El Ultima Dia En Lima...

Hola!
Wow, it´s crazy, but today is our last full day in Lima! We leave for Cusco tomorrow, and I think it´s safe ot say that everyone is suuuper excited, and a little sad! But first, a recap of the week:
It´s a little jumbled in my head when we did what up until wednesday but some time between monday and wednesday we watched Indiana Jones (Kent had a burned copy of the new one, and we were pumped because it takes place in Peru... but it was NOT good.) We did a little Cindy, learned a little Spanish, and planned our Machu Picchu trip! Also, we had a night where Kels and I walked to the grocery store with out sunglasses on at night and bought some ice cream, which we brought back to the house and all of us got on the floor and ate it out of the carton.
Wednesday we had a lot of prep to do, because thursday was our communal birthday. Basically, we wanted to have a little celebration with everyone (Kent and Ana Maria, Lupe our chef, and Roasio our teacher) before leaving, and we wanted it to have a theme. So the theme was birthday, and as soon as we woke up thursday morning we were saying happy birthday to everyone! (Except it was really Feliz cumpleaños!) Anyways, we did a little prep wednesday night, and it was crazy because it is NOT easy finding cake mix etc. in a Peruvian grocery store (luckily we came across a British man who was very nice and helped us out. He was pumped that we were Canadian!) That night we worked on decorations and presents (we made little personalized books for all our teachers/coordinators, etc), and planned on baking a cake, but it was a gas stove and we were out of propane, so the cake had to wait!
Thursday we got up and greeted everyone with ´Feliz Cumpleaños´! We had Spanish in the morning, and spent the rest of the day baking and finalizing all of our plans. People came over at 7, and by people I mean Ana Maria, Kent, Katie, Lupe and her son Antony, and Rosario and her friend Roberto. It was so fun! We played pin the tail on the llama, ate a Canadian flag cake, blew out candles, sang, danced, played celtic music, it was so fun! AND before the party we had a conversation with Lupe, which means our Spanish is getting pretty decent.
This morning was our LAST Spanish class... which was crazy. And then we had our last lunch. And then we packed for our morning flight to Cusco... it is so crazy! I am reaaaally excited about going, because I´m sure it´s going to be unreal, but like I said earlier a little sad to go! I guess we just got really confortable here ... I love the house, know the city, and feel like family with the Volunteer Abroad staff. But this was only chapter one, haha, so we are off tomorrow to do what we came here to do, which I am extremely pumped about!
Two previous volunteers stopped by earlier this week, Angela and Austin. They travelled for two months after their placement and we just heading home to Canada this week, so they stopped by to say bye before heading home. It was cool, because they had worked at the same place where we are headed, and lived with the same host family, and loved it! So that was good to hear.
Anyways, I better finish packing, but I put some birthday photos up so be sure to check them out!
Hasta Tomorrow!

