A Fond Farewell to Lima

On our final day in Lima, we met as a group in the courtyard of the school ready to venture outside of the Lima city limits to see some ruins.

Pacific Ocean on the drive out of Lima

Villa El Salvador - seaside shanty town on the Pacific Coast

A seaside bus ride took our group, along with 15 Santa Ursula students, to Pachacamac - an extensive complex of adobe pyramids about 30 kn south of Lima in the Lurin Valley.  Pachacamac was the leading pilgrimage center on the central coast and home to the most feared & respected oracle in the Andes.  The name Pachacamac in Quechua translates to Lord of the World.  Both the Huari and the local Inca empires respected the oracle. 

Pachacamac

 We had a guide (in English!) who toured us through the museum and taught us about the various pre-Columbian cultures in Peru.  After learning about the history, we were ready to take on the hike in the ruins.  

Pachacamac museum tour - Pre Columbian timeline

Visiting the Museum

The excavations of the site, all of which have been done in the last 60 years, revealed ramps and entranceways to temples and buildings.  The Palacio de Las Mamacuna, the enclosure built for holy women by the Incan, can be seen to the right with the looming Temple of the Sun in the distance ahead.  

Palacio de Las Mamacuna
enclosure for holy women, often held in anticipation of sacrifice

We hiked around the Temple of the Sun and got an excellent view of the Pacific Ocean and an island shaped like a whale that is popular in children's legends here in Peru.  

Temple of the Sun

Pinky & Rylee posing in front of "Whale Island" in the Pacific Ocean

After returning the school, the girls and their hosts gathered for a going away party and the faculty members said goodbye to their hostesses.  It was a beautiful way to close this first visit between our schools.  The spirits of St. Angela and St. Ursula were strong and we look forward to welcoming our sisters to Wilmington in 2017.  

Farewell Party

Ursuline Academy and Santa Ursula faculty members

St. Angela - Watch Over Our Days
St. Ursula - Protect Our Future

Presenting ourselves to our Peruvian sisters

Today, we began the day by presenting ourselves to the entire student body of Colegio Santa Ursula.  Each of the girls stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and introduced herself in Spanish.  We were very proud of our Ursuline girls as they looked out over almost 900 pupils and spoke in a second language!

Our delegation overlooking the pupils at Colegio Santa Ursula

Morning greeting with the students of Santa Ursula

After our introduction, students attended classes with their host sisters and then met with the three English classes of students in their final year to present about Ursuline Academy and to answer questions.  The girls did an excellent job presenting and answering lots of questions about life as a UA student in America.  As Maddie Tallman '17 remarked, "what I learned most is that we are all really similar and I felt at home here as soon as we arrived."

Presenting in Señora Maruy's English class

After presenting, we were invited to have lunch with the wonderful sisters in the convent dining room.  In true "Sr. Betty style", we warned the girls that the sisters wanted to make sure that they had the chance to sample some Peruvian delicacies of ceviche and guinea pig and that they should accept the offering of the sisters with grace and gratitude.  The girls were quite nervous upon entering only to find that the sisters had prepared chicken soup, chicken milanese, french fries, and a beautiful green salad.  They even had ice cream and cookies for dessert!!

We enjoyed wonderful community with the beautiful sisters of CSU - it is truly a special place and many of the girls remarked that this was one of their favorite experiences so far.  Madre Pia decorated each of the girls' place-cards with her beautiful sketches; a truly unique & priceless souvenir!

Lauren, Maddie, Shayla & Kayla sign the guest book

Class of 2019: Yanni, Pinky, Rylee, Maggie & Lauren

Touring the City of Lima

This morning, we met as a delegation and had a tour of our sister school - Colegio Santa Ursula.  It is a lovely school with approximately 900 students from ages 3-17.  Our four student tour guides were all proficient in English and gave us an excellent tour of the school.  We were quite impressed with the beautiful courtyard and the amount of space with fresh air - how lovely!

UA delegation to Peru with our excellent Santa Ursula student tour guides

After our tour, we boarded a bus with Beatriz Maruy from SU and a wonderful tour guide, Maria Isabel.  We drove through the city of Lima, seeing the neighborhoods of Miraflores, San Isidro, and Lima Centro.  The city is incredibly busy and very metropolitan.

