MACHU....oh wait that trip got cancelled

I woke up this morning and it was so nice not to have to walk (and wake up early!) to UPC to volunteer for the English Class. I have several things I need to do today before class that I can now get that done! This morning my host mom made me Swedish Pancakes for breakfast, she is the best!

This weekend we were supposed to go to Machu Picchu but because of some tiny kidnapping threats by groups of people in Cusco the US Embassy suggest all travel to the Cusco/Machu Picchu area to be postponed. Our embassy heard that they were planning on kidnapping groups of Americans in the month of February and of course our trip was planned the last weekend in February. We could have still gone, but because we are a group of students sponsored by a University we were not allowed to make the decision on our own. We ended up loosing 100% of our money, except from the airline. I think it was because we cancelled so late. Plus the travel companies just want our money, and there are no rights protecting us from that kind of thing down here. Hopefully if we reschedule we can get some more money back, but I'm doubting it.

Instead I had a fairly laid back and lazy weekend, but I have two tests coming up this weekend so I need to be studying... Since we had two classes on Wednesday because we were supposed to leave on Thursday for our trip we had it off! Four day weekend for us!! Around 2:30 we went to some Incan Markets, mainly to check prices for when we go to Cusco. But the things they had were not authentic only to Cusco/Machu Picchu it was the main tourist garb. Around 5 we were all done shopping and starting to get hungry, which was strange since we are used to eating a light supper (like a piece of bread) for supper at 8. Marta (our teacher from NE) told us that the best pizzeria in Peru was really close to where we were so we walked there. The name was D'nnos and it was really good! I bought an individual "Carnivora" pizza, whenever we get pizza we are really excited. The popular pizzerias they have here are Domino's and Papa John's (Papa John's is much better than Domino's)

Friday I ended up staying at home all day and then fairly early in the night we met some of our conversation partners in another district very close to us, Miraflores. We went to a paint party that they only host about once a month, so it was packed and we had to get there early. When we got in we were able to get up close to the stage. Since there were so many people it was really hot and we had to fight our ground, so most of the time we were trying to keep people from taking our spots. We saw many failed attempts at body surfing, which I'm sure hurt really bad for those people and I feel bad, but was really funny to witness. The DJ played a lot of old school "American" music, for example Backstreet Boys at one point. It was a fun night though!

I have been wanting to cook an American meal for my host family. Especially since they are always serving me I feel bad that I'm not contributing. So Saturday night I cooked them an all American meal of... Swedish Pancakes! And they loved them! Instead of using maple syrup we used Pisco Sour flavoring which is very similar to syrup, just not maple flavor... I would say its similar to grenadine, but thicker and not cherry flavored just a sweet sugar flavor. I was really happy they liked them. I had to call my grandma to make sure I had the recipe right, which was a good excuse to talk to her and my grandpa!

I want to make them an actual American meal, does anybody have easy suggestions that I could make?!

Sunday night was the Oscars and I watched them with my family en español! And that's all I did this weekend. I probably should have done a lot more during the days since I will only be in Peru for a short time, but it was also nice to just relax and stay at home.

The proud new owner of an iPhone 5

This past week has been really busy and a little stressful for me. Then on top of it our trip to Cusco got cancelled for this weekend. But last Thursday (Valentine's Day) I had an interview with the Saltdogs and got an internship there this summer! I'm glad I don't have to worry about trying to find an internship anymore... Then after that call I called my grandparents and they were very surprised and excited to hear from me. I miss them a lot so it was good to talk to them and my Uncle Randy. I later went to class then after class we all bought bottles of wine and watched a movie at Sam's house. It was a relaxing night and I especially liked how Valentine's Day to Peruvians is "Friendship Day" and not as huge as people in North America make it...

Chocolates I bought myself in Arequipa

Friday morning I woke up and at 9:00am my cousin, Fanny, and I went to the post office to pick up my package! This is definitely easier said than done... It took us a total of 4 hours to return back home, we were hungry, hot, thirsty and frustrated. We took combi's all the way to the Post Office, which is in another district, Miraflores, and once you ride on a combi for 10 minutes you never want to again; our ride was about an hour long. When we arrived at the Post Office I had to jump through a lot of hoops. It was interesting because once I got to the point of receiving my package they had me go into a room and they opened my package in front of me, then I had to jump through more hoops, and they packaged it up again and gave it to me. Since I was off making more copies of my visa and passport when they packaged it up I was a little worried that they may have stolen something but they didn't! My parents had a great experience trying to send the package too so I doubt there will be more packages sent to me in the future... The main reason for me getting the package was because my iPod touch died and since I was using it a lot down here I was going to buy a new one but apple and all electronics are crazy expensive here. Since I was planning on getting an iPhone when I got back to the states my dad thought it would be cheaper and easier to just get the phone now and send it to me. So I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 5!!! And it's my first smart phone so I'm in love. I also got some volleyball shorts, leggings and Q-tips!