Hasta Tomorrow

That is the cutest little thing that our chef/housekeeper Lupe says... she´s trying to learn English and knows we´re learning Spanish so whenever she goes home for the day she always says ´hasta tomorrow´. She´s wonderful!
I believe I left of at thursday... so thursday we had Spanish in the afternoon, which means 2-6... I don´t like that as much, I find it passes by much faster in the morning, but fair is fair so we spent the morning doing homework outside, it was a really beautiful day! After Spanish, Celine took us to this little cafe about 15 minutes from our house that Kent showed her, and we got coffee, desserts, and studied Spanish (we had an exam the next morning). It was a really cool cafe, but typical Peruvian in the way that our bill was wrong. It´s always wrong! And they always put everyone together... once we asked for separate bills and it was a nightmare, every single one of our bills came out wrong, so we learned from our mistake. Oh, and also, you can´t ask them to make substitutions or anything here, because they will get confused... like this morning Jess asked for no meat and an extra egg with her breakfast... and she got toast, one egg, bacon, and sausage! Anyways, after we got home from the restaurant we basically just kept studying, but got a little creative about it. We played charades to learn cleaning supplies, and clothing items. It was hilarious! But the funniest part was, everytime Celine would get up to act, one of us (usually Jess) would guess what she was going to do before she even started! Three times in a row we guessed with one guess what she was going to act out (dress, umbilical cord, then eyebrows) before she made a move. It was crazy!
Friday was our exam, and they are always oral so it was fine... plus we had studied like monkeys the night before. After Spanish, we all took a little nap, because we had stayed up late playing Spanish Charades and had to get up early for our morning class... so we slept until about 4 when we all got ready to do a little Cindy. I´m not sure if I wrote about Cindy yet... but basically it´s a Cindy Crawford excercise routine that is really fun/hard/great to do, but we think it´s hilarious because a)it´s Cindy Crawford, and b) Celine is in love with her. Seriously, within the first two days probably she had already confessed that Cindy Crawford was her hero! She loves her. So it´s kind of the house inside joke, but her excercizes are actually great! After Cindy we had supper, then got ready to go out... since it is our last weekend here we decided to check out the Peruvian nightlife, and it was crazy! One guy actually came up to me and asked me if I wanted a child (I said no). And nothing closes here until about 6am! It´s so weird. But it was a fun night, and we actually got to practice our Spanish a lot!
This morning we got to sleep in, for probably the first time ever. We slept until about 11:30, and then went out for a team breakfast (and by team I meant Kelsey, Celine, Jess, Kent, Katie, and I)... then we came back and I decided to go for a little walk to someplace I had never been before. I walked in the opposite direction that we usually go, and discovered a little adoration chapel! It was so cute, and there was only me and and old man there, and he was the cutest in the world and always smiled at me haha. It was really nice, and after I left I just bought a popsicle and went for a walk down by the water... it was a beeeeautiful day today, so it was so nice! And there were families playing soccer, and kids with crazy hats, I loved it!
Anyways, I´m back now and writing a little blog... and thinking about how one week from now I will be in Cusco! The trip is just about half over! It´s insane! But I am so ready to go to Cusco, this month was awesome but next month is really the reason I´m here, so I´m really excited. I think all of the girls are.
Anyways, I think Í´m going to stop here... but have a great day and perhaps hasta tomorrow!

Mouse? Bear? Tail?

Ok Ok Ok!
So yesterday was tuesday! We had Spanish in the morning, and then lunch of course. In the evening we did our mountains of homework, but around 6:00 we deicded to take it to the mall and pulled out our massive dictionary in the middle of the food court and did a little homework. After that, we decided to go see Narnia... tuesday is cheap night at the movies, and it works out to be about $3 Canadian. Anyways, we decided we should get popcorn and Kelsey and I chose to split the HUGE bucket... being two relatively small girls ordering a toddler sized bucket of ice cream, we got a few looks. So I decided to say ´we´re really hungry´ in Spanish... which is ´nosotros tenamos hambre´... but I said ´nosotros tenamos hombres´... meaning ´we have men´! haha!
Today we have Spanish in the morning again, but ate lunch in a rush beacause ManU was playing Chelsea in the soccer finals, and Jess is a pretty big fan, and we don´t have a tv at the house so we had to run to a local sportsbar to watch it. It was really fun, and we sat by some really cool Peruvians. There was an old man cheering for Chelsea in the front, and he was on fire. Loved to yell, and jump, and show off his jersey haha. Anyways, with 20 minutes left Kent showed up and said that they were trying to take Katie on a tour but couldn´t because there weren´t enough people, so we decided to be nice'ys and left to take the tour with them. It was about an hour, but when we got back the game still wasn´t over, because it went into overtime! So we RAN from the bus to the sportsbar, and just missed the end... ManU won, and I kind of wish I would have gotten to see the old Chelsea man´s reaction haha. After that, we came home for supper then headed out into Central Lima where we were going to meet the guys from Michigan who we met in Huacachina. We met at this really intense fountain park, and saw crazy fountains that shot water about 200ft. high, in all different directions, with lights and lazers... some of them were even synchronized to music. One of them had kind of a routine, and it was insane... they projected images onto the water, and they moved... ballerinas, violins... it was crazy! And they used the instrumental versions of We Will Rock You, Build Me Up Buttercup, Ode to Joy, and I Want it That Way (BSB). The music was funny, but the display was unreal.

Huacacacachina!

