Pizza Hut and Charades

Yesterday was Kristen's last day in Peru, as well as one of our "weekends", so she wanted a treat for lunch -- Pizza Hut. When she first said that, I thought she was crazy. Why come all the way to Peru to eat Pizza Hut? But I went along with it.

The Pizza Hut is at Ovalo Santa Anita (Ovalos are massive roundabouts that serve as landmarks and commercial areas), so we took a combi for an hour to get there. When we opened the door, I was so shocked. Instead of seeing a normal Pizza Hut, we had stepped into a classy restaurant. It was really big with lots of tables and comfy booths, all painted and decorated nicely. After we sat down, a waitress even gave us menus.

The others explained that Pizza Hut has a really great special, which is why they love to go. For only 11 soles (about $3.50), we each get a personal pizza, breadsticks, salad, and a drink. I "splurged" to change the americano (cheese and ham) pizza to a supreme for only another $1.50.

One thing I love about Peru is that chain restaurants don't survive here unless they put a Peruvian (aka yummy) twist on their food. For example, instead of a soda, we could get frozen lemonade as our drink. The sauce for our breadsticks was a spicy, creamy tomatoey sauce instead of marinara. Then our salad wasn't the normal, boring pile of lettuce with ranch dressing. In addition to the normal salad stuff like lettuce and tomato, the salad had pico de gallo on top with cheddar cheese, carrots, cabbage, and a light creamy dressing. It sounds really weird, but it wasn't like any other salad I've had. It all worked together somehow. The pizza wasn't really different, just way better than from Pizza Hut at home.

In other news, I just acquired a new roommate. I was in the same room as Tara, the girl from Australia. But Marta, a new volunteer, just flew in on the same day as Kristen is leaving. Since Tara doesn't speak Spanish and Marta doesn't speak English, we figured that it would be really mean, though amusing, to make them room together. So we did a room swap, giving Kristen's room to Tara and letting Marta sleep in my room. I can understand Marta when she speaks, but I am having some trouble speaking back to her, so I think that the next two weeks are going to be a really funny game of charades.