Guess who?

Our hotel hosted a surprise guest for a private party tonight...Marc Anthony, a.k.a. Mr. Jennifer Lopez. Although he was here in our hotel, we had a scheduled event to meet one of our distinguished alum. I must admit, meeting Marc Anthony would have been nice, but we had a great time meeting Alphonso Brazzini, a Kelley School of Business alum from 1969. Mr. Brazzini is the owner of the JW Marrriott here in Lima. Senor Brazzini is an amazing host and shared many of his personal stories with us. His hotel is the best in Lima and has hosted President Bush on several occasions. As a matter of fact, Colin Powell was staying at this hotel on the day of September 11th. Spending the evening with Mr. Brazzini at his beautiful hotel is another example of the great time we are having in Lima, Peru.



BTW, you can check out the JW Marriott in Lima here:

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/limdt-jw-marriott-hotel-lima/

Why we are here

Although this is spring break, the real reason we are here is for our GLOBASE project. GLOBASE is a course that matches up a small Peruvian company with MBA students from Kelley. Yesterday we met with Apomipe, which is a non profit agency that serves rural companies in Peru. We had a presentation from Inter Cooperation which is a division of Apomipe which specifically works with natural resources in Peru. You can see more about them here:



http://www.apomipe.org.pe/contenidos/que_es_apomipe.php



My team is working with a silver jewelry manufacturer, Mili Blume. I will fill in the details about her shop later today. For now, check out her website at:



http://www.miliblume.com/



After Apomipe, we decided to go back to the hotel to change clothes and then depart for dinner. Several members of our group found several restaurant choices about 1/2 mile away. The weather was great, so we decided to walk instead of taking a taxi. After watching a beautiful sunset over the Pacific we decided to eat at Magoe's restaurant. The restaurant was situated high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We couldn't ask for a better location.



The group all ordered the local drink favorite-a Pisco. I am not sure what is was made of, however it was quite tasty. Dinner was a variety of ceviche, calamari, and kabobs. The food was by far the freshest you could imagine. I also became aquanted with Cusquenos, the local beer-similar to Bud Light.



After dinner, we decided to make a "quick" stop at the casino. The interesting part about the casino is that they do not accept soles (the local currency), they only accepted American dollars. It really didn't matter because I only ended up donating my $25 to the Peruvian economy.



Next up...the details from Mili Blume. Buenos tardes!

Baba de Caracol ... Who knew?

One of the many reasons why Kelley has been a good choice for me ...

The opportunity came quickly in the year ...

Should I spend my spring break doing the normal stuff students do or will I join a group of students who wanted to positively change the world?

The choice was easy ...

I am so excited to be traveling to Peru with 20 other Kelley students ... Myself and team members (Monica, Matt and Kunal) will be consulting a small Peruvian company, Galeon Suppy, on an engagement. They sell an ingredient for skin care called, Baba de Caracol.

Theres so much to tell but now I have to board my flight or I will be left ...