Enjoying the "clima de Lima" - grey mist every morning

We stopped at Parque del Amor as our first stop; a beautiful park situated in Miraflores on the side of the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Costa Verde.  The park is filled with sculptures and a sloped wall with love quotes runs at the edge.  The air in Lima is grey and foggy - a low mist descends in winter and the city remains quite grey from June to September.

Kayla, Maddie & Shayla represent the Class of 2017

From there, we drove into Lima Centro where we stopped at Plaza Mayor - formerly known as Plaza de Armas.  The Presidential Palace - Palacio de Gobierno - was started in the mid 16th century and we had the pleasure of experiencing the regal changing of the guard.  It was a spectacular site!  The girls also got a taste of what it feels like to be a foreigner in a new land - lots of curious gazes from the Peruvian people, interested in our uniforms and American style.

We walked through the Plaza area, visiting Santo Domingo church which includes Santa Rosa de Lima's tomb and statues of St. Rose and St. Martin de Porres.  It is one of the oldest religious structures in Lim, built on a site granted to the Dominicans by Pizarro in 1535.

We finished our tour at the church of San Francisco; a large 17th-century church near the Plaza Mayor.  It is a beautiful church with an incredibly ornate courtyard and library with beautiful puzzles of inlaid wood and mosaics.  Beneath the church sit recently discovered Catacombs - we had the opportunity to tour the crypts and learn about the discoveries made in the mid 20th century.  How incredible!  The catacombs contain skulls and bones of more than 70,000 people.

We had a delicious lunch of Peruvian chicken and french fries at Pardos - yum!  The pollo arrosto is so delicious and a Peruvian specialty.  The Peruvians are very proud of their food culture and they should be!

Our lunch table

Peruvian chicken - Yum!

After lunch, we returned to school where the girls met their host sisters for the last period of the day before heading home with them for the weekend.  The girls will get to know their hostesses and families very well over the course of the next two days and it will be exciting for us to reunite as a group on Monday morning!

Delegation with our excellent tour guide, Maria Isabel

Buen Viaje a Peru

Our delegation of 9 students and 2 faculty chaperones has boarded their flight en route to Peru! Everyone is excited to meet their host sisters and families at Colegio Santa Ursula. 

Welcome to our sisters from South Africa!

Today, we welcomed our Brescia House sisters to the USA for their 11 day exchange with UA Wilmington.  After more than 24 hours of traveling, the girls arrived wide-eyed and in great spirits, ready to meet their host sisters after some time touring Philadelphia.

The sun was shining as we toured Philadelphia; visiting the Liberty Bell, seeing Independence Hall, and enjoying some Chick-fil-a "Rocky Style" on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The girls enjoyed seeing the landscaping and architecture in Old City as well as learning about the birthplace of our nation.

Opera a Paris!

Bonjour à Paris! 

Today we went to the Opèra and saw the Magdelanae on the way and stopped in Ladurée to buy some macarons. We got tickets to walk inside the opera and saw all the beautiful rooms, ceilings, and costumes. Afterwards, we walked to the impressive Galleries Lafayette and passed designer shops like Chanel and Louis Vuitton before finding the Top Shop (more affordable). Then we walked through au Printemps before heading back to the Marais where we made some more purchases (Springfield was a big hit). 

We met Josh for dinner again at Terroir Parisian where everyone was feeling adventurous! We tried radishes with butter and salt and tried a meat plater with things like ham and pâté. It was another day full of shopping, eating, and laughs!  

Final Day in Paris

Bonjour from Paris!

We started our last day with our typical Parisian breakfast and then headed off to see the Arc de Triumphe and Champs Élysee. Today was the coldest and rainiest day so far, and we could not go on top of the Arc due to the weather. We took a long walk under our umbrellas to the Musée Marmottan. There we saw more of Monet's waterlillies and a special exhibit called "Art and the Child" featuring Cézanne, Monet, Matisse, Manet, Renior, and Picasso. We finished lunch with some Portugese pasteries and French meringues. 

After dinner, we took a beautiful boat ride along the Seine to see the monuments lit up at night and got to see the Effiel Tower sparkle. Despite how cold and rainy it was, we had an amazing last day in Paris.