On Saturday, a couple of us went to the zoo! It was a really hot day, but nothing compared to Nebraska hot. I was surprised to see that the Peruvians looked more miserable than I did. Another thing I thought was interesting was we went with a Peruvian and he bought our tickets for us, 10 soles each, if we would have gone to the window to purchase a ticket it would have been more expensive because we are not Peruvians. The zoo had pretty much the same things as the Henry Doorly Zoo but this zoo was really spread out so it was big. The most popular animals were birds and turtles, they were everywhere. They had penguins and their habitat was outside in the hot sun (the complete opposite than Omaha's zoo) and we learned that they only need cold water. 

I was in love with all the cats! 

Arequipa

I feel like I start my blogs off the same way every time stating that I meant to post this a long time ago but it didn't happen... Two weekends ago (February 8-10) A group of us (9) flew to Arequipa and took a bus tour to Colca Valley. Our teacher, Marta, was supposed to go with us but she received food poisoning and wasn't able to go. So it was just us students, thank goodness we had our secret weapon, Maria. Maria is from UNK and studying with us but she is originally from Mexico so she is fluent. We had to wake up at 2am to get to the airport on time, and our flight out was at 6am. We arrived in Arequipa at 8am and on the plane instead of peanuts we received a box with our breakfast! It was great, we got the typical cup of juice, small ham sandwich, and a slice of cake. From the airport our guide picked us up and there were 17 of us on the trip. Our guide spoke English for us, but it was nice to hear both the Spanish and English to help with our listening skills. Almost right away the Nebraskans fell asleep and we felt bad that our guide was talking, but we were so tired. We drove into Colca Valley and our destination was the town of Chivay. We made several stops along the way, and the scenery was beautiful! We could not take a bad picture. Our guide was teaching us things about the valley and the differences between llamas and alpacas.

As we got higher in altitude we were getting a little sick from the altitude. At one of our stops they served coca tea, apparently coca is supposed to help with the altitude. Our cup of tea was hot water with coca leaves and other herbs in it, it tasted like green tea and I thought it was pretty good! Others weren't huge fans of it but since I was feeling a little sick I was finishing other peoples teas. They also sold coca candy so we were all eating candy hoping it would work, I'm not sure if it just made us "high" or actually helped... At the highest point we ended up going to the bathroom, but the bathroom hut was a small hike up the hill. Some of us got out of the bus and our first obstacle was to jump over a ditch, which is easy enough but doing it at a high altitude about knocked us on our butts. The guys in our group were helping us across though, such gentleman they are. And once we all reached the huts (AKA the bathrooms) we had to sit on rocks to recover. While sitting on the rock it started to snow, then I looked over and realized there was no door to the hut and not toilet... at least the floor was 2x4s and they just cut a hole in the floor and that was the bathroom. Once we got back to the bus we all passed out until we arrived in Chivay. We were very thankful that the altitude was much lower there so we could recover. Once there we ate lunch and the driver dropped us off at our hostel. I think we were most excited for the cooler weather, it was about 60 degrees, perfect weather for Nebraskans! (Is Nebraskans even a word...?) anyways for lunch we had a buffet and I tried alpaca. It was very chewy and salty, but I would eat some again. After lunch we changed and went to a hot spring. It was interesting because they pumped the water into a pool, but it was worth it. Very relaxing!

Later that night we went to supper in Chivay and the restaurant had a live band, during every song there were two dancers and they would dress up in different outfits for each song.  The next morning we had to be ready at 6:30 and my room woke up to Lanisa knocking on our door at 6:20... whoops! But of course that would be my room, I got dressed really fast and ran downstairs because we had complimentary breakfast and I couldn't miss that! Once on the bus we drove to Condor Cross. The morning was beautiful, cool and we could not take a bad picture. But as we kept climbing it got cloudier and cloudier and once we got to Condor Cross, all we could see was fog... 

 Most of our group

Can you see the condors?! ...Ya we couldn't either.

I ended up buying some alpaca gloves from some vendors for 7 soles, since there wasn't much else to do. It didn't take long though once we left the observation area to get out of the clouds, and at our next stop it was clear. Our guide was telling us some more history of of the valley and how we need to preserve it. Then all of the sudden a Condor flew by us!! Our guide said we were really lucky because most of the condors go to the Pacific during the rainy season for more food. So we were very excited to see one!

Condor! The biggest bird on earth...even though it looks fairly small here.

After we saw the Condor we were content and went on our way, we stopped in Chivay for lunch and had a little bit of time to look in the markets, then we were on our way back to Arequipa. We all slept the entire way back to Arequipa and when we got there it was raining!! And not just a sprinkle it was raining pretty good! We were very excited for some more weather change, since it never changes in Lima. But then one of the girls had 14 missed calls from people, her host mom thought she had died. We thought this was a very strange assumption, then we learned that a couple hours before we got to town people had died from the rain! Apparently part of a road collapsed and people fell in. They had never received that much rain in one amount of time before and the streets were apparently acting like waterfalls. I'm glad we missed it. Our hostel in Arequipa was really nice and 33 soles a night per person and we had 3 person rooms with our own bathroom and TV. They had a big kitchen so to save money we decided to go to the grocery store and buy some food. We bought three boxes of mac&cheese, bread, sliced chicken, mayonnaise, fruit and 2 bottles of Rum and Coke once we divided the cost it was only 14 soles a person! After eating we decided to go to the discos (bars) in Arequipa because a lot of people said we had to go out while in Arequipa. We had really fun! And we were glad we could sleep in finally the next day. On Sunday we checked out at 11am and walked around town to the shops and ate at a pizzeria then returned to the hotel because they had taxis for us at 4 to take us to the airport. They have some really good chocolates from Arequipa so we bought some in the airport and it was my Valentine's present to myself. The chocolates were really good! We got back to Lima safe and sound after an interesting plane ride back and once I got back home I went right to bed.

