La Vida de una gringa

Hey all. So I NEED to do a lil post about the trip we went on yesterday (Sunday). We went to Chinchero, Ollantaytambo, and Pisac. All three are Inca ruin sites...DUH! Jk...but what I have been surprised to find out is that many places in these parts have foundations that are Inca ruins. Pretty sweet.

So the first place we went was Chinchero. It was so damn cool! The tour guide like zoomed through this so I don't have a super lot of info about it cause he was in such a rush to get us everywhere he didnt really tell us much. WHICH I'm gonna take a second to vent about. Our tour guide was so sassy to us about hurrying and I wanted to say to him I know YOU'VE been here a million times but this might be the only time I go so let me take my damn time! I was so annoyed and I don't think he liked me by the end of the day because I was always the last one on the bus but I have no regrets!
 

Natural & Gray-hair-Preventative Shampoo!

 Anyway, here's Chinchero. It's a very quaint and beautiful town. We started out by going to a little market where the native ladies showed us how they spun, dyed, and knitted/weaved alpaca wool. The wool was so soft and they have different types of colors and the black wool vs. the white wool feels different. As one of my friends said: "I just wanna bathe in it!" They use bugs, flowers, leaves, and many other things to dye their wool. They also use all natural shampoo to prevent grey hair! How cool! I wanted some but it wasn't for sale...too bad.

Yarn, and the things they use to dye each color!

To the left is a pic of all the colors they can dye the yarn. Most importantly the red one. See how its sitting on a bunch of whitish/gray looking things? Those are lil bugs. When you smush the bugs they it's seriously the brightest of red colors! They use that to achieve the red color of their yarn. Think about THAT next time you're knitting red alpaca-wool yarn! But then again, don't worry too much cause they wash it with that natural shampoo. Anyway, you can see the leaves, herbs, flours, and other types of things they use to dye stuff. Prettyyyyy kewl.
 

Weaving - they weave this 6 hrs a day til its finished!

Just chillen with some Inca ruins and cloudy mountains NBD

Me, just doin some awk posin' at Ollantaytambo

 Next up: Ollantaytambo! This, dare I say it, was my favorite site. I think...It's really difficult to pic a fave but this is the one I wanted to see. There is a cool background to this one. So...there was a Inca King. His name was Pachacuteq. This King had a daughter, I forget her name, and one of Pachacuteq's Generals was in love with Pachacuteq's beautiful daughter. So the General was all "Bro, lemme marry your daughter." And Pachacuteq was all "Sorry dude, you don't have the sun in your blood like us Royals." (Remember Incas loooooveeedd the Sun. Ollantaytambo's main attraction is the unfinished Sun Temple! The Royals believed themselves descendants of the Sun and therefore regular peeps, even Generals, couldn't marry in.) So the General was like "Man, screw yew." Kidnapped the daughter, and took her to Ollantaytambo. They faught and I think the General was captured and imprisoned for 10 years or something until Pachacuteq died. When the new King rolled up he was DGAF and allowed them to marry. Pachacuteq is probs rolling in is grave at that terrible rendition of that story I just told. Either way, you get the gist.

Now, if you zoom in on this pic, you can see the storehouses in the mountain. You can also see the profile of a god carved into the mountain. If you can't see it, sorry....I don't really know how to tell you to look for him except for his big nose and furrowed brow. Anyway if the architecture isn't breathtaking enough, the mountains sure are. I would never want to leave if I were an Inca and lived in a bad ass place such as Ollantaytambo! I just wish I could go back in time and watch the Incas live there for ONE day.

Six monoliths of the Sun Temple

These are the monoliths on the unfinished sun temple. The temple on this hill was built solely for religious reasons. It never got finished and historians and archaeologists are still wondering WHY. Now, our crabby tour guide told us that they used logs and ramps to get the monoliths up here. I don't believe them. Those are seriously just too huge to have been rolled up. It would've taken eons. True, it probably wasn't Ancient Aliens either, but those rocks are too big and too perfectly fit together to be CHISELED. But that's just my opinion...and I'm always right so...