Hola!
Ok, we just got back and I am very tired but I am going to write this all down now because I do not want to get so behind again!
Well, friday we had Spanish in the morning, and we had our first test... it was oral, and at the end Rosario said ´excellenté!´ so I think things are going well! However, I seem to only grasp concepts a week after we learned them hah which is good, because it means that I have grasped something, but bad, because I am a week behind! Oh well, overall it´s going really well.
Lupe made pesto for lunch which is unreal good, but we had to eat in a hurry because after lunch we had to catch our bus to Huacachina. It´s a little Oasis town in Ica (another city in Peru). Peru is divided up kind of strangely, because they don´t have provinces or states, just cities, which are then divided up into districts. But if we were comparing it to Canada, the cities would be provinces and the districts would be cities (for example, Ica is 5 hours away from Lima, and Huacachina is one of it´s districts I believe).
The bus ride was kind of funny, because there was this woman sitting right in front of us who would yell out random words, and we think they were snack names because everytime vendor would run to her (there are vendors on all of the busses, selling sandwiches, drinks, candy, etc.)... but they funny thing is she would not turn around and look at them when she was yelling... she just kept looking forward into space and would yell these words (and it sounded a lot like´Monica´). It made for an interesting ride.
We got to Huacachina (pronounced Wok-a-chee-nah) at around 8:00 friday night, and checked into our hostal with Carlos. The place was really busy this weekend, so we couldn´t stay in the dorm rooms as planned, and Carlos put Kelsey and I in a pretty much honeymoon suite haha. Jess and Celine had one too, and Kent was in a similar room but he called it his penthouse. Really, it was a honeymoon suite for one. haha. Anyways, we decided to head down to the restaurant right beside our hostal for a nighttime snack, and it was unreal. The most laidback place you have ever seen. And there were wandering animals, haha, three dogs and a kitten that just roamed the place, it was hilarious (and one of the dogs was hairless). Like, they would go into the kitchen, into the bathrooms (which were unreal by the way, they had stones inside you could climb) etc. Anyways, we ordered pizza which was the best thing I´ve ever tasted in my life, and met some people from Tenessee along with a girl who was constantly making the Zoolander face, and had tattooed on eyebrows. She was Kent´s fav.
Saturday we woke up at 8, and got to see the real Huacachina. Since it was dark when we came, we couldn´t tell the intensity of the sorrounding sand dunes. If you don´t know (I didn´t) Huacachina is this little natural Oasis completely sorrounded by sand dunes as high as sky scrapers. Completely sorrounded, like, you see them everywhere, and they are so high, and so beautiful. It´s unreal.
So at 10 we had to meet our dune buggy tour in front of the hostal´s offices, and we hoped in a dune buggy along with four other girls and a driver named Alfredo (we´ve become pretty tight) and headed for the dunes. He just drove us around, up hills, down hills, it was like a huge scary rollercoaster ride, and he was going the speed of light haha. Anyways, we buggied for about an hour and then he broke out the sandboards. Basically it´s snowboarding, but on sand dunes. Very fun. The first time, we went down on our bellies... but the second I was feeling dangerous and went down on my feet (not very many girls would do it! I did, and Celine did, and then Kelsey did... and maybe one other girl) anyways, I was actually doing really good, until the bottom... if anyone has ever seen me ski, they know that I just go superfast until I reach the bottom. My sandboarding technique is similar... so when I wiped out at the bottom I had been going pretty fast haha, which may have been the cause of my rolling over a hundred times and coming up (uninjured, don´t worry mom) with sand EVERYWHERE. In my nose. In my ears. In my hair. In my belly button. I was wearing a shirt, how did it get in my belly button? No idea. Oh, and my sunglasses were somewhere about six feet behind me. Anyways, it was fun and the next time I went on my feet my wipeout was not nearly as bad haha.
After sandboarding, we duny buggied back to our hostal and discovered the little pool outside. The weather in Ica is not like Peru, it´s pretty much a desert and therefore very hot and wonderful! We relaxed by the pool until 3, when it was time for our wine tour. We toured three vineyeards, seeing the grapes and learning the process and getting a few samples along the way. I think I´m even delopping a taste for it! Crazy Peru... Anyways, the real story here was our taxi driver. His name is Williams (plural) and he loooved the 80s rock. We sang along to Total Eclipse of the Heart, Eye of the Tiger, Heaven, Young Hearts, and more on the way there and back... and he didn´t know the English words but made funny sounds to sing along... and danced along. At a gas station, he even got out and did a little routine for us! He was unbelievably funny.
Post Williams, we met up for supper (pizza again... seriously, you have to try it there. It´s unreal. And we proabably ate them out of chocolate cake hahaha) with some people we had met from Tenesse and Michigan, and hung out all night at the crazy restaurant place where the tourists seem to be... Huacachina is a very touristy spot, and mostly Isrealies.
Sunday was our day of rest and we hung out by the pool, and explored the oasis. It´s so weird, and weird that it´s just a natural occurance. I´ll put pictures up ASAP. We ate lunch at the cutest restaurant in the world, and they were very funny because they were kind of slow getting Celine her food, so they kept bringing her fre stuff, first a shot of creme de menth (random much?), and then a salad. The owner was soo nice, and then we played jenga at the restaurant. After we met a crazy vendor named Alberto, and perused a few little crafty shops... and a vendor made me a free necklaces that means luck and energy, because we had a good chat! In Spanish! Alllllright!
Before bed Sunday night, we wantd a little snack, so Kels and I headed for one last visit to the restaurant beside our hostal. By now, the place had cleared out quite a bit and it was clear that they are busiest on weekends. Anyways, I was feeling random so I ordered a hotdog and tea (coca tea is huge in Peru, and really good). The tea was cool, because they gave me a cup of hot water, and a plate of leaves. The hot dog never came. Kelsey ate, Kent, Celine, and Jess showed up, ordered, ate, and still I had no hotdog (apologies for my comma abuse). Finally the waiter came, and told me it would be soon, and I said ´that´s ok, just give me a peice of cake for every minute I wait´ (jokingly of course, we were on good terms with the staff there)... or at least that´s what I meant to say. I confuse Spanish and French sometimes, so I really asked him for cats! haha! Anyways, my hotdog came... and it was a weiner cut in half on a hamburger bun! Weird weird...
Well, monday we woke up and headed back to Lima (reluctantly). Huacachina may have been the coolest place I have ever visited, and if any of you want to see it, let me know and we´ll go together. Deal?

