Weather conditions may indicate otherwise, but dozens of Peruvian college students are now working at their summer jobs in the Pittsburgh area.
This includes 18 of 55 employees at the new McDonald's on Saltsburg Road in Penn Hills that opened last month, as well as two dozen other students working at restaurants in Bellevue, Gibsonia and on the North Shore.
They are all on break from colleges in Lima, and coming from south of the Equator, it makes for a consensus of what they like least about Pittsburgh.
"It's a very nice place, but we don't like the weather," surmised Katia Lavalle, an industrial engineering major who has been living and working in Penn Hills.
McDonald's works with different travel agencies in Peru, where college students pay their way over to the United States with the understanding they will have employment for several months, with the possibility of further travel toward the end of their stay.
Corporate officials at McDonald's say they are "re-evaluating" the program, but Penn Hills McDonald's manager Doug Yoho said he enjoys the Peruvian staff.
"We have a lot of engineering students, and some of them started out asking, 'Can we go see some industry?" Yoho said.
Valery Cardenas, an interior design major at the Toulouse Lautrec Institute in Lima, and Carla Tosso, an architecture major, are equally impressed with the Carnegie museums.
"Pittsburgh is also a very cultural city, in the downtown and in Oakland," said Tosso, who works at the Bellevue franchise.
Carlos Vargas, a computer engineering major living in Shadyside and working in Bellevue, has also noticed the architecture.
Asked what he likes about Pittsburgh, Vargas noted that "the people are very nice and friendly and the houses are very old."
Commuting can be trying, especially with the snowfall. While the students staying in Penn Hills have apartments within walking distance of the new franchise, Vargas and Gustavo San Roman, an electronic engineering major have to ride the bus.
"We take two buses — one downtown and then one to Bellevue," San Roman said. "It takes an hour or an hour-and-a-half — depending on the driver."
And while he doesn't have a car, San Roman said the most noticeable change he can recall from a stay in America as an exchange student about five years ago is the marked increase in gasoline prices.
"I also don't remember it being as cold or snowing as much in Fremont," San Roman said.
The sheer number of people working different shifts makes it difficult for officials with the Latin American Culture Union to plan an event to welcome the students, who will remain in the country until mid-March, when classes are scheduled to resume in Peru, LACU spokesman Brent Rondon said.
But those who had some time off this weekend enjoyed a night on the town at the Chapel of Blues in the city's West End, with some help of volunteer drivers from the LACU.
They were welcomed by Sabrina de Matteo, a singer and percussionist of Peruvian descent with the band No Bad, accompanied by the Ju Ju horns.
"These kids are here because they wanted to see for themselves what it's like in America," de Matteo said. "And it looks like they're enjoying themselves."