  Okay this is one of the fallen over big ass rocks. Those grooves there on the edge were used for something, I forget the name. I think it was horizontal locking or something. But it was so they knew exactly how the boulders fit together and shows just how much thought went into building things like this. Very, very cool. I say that a lot...but it is! I wish I could bring everyone here to show them just how perfectly these rocks fit together, but alas, I can only take pix. The one below this little paragraph is an example of how well these were built. You can't fit a human hair between those cracks. Keep in mind that these rocks weighed tons and weren't from around the area. Cray-zee. Also that little nub was used to monitor the direction of the sun. These dudes were OBSESSED with the sun/sky. And for good reason! The Incas and the Mayans knew the celestial world better than we do today. I think it's funny some people call them a 'primitive culture' they probs would've laughed in OUR astronomers faces!

I just like captions but I don't have one for this one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last, but certainly not least is Pisac. This
is another ancient Inca city. The most important thing here, to me, was their terraces. Each little terrace has 0.1 degree difference in temperature. This was obviously deliberate, and allowed the Incas to hybridize and grow crops at altitudes they normally couldn't. What smart little devils. I really am jealous of them. I wanna know how they did it and what tools they used because obviously it wasn't just shovels and pick-axes. I tried to ask the tour guide how the Incas could tell the 0.1 degree difference because that's too perfect but I didn't get a solid answer. Ah, well. After we saw Pisac, we went to a market and I got some sweet kicks and a back pack. I probably paid to much for them but I've spent like no money here so far so at this point I'm dgaf. To the right you can see me epically failing at trying to look really sweet. Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have been tired and lazy and busy and a wee bit homesick. I will get my patooty into gear and start updating again regularly. Anyway. Love ya, miss ya, wanna kiss ya.
XOXOXO,
Lizzy

P.S! I EXPERIENCED MY VERY FIRST EARTHQUAKE TONIGHT WHILE SKYPING WITH MY PARENTS. IT WAS TERRIFYING AND CRAZY AND REALLY COOL. It wasn't so much of an earthquake it was more of a tremor. A 3.8 on the Richter scale. But I am a drama queen so I hyped it up and of course told FB and 8 million people liked my status about it. And by 8 million I mean like 11.

Clinica San Juan de Dios

Hola!

Today, the six of us IPSL kiddos started our service-work at Hogar Clinica San Juan de Dios. It's a clinic for kids who are mentally and physically disabled. These kids have parents who either abandoned them or can't take care of them, so they live in a wing of the hospital and have nurses take care of them. I'm gonna be honest when I found out this was our service-work assignment I was less than thrilled. I never felt cut out to do the PCA type work that's out there. I'm so glad to say that I was surprised.

We kinda got thrown into it and had to fend for ourselves because the older ladies obviously didn't like us gringos too much. Well, at least that's how I felt. They didn't really give us any direction at all we just had to free ball it and hope we didn't make mistakes. We did laundry, helped with lunch & dinner, and played with the kids from 8:30am to 5:30pm. It was exhausting but so rewarding and fantastic. Plus, it's def gonna help with my Spanish!

I made many amigos today but got pictures with my two favorites: Angelito y Vessenia. Angelito corrects you if you call him Angel and he is seriously the cutest lil bug I've ever laid eyes on. He has no forearms or legs, but he is the exact definition of his name.

Angelito y yo

Vessenia played with my phone all day, listening to the radio and playing with the flashlight on it. She is sassy and laughs at me when I speak bad Spanish, which I love. At the end of the day she didn't want me to leave and I have to say I was a little sad to go.

Vessenia y yo

Anyway tonight I went out with my host mom, her 23 year old cousin, Diana(who speaks some english!). We went to a bar called London Town and listen to a band play. Literally the first thing I saw and smelt walking in was 3 dudes smoking a joint. The drink menu was amazing and I got a Laguna Azul. Deliciosa. I convinced Diana to get a Cosmopolitan. She loved it! After, we went to a non gringa discoteca and I danced my legs off. I sang my damn heart out to the only song they played in English, which was I Will Survive, and everyone laughed at me. Also, there is no trying to be as good of a dancer as a Latin American. I thought I was pretty good, and then we went to that discoteca. They just know how to work their hips! Anyway, it was a blast and my first real taste of the party life in Peru. I just like Peru better. Never coming back sorry guys! HA! But seriously...... . ... ..... .. ... .. . . .   .

and then i got food poisoning

Hey dudes.