Ok, so I have been compilling a little list of all of the funny mistakes we make in Spanish, I hope you enjoy it:

Caitlin -
Meant to say: Can I pay you now?
But really said: Can I punch you now?

Meant to say: For every minute I wait, you can give me cake!
But really said: For every minute I wait, you can give me cat!

Meant to say: Can I have a piece of cake please?
But really said: Can I have a heavy of cake please?

Kelsey -
Meant to say: Umm... maybe
But really said: Umm... cheese

Jess -
Meant to say: I´m scared!
But really said: I´m [poop]

Celine:
Meant to say: In the morning, I put makeup on
But really said: In the morning, I put butter on

Point Form...

Ok, it´s ten to nine, and we have Spanish at nine, but we´re going away for the weekend after adn I am WAY behind on this so for now I´m going ot do a little point form-ing, and fill in the details later, k?

Reserve tour: amazing... desert, so vast, Argentinians = kind of sketchy. We met the Spanish Geroge Clooney at the bus stop on the way back, and police officers with 3 ft. guns were sitting beside us.
Sunday: pretty basic, but Kels and I got loston the way home from church and when ask for directions we said ´Where is Jose Gonzales (our street)´ and the man was like ´is he Spanish?´ haha! Supper at Luigis, and at night we watched Michael Clayton.
Monday: Spanish lessons... pretty laid bck night.
Tuesday: Spanish lessons... then gelato and Iron Man at Larcomarr
Wednesday: Spanish... then Cindy... (I´ll tell you allllll about Cindy later). We had a tour with a guy named Oscar around Lima, which was really cool, and then we went out to a little Cafe on Alcanfores... very cute. Katie from head office got in wednesday night.
Thursday: Spanish... then went out for supper with some of Jess´friends from Montreal who were in Lima. Then we found a CRAZY ice cream place and Celine ordered the ´Mexican´... ice cream with a banana man and a pineapple sombrero... but it was insanely cute.
Anyways, Rosario is here so I have to run, but like I said, I´ll update later.