Birthday Wishes from Afar

Once again I meant to blog on Monday or Tuesday, but that did not happen... Plus I can already tell that my English skills have gone down the drain. It's harder for me to think of words, spelling, and English grammar doesn't really exist. We have had a lot of homework due this week, along with our first grammar test today!

Thursday night a group of us went to TGIFriday's (or just Friday's here in Perú) and I thought I was in heaven!! I found the man I want to marry, Jack Daniel!

I got a Jack Daniel's burger and it was the best thing I have eaten for a very, very long time! AND if that wasn't enough they also had HEINZ ketchup, not Peruvian ketchup. And the Mojito for a drink was pretty dang good too! After eating it I thought I was going to puke because it was so much food, but I think it was worth it. After we ate we went to Whitney's house to go swimming, but when we got there the pool was closed... we were disappointed because some of us haven't gone swimming yet in Peru. So we just hang out in her apartment. Last Friday was a lot more laid back that usual and I'm ok with that. It's always nice to get some R&R. I should have done some homework... but I will never learn.

On Saturday I got a wake up call from Luke around 9:30 telling me they were ready to go to the beach to go surfing. I packed a bag and hiked down my mountain when I got to the main street I attempted to get a cab, since it's a long walk to Sam's and they were ready to leave. The 1st taxi driver I spoke to said it would be better for me to get a minibus/large taxi so he drove off, the 2nd taxi driver had no idea what I was talking about, and just like Goldie Locks the 3rd was was Juuusssttt Right! It worried me a little bit that it was a black car and not a traditional marked taxi. But he was very nice and knew where I was trying to go, he later gave me his number saying if I ever need a ride somewhere or me and my friends need to be picked up to call him. I'm sure I'll get on that... After I got to Sam's house safe and sound we left for the beach! It was a little late for surfing, but oh well. Whitney, Haley, Luke, Sam, Sam's two host brothers, David and Kevin, and I went to the beach near MiraFlores which isn't far away. We had to get a taxi and we drove by a lot of cops so the taxi driver was freaking out because it's illegal to have seven people in the car so we were all trying to hide the people sitting on laps and the Kevin sitting in the back area of the car, but we made it! After driving right by a cop, but he luckily looked the other way when we drove past. At the beach we were able to rent a wetsuit and surfboard for 20 soles and with 5 more soles a guide would come with us. Less than $10 to go surfing isn't bad!! I ended up getting a bad headache and sea sick so I had to go in early, but it was a lot of fun!!! The best part was coming into shore because the waves broke more there.

I took a small nap on the beach and after everyone came to shore we walked to MiraFlores and ate at a famous sandwich shop that had really yummy smoothies, La Lucha Sangucheria. David said the smoothies were expensive, around 7 or 8 soles (about $3) we told him we can't get smoothies that cheap in the US. We were all exhausted after that and went to our houses, took showers and naps. Later that night we went out to the discos! 

Sunday was my Dad's birthday!!! And it's the first birthday of his I have missed in 21 years, but I was at least able to call him. Thank goodness for Skype so I can talk to my parent's and see them. I'm starting to miss them and friends more now that it's been a month away from NE. The rest of the day Sunday I didn't do too much until 5:45 pm. Danielle, Whitney and I tried to find a taxi, but that was easier said than done. On Sunday's Lima is fairly quiet and we were also competing with Peru soccer game that started at 5:30 so there was nobody on the road. We got the taxi to take us to a casino to watch the Superbowl! We met Sam and his two host brothers there. They got there early to watch the soccer game. The girls were rooting for the 49ers to win and the boys wanted the Ravens to win, I think watching Beyonce was big enough of a win for them though! Most of the commentators spoke English but during half time we listened to Spanish though. And ESPN Español didn't show any Superbowl Commercials... a definite let down. Instead they played the same two commercials over and over and they weren't even funny. At the end of the night we didn't care if we saw a funny commercial, we just wanted a new commercial! With the delay of the game it was pretty late and all six of us piled into a cab. We are getting really good at fighting everyone in the taxi, 1 on in the front seat and 2 girls sitting on 3 guys laps in the back seat. We dropped off the boys first but since it was late the girls decided to drop me off first so I wouldn't have to be the only one in a taxi and then they got dropped off together. I stayed busy this weekend, but it was relaxing to! Next weekend will be very busy since some of our class is traveling to Arequipa!