So I musta ate something not so great yesterday cause man I felt like crap today. Okay so I told y'all about that class where I have a teacher crush right? WELLLL I dropped it. I didn't NEED it and it wouldn't have done anything for me and I dropped it to add Latin American Lit which counts towards my major. Anywhooser, getting to school to drop/add said classes was QUITE the adventure.

I was awoken this morning by my stomach grumbling and feeling nauseous. You know that taste in your mouth that you get when you're gonna vom? Well I had that too. I knew it was time to head to el bano (pretend theres a squigly like AKA a tilde above the n). After vomming, I went straight back to bed because I didn't have class til four.

Evita, our housekeeper woke me up and asked if I wanted to eat. I consulted with my tummy and it was a big NO. So I felt bad. At three, I emerged from my bed, tried to look somewhat presentable, and tried to eat rice. It tasted like bananas in a bad way so I stopped that real quick like. Then, it was time for the bus.

I'm gonna take a picture of these god forsaken buses and do an entire blog post on transportation because let me tell you it is NOT a walk in the park. I like to take the bus, because I am a cheap ass and the bus is cheap. I get on 'Tupac Amaru' which is the name of the bus I take to school. These buses range in size and quality. Some are big coach-like buses and there are abundant seats to have. Others are about the size of the creepy vans that you would expect a kidnapper to drive when he's trying to kidnap a small child. Regardless of the size, people cram into these damn things like sardines.

Because God loves me, the bus I got today was tiny and PACKED. Like more packed than I've ever seen it. Begrudgingly, I get on. I only lasted about three stops because surprisingly four more people got on the bus. I lucked out and got to stand next to the guy with terrifying B.O! Besides that, standing on a speeding bus with only your feet and hands white knuckling a handrail on the ceiling isn't the greatest for a gal who is feeling under the weather. I said 'Baja por favor' which is what you say when you need to get off, and stumbled off the bus. I sat down and recollected myself and figured I'd wait for a bigger bus where there are seats so I don't a.)Pass out and/or b.)lose what little lunch I had. LUCKY ME, the next two buses were the same size, and had the same amount of people in them. I resorted to a taxi and got to school just fine.

Clearly, not much has been happening these past fourish days, but tomorrow we start our volunteer service working at a clinic for kids with physical and mental disabilities who have been abandoned by families that cant take care of them. After that, my host mom is taking me to 'Londontown' a bar in Cusco where her friend djs! I can't wait!

Besitos
Lizzy

Hey friends! So today was the first day of classes...que scary! Actually it was fine. I'm taking Biodiversity of Peru and I have a teacher crush on the Prof. He has dreads(sp?) and tattoos and worked in the rainforest and has that weird air of mystery around him. Plus his accent when he speaks English is adorbs. Anyway that was my first class and it's at 11 so I lucked out.

Then, I had Institutions in Peruvian Society where we learn about Peruvian laws and culture and how society and classes work. It was kinda boring and the prof speaks so softly I wanted to fall asleep but I didn't! It's interesting learning about the laws in another country. Did you know, you can have illegal drugs on your person? They don't arrest you but they can detain you for 15 days here for questioning. Good to know...I'M KIDDING! HAHA...ha..h....

Anyway, there was some drams with my Spanish class today because I got put into PRE-Intermediate and after taking Spanish for the last cinco anos I was NOT having that. So I just went to the Intermediate one and demanded they switch me like the lil betch that I am. So todo esta bien. My host Mom continues to be sweet and amazing. She's gonna take me out this weekend and I am suppppeer excited because its not gonna be a place for gringos! Gringo/a is slang for white-boy/girl and as Cuzco is super touristy, Gringos are EVERYWHERE and all places are geared towards them. Kinda sucks, but whatevs.

Anyway, ahora me voy a salir con mis amigos to get some Cerveza Cusquena. Pretend there is a tilde on the n & pronounce it Cusqunia. I don't have any pictures today cause it was boring and filled with classes and such. I wanted to update though cause otherwise I'll forget.



