AHHHHH

I SO saw a John Deere backhoe today in the streets of Lima. Made my life, basically. jaja. Nothin runs like a deere!!!!! (unless of course it's my mind when i have a 12 page paper to write in 1 day... back to work!)

cena de despedida... y mi cumple

As the ISA program is just about over and the first student was leaving on Thursday, ISA planned a going-away dinner for us. It was quite fun... until the "surprise". Cake for my birthday which obviously meant singing and all that jazz. I was not thrilled. I was slightly miffed at the ISA staff who claim to "know me really well" yet throw me a surprise party. Either they don't know me at all, or they don't really care and just do what they want.

It wasn't terrible and after everyone stopped watching me like a hawk, i did actually enjoy myself. It's only the second time in my life when three guys have sung happy birthday to me (the first being a group of counselors at Mantowagan during the mail call) and not just English but Spanish too. :) And this will be the second year in a row where i have been in a different country on my birthday. We'll see how long i can keep it up!

P.S. on Saturday i will finalize plans for after the semester (hopefully), but with a paper and exam Monday morning... i'll let you know Monday after a nap. :) Till then....

Good times....

Danielito has become quite the little troublemaker, but i still absolutely love playing with him! I love when i can hear him talking about how he's going to play with me as he comes down the stairs with his mom...then i hear him walk to my door and knock/push it open! "Quieres jugar???" Who in their right mind could say no to anything so adorable?

We took pics of the whole family on Father's Day, but i haven't had time to update the blog lately. I had my 20 minute presentation this morning in my History of America class, So so so glad that is over! Now it's just reading books and writing papers. (granted that reading accumulates to about 600 pages not including research for the papers i have to write)... but only one more week of school! Yay!

After the semester plans are still in the making, but i'm getting more and more excited about the possibilities. I'll update you all when I know more about what's going on.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, honestly, unless you're interested in hearing about what i have read about the Mayan civilization, there isn't much to tell. (i went to a museum on Friday which was pretty awesome, but that's more or less then only thing i've done all week) School will consume my time for the next week as well. unfortunately.

p.s. countdown to Guate is at 22 days! I can't wait to see my kids!

Just one of those days...

So, i have a million pages to read (1. a book in it's entirety for my final exam on Thursday, and 2. 10-12 sources for my 10-15 page research paper due next Monday), a thousand reasons not to do it, and absolutely no motivation. I'm thinking today isn't going to go so well.

On a happier note, i have pretzels and nutella waiting to be eaten AND number 1 reason, it's Father's Day!! So, Happy Father's Day Daddy! (and all you other wonderful fathers out there...) Miss and love you! Que la pasen chevere! :)

Luciana

Basically the most adorable "niece" ever. I've been nothing but smiles with a baby around. :)

Haircut. :)

So, I decided to go with a friend to cut my hair... I told the lady three fingers thinking that if she did a bad job, it would still be long enough to go somewhere else to get it fixed. Well, 1. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a good job and a bad job and 2. luckily i have curly hair so that you can't tell anyway because instead of three fingers, i think she took six or so. It's definitely alot shorter than i expected! Then she blow-dried it after cutting it.... i had straight hair for a day. Everyone told me they liked it, but I refuse to spend 20 minutes fixing my hair after washing it, so this might just be the only time i ever have straight hair.

Huaytapallana

So, Friday morning, we wake up early... as in 6:30. We went to do a little bit of shopping for food and stuff to take along with us to Huaytapallana. We met with the guide at 8:30 and by 9 we were in the van driving the two hours to Huaytapallana. Ok, so Huaytapallana is a glacier in the Andes mountains. The highest peak is at 5,5?? meters. I can't remember exactly, and we weren't able to climb to the peak anyway. Before starting to climb, we gave an "offering" to the mountain. lol. Not that i believe in this stuff, but apparently some of the natives do. So, before starting this four hour climb, we smoked a cigarette, chewed on coca leaves and drank pure alcohol. jaja...Destroying your lung capacity just seems like such a wonderful way to start an intense workout... especially when the intense workout is in high altitudes.

Seriously, the view got better around every turn in the path...

there are a total of five lagoons near Huaytapallana, this one was def my favorite, the color is beautiful.

So, to climb onto the glacier, we did have to use ropes although with good shoes, it would have been pretty easy without a rope. Either way, it was a safety issue although again, i was amazed at the lack of safety precautions. At parts in the trail, you're looking at a 100 ft drop or more. Not like a cliff drop, but if you fall, you're not going to be stopping until the bottom. And the so called 'trail' was less than a foot wide and covered in rocks, boulders... you name it. Can't lie, half the time i was trying to jump from rock to rock (especially on the way back down... i had more energy).

there were a total of six people in the group, plus the tour guide (Juanito). Boy was he adorable! But that's not really important. Anyway, we're like walking around on this glacier and Juanito asks if we want to go higher. lol. Need he ask? Apparently, yes, cause 4 of the 6 stayed below. Daniel adn i were the only ones to take him up on his offer. So, after some more climbing, and the zoom on my camera, here is the rest of the group. :)

We did sort of have to watch where we walked... Juanito's foot went through the ice once. Bad time, his shoe was waterlogged in freezing weather. :(

Sorry for the abundance of pictures, i just like them all! Again, this place was simply breathtaking. totally worth missing two classes for the adventure. We didn't arrive back to Huancayo until sometime between six and seven. We bought return tickets for tonight at 11 (yay for another night on a bus). Then we roamed a little bit, always watching for TVs covering la copa mundial! Woo hoo, futbol! We had some dinner, ate the ice cream that we didn't eat last night, and chilled in the central park for a while. Arrived back in Lima at 6:30 am on Saturday. Plenty of time to get back to my house for a little breakfast, then Daniel had an exam at 8 and i unpacked and showered before my make-up class at 10.