Continueeeee

Ok, so we got into the taxi.

We drove through Pisco at night, so we didn´t see a whole lot... but there was a really bad earthquake that hit there last August, and they are still recovering from it, so we did see a lot of piles of rubble. A LOT. Anyways, we got to the hostal safe and sound, and checked in using our pretty sweet Spanish. We even asked for our tours, and an extra pillow without any trouble! Heck yes!
That night we planned on sleeping. However, the farm animals outside had other plans. There were dogs fighting in the street all night, who apparently did not care that there were four tired Canadians trying to sleep next door. At around 4am, someone decided to slaughter a few chickens, which was not too quiet either. The rooster next door woke anyone who had been able to get back to sleep up with the sun, cockadoodledooing sometime between 5 and 6 am. Crazy times in Paracas!
So eventually we crawled out of bed and met our tourguide in the lobby downstairs. He took us too the dock where we would be getting on the tour boat, and we waited for about 10 minutes... just enough time for two crazy things to happen:
Crazy thing # 1: The people in line in front of Kels and Jess were Canadians! From New Brunswick! From 5 minutes from where Jess grew up. Small world!
Crazy thing # 2: There were pelicans everywhere, and a local man caugt my eye and waved me over. Feeling adventurous, and knowing that Celine was watching me to keep me safe, I wandered over. He put a fish in my hand, and gestured that he wanted me to feed his pelican. Gross. So gross! So I held the fish out to the birds, and he kept going ´not yet, not yet´, and so I was waiting but the pelicans knew I had their brekfast and kept following me around they are HUGE so I was not loving it and so I just threw the fish. The man got a little mad, because none of his crazy birds caught it they all scrambled to gobble it up from the ground but if you know pelicns you know that they have huge beaks and therefore can not pick something up off the ground without a lot of struggle. And they kept hitting beaks. I got out of there preeetty fast. Sorry pelicans!
Ok, so we finally got onto the boat, put on our ´Carol Adventures´life jackets, and headed for the Islas Ballestas, or as we like to call them, The Poor Man´s Galapagos Islands. The boat ride was about 30 minutes, and along the way we stopped to check out this crazy catcus-like sand imprint that was in a dune... I can´t really describe it, but I took pictures. It´s a very mysterious thing! Anyways, we continued on until we saw the islands. And then we smelled the islands. Blech. There were a kind of yellow colour, but our tour giude told us (and you could tell by looking at the bottoms, where the ocean kept them clean) that they were originally a dark red. The yellow was the product of years and years of birds pooping on them. Fancy.
The island, although stinky, was very cool. we saw a gazillion birds (Maria, never bring your mom here), some penguins, sea lions, and vultures. The penguins were the coolest, but pretty short... maybe a tall one would be up to my waist.
After the island tour was the reserve tour. Buuuut that will have to wait for another time! Sorry!

Abrir la Ventana

Well it seems I have a little catching up to do, so here goes...

So thursday we hd Spanish in the morning, and that night was the Peruvian dance show. We got to the restaurant esque-place at around 9:30, and it was set up kind of like a dinner theatre, but bigger... there was a stage in front with the band on it, and then a lower stage for the dancers, and tables were set up all around. We had fairly good seats, and soon after we got there our waiter brought out a little Canadian flag and put it on our table.
The show consisted of a cast of about 25, who performed various traditional Peruvian dances in some pretty intense costumes, I´m talking full body gorilla suit, golden masks, and alpaca outfits. It was pretty crazy! And after every song, the band would play a song that the audience was to dance to, so that was pretty fun. The thing about Peru is that everyone here can dance. Whether they be 5 or 95, those Peruvians know all of the moves and can shake it to any song. It´s nuts! Anyways, about 3/4 the way through the show, they started calling names of people who were VIP so they were allowed to come up on stage and dance with/meet the cast, and much to our surprise they called us! Kent and Anna Maria must have organized it, but we were pretty pumped and ran up on stage and danced and danced with all of these people in crazy costumes, it was so fun! But we were NOT allowed to play their instruments haha unfortunately.