Ciao!

Hola papisssss .... and mamiisssss

Hoy, we went on our first tour de la ciudad de Cuzco! I learned so much about this amazing city and the country of Peru. Did you know, Incans are not native to Peru? They came here and built their massive and impressive civilization. Quechuans are the native people of Peru. Our tour guide said never to call to call a Quechua person an Inca.

Anyway our first stop was Sacsayhuaman. Sacsayhuaman is an Incan temple built to honor the Sun god. The Incan King who built this temple believed he was the descendant of the Lightening god, so he built it in a zig zag shape. Also, these stones weigh up to 200 tons. Incans did not have cranes, and even if they did the most a crane can lift is 20 tons. Our tour guide said that they used logs but I think it was definitely aliens. (jaja....but seriously). These stones are carved perfectly to fit together. There's this thing called an Incan locking system where if you try to push the stones to the left, the grooves in the other ones will stop them. And all the stones lean inward. This is because they wanted their temples and sacred places to withstand earth quakes.

Big ass lime stones

Another interesting thing is the gods the Incas worshiped. There were several, but the most important to them was the Sun god. They also believed in three worlds. The celestial world, represented by the Condor, a bird native to Peru. The earth world, our world, represented by the Puma. And lastly, the world beneath the earth, represented by the snake. All of this was made by a god that resides in none of the three worlds. He created everything. I forget what they called him though!

It is so weird to me that people lived here hundreds of years ago and this was all just normal to them.

Tambomachay

We also went to Tambomachay which is a water temple. They still don't know where the water comes from! They just know that it's underground! Also the Incas used to mummify people just like the Egyptians. Anyway the water that trickled down from the mountain was so clear and looked so refreshing I just wanted to splash it in my face! I probs would have gotten a parasite though. I have more pix on facebook but today was so cool.

Pretty water!

We then went to a place called Q'enqo, but my camera died. Our tour guide said something about how for a long time people said the Incas didn't do human sacrifices - but they definitely have confirmed at least 22 human remains from sacrifices in temples. Incas...what bad asses!

Lastly, we went to one of the THREE ginormous cathedrals in La Plaza del Armas. By this time everyone was so hungry and tired from climbing at 14,000 feet no one could pay attention, but I wanna go back.

Ok so since I have no friends yet and no key to my house and my host mom worries about me if I leave I am at home all dressed up with no where to go. So I took pix of the house. P.S I AM BORED TO DAMN TEARS!!!!!!

La cocina. Es muy grande y bonita!

The view from the window in the picture above

 

El otro lado de la cocina.

The view from the window in the picture above. Que bonita!

No se como decir "living room" en espanol

The other side of the living room

The stairs with the thick black rails lead down to the door. The red stairs with the thin black rails lead up to this cool upper area where you can go outside and look at the city.

Anyway....Im seriously so damn bored. WAH. I should quit being a baby and just leave but I'm just gonna keep being a baby.

LLLLUUUVVIIAAAAAAAAA

Hola a todos.

A shit ton of things happened today so I'm gonna segment it all.

Primero: La Universidad
We had orientation and got to meet all the students. There are actually thirty in total and most are doing homestays, I think. I heard there are only 8 in La Casa Don Ignacio aka the student apartments. La Casa Don Ignacio sounds cooler though. Soooo jah, that was fine. It's nice to be in the same boat with a bunch of other people. No one else was from good ol' Minny though and I'd be lying if I said I didn't try to play down my accent. YA DER AR SUM NYCE HAHT DISHES YA KNO! Otherwise I saw La Plaza del Armas which is like the main square is. I ate lunch with my host mom, Sari en la Plaza at Bembos. Its a hamburger joint. I seriously LOVE my host mom. I would be lost without such a nice lady taking care of me. Any way, La Plaza is damn BEAUTIFUL but I didn't have my camera with me like una idiota! So pix of that to come.

