Rosa Nautica Chicha Morada, By Infrogmation on June 12, 2010 via Flickr - Creative Commons

Low and behold my astonishment when walking down the beverage isle of a grocery store in Lima, Peru when I found a soft drink like bottle featuring a big cartoonish picture of purple corn on it. I laughed and thought giddily to myself, “Silly humans, corn isn’t purple and even if it was who would drink…corn?!?”

Well I would, eventually, after being shown that there is purple corn, I mean really purple…I wonder if that’s what made Barney purple? Anyways, the corn is not some genetic freak of nature but actually dates back thousands of years back to the Incas. Hell, this stuff even made its way into a scene in Moby Dick, which since I am now also an amazing animal with a link to this purple corn that somebody should write a book about me. It would be less piratey with the ‘argh mateys’ and more like a cooler version of Eat, Pray, Love but something like Eat, Drink, Fling Poo? I think it’s kind of catchy, throw in some purple corn and you have a best seller.

Pisco Sour By caseywest, May 20, 2010 via Flickr Creative Commons

After watching one of the greatest shows ever, Three Sheets, I became sad to see that the host Zane Lamprey never got around to show casing the Peruvian side of this liquor. Instead we only saw the Chilean side, which seems to be more regulated in its creation of Pisco. The side by side taste test will have to wait till I’m able to locate some pisco from Chile, until then these pompous pisco producers will have to deal with a full Pisco breakdown where both sides get a full review.

Some of you may not be too familiar with pisco, but may be more familiar with its Italian cousin grappa. Grappa is made from wine discards while pisco is made from fresh grapes and in Peru it includes the typical discards. Both drinks were once considered a poor man’s drink but nowadays both can be seen in high class cocktails for man and monkey alike.

…Have a whole parade of them! Seriously of all the things I was expecting to see during my trip to Peru, cows wasn’t one of them. I figured I’d see lots of llamas, not even sure why Peruvians loves their llamas, but the highlight in Lima this year was cows. Cows scattered all over the city in weird artistic interpretations/poses/whatever you want to call it, either way its still COWS!

Where should I start off my travel lifestyle? Truth is I can’t afford to start off on my RTW trip bouncing from one place to the next on a monthly or weekly basis. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean my furry little butt needs to be stuck in the Midwest. The way I have things planned out is that I start my Masters in Education earning my Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) degree this August and finish up by 2012. Yup that’s the goal, 2012 is when I break free of the mild mild Midwest; you won’t be hearing Will Smith boogying to a track about this part of the country. Many of you are thinking why wait? Travel now, you don’t need the TESOL. These are all true but there are a few other factors that I need to take under consideration.

In the USA identity plays an important role in the lives of many. It is who they interact with, date and even influence things like where they live or what religion they follow. Identity often is so interlocked with ethnicity that they become indistinguishable. Think of it this way e-harmony boast that it matches you on a kajillion levels of compatibility yet somehow you still manage to end up with someone of the same ethnicity. So what happens when you were born in Peru, Spanish is your first language, you live in the USA but you’re of Japanese descent? Well then my friend, you are Perusian.

Sure it seems like a novel concept but it makes sense and works, besides that it’s kind of catchy and pretty accurate. This self identifying term also flies if you are of Chinese or any other Asian background living in Peru just in case you couldn’t figure that out on yourself.