Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP)

Food ans tipical dishes are so delicious in Peru, that I recommend to eat the "Menus" that people cook and serve in small restaurants, anywhere in the city (even in the some posh neighbourhoods such as Miraflores where I lived) for small prices (2 dollars is a maximum price). Eating those menus, you can eat current peruvian cook, and more global dishes arranged i the peruvian way. It's not worth it to got to a fancy tipical folkloric restaurant to eat the delicious ceviche, ají de gallina, cau-cau, chupito de camarón or arroz chaufa. The chinees restaurants, CHIFAS, also offer abundant and cheap menus of delicious asiatic-peruvian gastronomy, simbol of fusio between those two cultures.

I am half chilean, and speak Spanish since I was born, but living and studying (including writing a thesis of 200 pages!) in Spanish was the occasion to improve my vocabulary and orthograph. Now I can say I am completely fluent in Spanish, in any way.

Peru is an amazing country, but its people is even more captivating. Make firends, if their family comes from "provincia" (out of Lima) ask them if you can spend a WE there with them, travel with friends, share their life, go to the places they go, act like a normal peruvian student, talk to people, make jokes with them (peruvians are very friendly), eat their food, ask them to explain you what you don't understand about the country, the history, the political situation, go to parties with them (peruvians love to dance), accept if they invite you to any celebration, and of course go to Macchu Picchu (WITH A PERUVIAN GUIDE) but DON'T MISS THE JUNGLE (start in Iquitos) because it's one of the most beautiful and nice place in the world. Not only Brazil has the Amazone, don't forget that this mythical river starts in Peru. But definitly, the principal wealth of Peru is its people. Live with them, not next to them.

Barranco is definitly the place to go if you want to enjoy Lima's nightlife. Barranco is a rather poor neighbourhood but with a bohemian way of life centered in cafés and pubs (not so many discos), wich is qite uneasy to find in South-America in general and in Lima in particular. Miraflores is also a place with lot of animation, but it is more oriented to the sector of cinemas, more expensive pubs ans selective discos. Let's say that Barranco is more "alternative" and "authentic" at the samen time, and Miraflores is more posh and full of foreigners. The center of Lima is also a nice place, if you know it and are a little carefull; some old cafés and restaurants but some streets are really dangerous. The place to go in the center is definitly LA Filmoteca, a kind of "cine-arte" that organizes retrospectives in cooperatio with ambassies and cultural services of other countries (e.g.: 4 weeks of french movies, or Almodovar restrospective...). At the Museo de Arte, where the Filomteca is, they give theter and art classes, cheap and with good professionnals.

The PUCP doesn't have a campus, it's a university in the city. The master I studied there was programmed over two years, so I found it was better for me to get my own appartment and settle down as soon as possible to start studying right away. But the PUCP always offered us alternatives, contacts and advices in order to find a place to live and organized every foreign student's location during the first period.