Segundo: Walking v. Taxi v. Buses
 I'm excited to actually be able to have a routine and not need my host mom to come get me and drop me off at school like a five year old. She only does this because I would probably get myself lost and robbed and beat up if I went alone. Why, you ask?! Or maybe you don't care why, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. You can either walk, take a taxi, or take a bus. Basically it's like playing kiss, marry, throw off a cliff using like Carrot Top, Ron Jeremy, or Gary Busey. For those of you who don't know what the game kiss, marry, throw off a cliff is, it's where you're given names of 3 hot or 3 terrifying people and you have to decide which one you'd kiss, which one you'd marry, and which one you'd throw off a cliff. And for those of you who don't know who Ron, Carrot, or Gary are....honestly I'm glad because they're seriously something from a nightmare. So choosing between a bus, taxi, or walking is like having your choices be Gary Busey, Ron Jeremy, or Carrot Top: All three are terrifying and even if you get to throw one off a cliff you're still left with two equally terrifying choices.
Walking would take hours, and the buses and the taxis are equally janky. A bus zooms up to you and a little kid is usually dangling out the side screaming 'Sube! Sube! Sube!' (from my understanding this means 'Come on/Get on'. If you hop on, you take the bus to wherever the street you need to be is and then pay the driver 70 centados and get off. My problems is I have no idea what the routes are or how to know when to get off the bus, also I have no clue how the hell addresses work around here. The bus costs 70 centados. 70 centados = like 15 cents.

It's kiiinddaa the same with the taxis, except less crowded, no yelling, more expensive, and it's common for the driver to try to give you fake money. A taxi cab one way costs 3 soles. 2.7 soles = 1 american dollar.

So I made my host mama write down the address of my school and the address of our house. She keeps telling me not to worry cause I keep asking her a bajillion questions but I'll be honest I'm worried as f*ck. Anyway, I'm sure I'm being a big baby. I'll figure it out and everything will be fine. I'm just overwhelmed.

Tercero: La Lluvia (The Rain)

For the second half of the day my host mama got me a taxi to get to school, but made me get a taxi for the way back all ALONE. Needless to say I was terrified. But I ended up taking a taxi with tres chicas from escuela and it was all fine-besides the terrential downpour of rain. I wish I could describe to you how. damn. rainy. it was/is! The streets were/are flooded up to my ankles! Luckily I made it home to my worrying host mom changed, had some cocoa tea (they drink this ish like water) it's really good though, and now ESTOY AQUI!

I have no pictures of the things you actually probably WANT to see (La Plaza del Armas, Incan walls the city uses still because they are in PERFECT CONDITION because they were made by ALIENS....jk....kinda..., my school, our sweet jackets etc.) but I do have pictures of me looking like a drowned rat and my jeans to prove the water was ankle deep. I also tried to take pictures of the outside but idk if they worked. Pero, I'm gonna try.

Me...lookin like a drowned rat.

Stepped in the street, in a puddle up to me ankles!

La calle outside the apartment! Water was everywhere

Un pobre hombre had a stalled out car. No one helped him they all honked! Poor man!

Finalmente, a kind of glimpse of Cuzco, the beautiful city I get to live in! I honestly hate myself for not taking more pictures. NO SE PREOCUPEN! I wont post again until I have some beauts for y'all to look at.

 

Annnyyywayyy muchos besos!
CIAO!

Cuzco Livin'

Hey dudes! I made it.

A lot of things are different than I expected them to be.

First off, the ten year old, Lucia esta en Lima til february.

Secondly Sara and Jorge are separated. Que triste.

The apartment is nice enough though. It's set up really cool. Sara & Julieta viven con Sara's madre y hermana. The apartment is set up where you walk up these stairs and there is a landing, to the right is the massive kitchen and living room. To the left are my bedroom and Sara/Julieta's bedroom. We all share one bathroom.

Am I on thirdly or fourthly? I aunno mayng. Well next, everyone kisses everyone on the cheek to greet them. In my altitude sickness/general sickness stupor I was so thrown off by this.

Also Sara doesn't speak any English...like...any. We've been using google translate a lot cause she talks so fast. I am hoping and thinking I'll catch on and we can become mejor amigas pronto.

Here are some pics of my room:

My bed pardon the mess I was unpacking.

My nice closet! It's so big!

 The view if you lean as far as you can against the window.

