wasn´t able to feel them, which was probably best-I´m not ready for my new family to see me whimpering and curled in a ball on the floor just yet :)), and according to Marianella when tremors occur, it causes the weather to change for a few days, so our days down here last week probably weren´t that different than back in Minnesota, perhaps a bit warmer though. Anyway, enough of the weather report, I´m guessing you all are curious about the headline in this recent entry. Well, Marianella and I had such a good time at our first wedding, we decided to do it again. Actually, the details are a bit more complicated than that, and I´ll try to explain succintly. When you move to a foreign country and want to work i

Hello again~ And I´m back with the promised pictures and update from our little side trip in Argentina. If you´ve never heard of Iguazu Falls, don´t feel bad, I hadn´t either until Marianella began telling me about them (she had been there once before). I had seen a few of her pictures of her previous trip, but didn´t really have a conception of it until we visited. How to describe it? Words don´t do justice. Pictures don´t do justice. Video can give you some idea, and we´re working on trying to figure out how to link that onto here. Anyway, I will do my best through a few words and pictures to give you an idea. As I stated in the first post, Iguazu Falls serves as a natural border between Argentina and Brazil. When Marianella informed me about Iguazu Falls, I initially thought of one big waterfall. However, as you´ll be able to see in the pictures that follow, it consists of numerous waterfalls, too many to count (and numbering more because of a recent stretch of rainy weather which w

Hello again everyone~ I hope everyone is doing well out there. I have been hearing from some of my Midwest friends & family members that fall has arrived in all its beautiful colors back home and I must admit to a bit of homesickness for my favorite season. However, our recent vacation to Argentina was good medicine, as we had a wonderful time. We split our week between Buenos Aires, Argentina´s capital city, and Iguazu Falls, an incredible waterfalls which serve as a natural border between Argentina and Brazil. I´m going to the Argentina trip in two sections, covering Buenos Aires today and in a couple days telling you all about Iguazu Falls. Buenos Aires Buenos Aires at night: Marianella and I at Cafe Tortoni, the oldest restaurant in the city (1858): A bike race along the main avenue, with the Obelisk in the background: Move over Richland Center, Wisconsin, I do believe I have a new favorite world city! My travels have not extended over to Europe, Asia, or Australia yet, but Bue