 The view if you look straight out the window.......... .. . ... .... .

 I am a spoiled gringa.

 MiRrOr PiC...me after 21 hours of flying. I look hawt!

I'm gonna sneak around and take pictures of the apartment to upload I just dont wanna be rude and take them while everyone is home.

Oh lastly no one says 'Adios' everyone says 'Ciao!'

On that note, Ciao! *besos*

Hello, friends!

As you all probably know by now, I´m studying abroad in Cuzco for the spring semester of 2012 so of course I decided to make a douchey study abroad blog! Hopefully I don´t come across as too entitled sounding. I am a whole mix of emotions. I guess I really have to bite the bullet and deal with them now that I´m here. I´m currently in Lima waiting for my third and final flight to leave and fly me to Cuzco where I will hopefully meet my host familia.

Let me start with the family I´ll be staying with! It is a younger couple (Jorge is 38 and Sara is 36) with two daughters (Lucia is 10 and Julieta is 4). I am seriously beyond excited. I´ve always been the younger sib so it´ll be really interesting to be a big sister for once! Jorge is an entrepreneur and a firefighter. What a badass! Sara is a secretary. I hope that they like me that´s the part I´m most nervous about.

I just spent five minutes trying to figure out how to save the picture on this computer but I honestly can´t. I feel like an old lady. I´ll upload it later tonight or tomorrow when I get my laptop.

Next, I wanna talk about my flights!
So the way it worked was Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport to  La Guardia in New York, then I had to catch a shuttle from La Guardia to JFK, then I flew from JFK to Lima, and now I´m in Lima waiting for my flight to Cuzco. QUE LOCO!

So the flight to La Guardia was fine: Mom, Dad, and Chelsea bid me farewell and I went and sat for an hour and twenty minutes cause the flight got delayed. When we finally boarded the plane it was seriously hotter than hell. Other than that the business man that sat next to me upgraded to first class so I got a whole two seats to myself. I read and knitted and slept.

Once at La Guardia, I had no clue where the EFF anything was so I called my mom and she helped me a little. Luckily a nice dude told me how to buy a shuttle ticket and where to wait for it to pick me up. I got on the shuttle and realized I hadn´t eaten since like...noon and it was now 9:30 so I devoured some monster mix. While feasting/taking in the city I realized there was one other older gentleman on the bus. He was on the phone talking to someone I think was his mother. When I told the shuttle driver that I needed to go to Terminal 4 at JFK, the guy was like ¨"I´ll go wherever she goes" and I was all weirded out for a bit. Then after a while he was like "I´m gonna go to the dominican republic" his Mom (I assume) answered "Why?" (again an assumption) and he said "I dunno I´ve never been there!" And I couldn´t decide if I was insanely jealous of him or felt bad for him. Because how cool would it be to just up and fly anywhere cause you can, but then if you think about it where is his fam? Anyway this is boring I feel like...

When I got to JFK I had to go to Lan Chile to check in. Everyone assumes I´m fluent in Spanish cause I look Latin American, which is pretty neat but also pretty terrifying when they try to have a conversation with you. They always catch on right away because I give them a look that resembles something like this O.O So I checked in and boarded the plain and honestly I forgot how SWEET international planes are. The seats are real nice and each chair gets a TV with a bunch of movies (All three Lord of the Rings..guess what I did for that 7 hour flight?). Not to mention the male flight attendants were hawtiez. But really, Peruvians are cute. I am sick with an annoying cold so by this time I couldnt hear out my left ear due to the pressure from the plane and sickness. So I popped some advil PM, downed some airborne and watched Lord of the Rings/slept.

Now that I´m here, here are a few things I´ve noticed about Peruvians or maybe South American´s in general. First, they take the cake for passive aggression. At the same time they´re assertive as hell. I went to a bathroom and accidentally barged in on a woman so I was waiting in line and I had three women scoot in right in front of me and snatch the stalls that had freed up. And I guess the passive aggressive part I may be exaggerating. One of the flight attendants was sassier than me and I hated to love it and loved to hate it.

Okay well I gotta go check to see the gate my flight is leaving from and go through security.

Love ya, miss ya, wanna kiss ya WINK