The show didn´t end until 4:00am apparently, but we left around 1:30 because friday morning we had more Spanish. At 1:00pm on friday, our first week of lessons was done! So Kent and Anna Maria took our group, along with Lupe (for mother´s day!) out to a traditional Peruvin lunch. The restaurant was enormous, and it was buffet so we tried everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. I ate a mini octupus, and potentially some cow stomach (both of which I did not love!) ... but there were some really good things too. We tried their fmous juice, Chicha morado, which is purple and made with corn... it was so sweet, and tasted a little like pepper and grape licorice... very weird.

After lunch we all said good-bye to Jo, because she was leaving for her placement on Saturday but we would not see her becuase Kelsey, Jessica, Celine and I were heading away for the weekend. So we said our goodbyes and then the four of up hopped in a cab to the bus stop. There we bought four tickets to Pisco, and hopped aboard. No one told us that we were getting the crazy horn obsessed bus driver, and every ten minutes he would start honking his screechingly loud horn like it was his mission... it was sooo annoying! And made sleeping impossible haha. The bus ride was cool though, because we got to see a lot of the countryside... and it was very poor. There were so many little shacks and tiny communities that seemed so disconnected from the rest of the country. You don´t see it in Miraflores, but there really is a lot of poverty here. I think we´ll really see it in Cusco.

So we arrived in Pisco about four hours later, making it 7-8pm. A cab driver asked us if we wanted to go to Paracas, and we said yes... but when he showed us his car we were quite sketched out... worse than the nuge, and it just had a little sticker on the front that said ´Taxi´. Anyways, Jess told him we wanted to see his taxi license, so he got out his drivers license... and we were like NO! TAXI LICENSE! But it turns out he had one, and he had a huge picture of a nun hanging from his rearview mirror, so we hopped in. The drive to Paracas was safe, but we almost broke down like, 5 times. Like I said, worse than the nuge.

Ok, I hate to do a ´to be continued´, but it´s almost 9:00, which means Spanish, so I have to stop although I still have a lot to say! buuut I will try to update again tonight!

Ruidoso = Silencioso

Hola!
I just want to start every sentence with that... it sounds so nice and welcoming! I think I´m probably going to be greeting every moving object that way when I get home.

Ok, so wednesday. In about 6 hours, we have officially been here for one week. It´s insane, it flieees by! Anyways, today was day three of Spanish and it went really well but for some reason I was reeeally tired. I´ll have to get to bed early tonight I guess! But it was really nice out, so we had the last two hours of class on the roof! Very nice!
After class we had lunch and it was some sort of combination of vegetables and FISH. And I ATE IT! You wouldn´t even believe me, nothing scares me! At least nothing in the way of food. So we had lunch, and then some of the girls wanted to go paragliding so I went down with them and then we just walked to the supermarket. But the cheap one, not that fancy wine sampling one, although they did have some pretty crazy cakes. Like ones with insane jello flowers on top, that looked half real, and then some that were entirely jello cakes... and ones with glazed limes... we´re thinking we might give ourselves a collective birthday party at the end of the month to celebrate and eat one of those crazy things.

After we got home we did a little studying, then Koki (Jorje?) came over to teach us salsa! It was so fun, we just danced and danced in the dinning room so his crazy latin american music, I loved it! I want to remember the moves and blow the crazies at the island DPs away! haha. Anyways, we danced until we were reduced to little piles of sweat on the floor and then went back to studying our Spanish. It´s so weird learning a whole new language so late, but Rosario is a really good teacher so it´s going well.

We are thinking we might get out of Lima this weekend, and see a bit more of Peru. Lima is reallly nice, but when it comes down to it it´s just like any other big city... Kent always says it´s like living in a bubble. Anyways, I think we are going to go check out the ´Peruvian Galapagos Islands´... it´s like the cheap version for people who can´t afford to see the real thing, but there´s talk of penguins so I really want to go!

Well, that´s all for tonight, like I said, I have to to go bed eaaaarly tonight to be in tiptop shape for Spanish tomorrow... soooo hasta menana los Canadiences!

Como se dice... surfing?

Hola Amigos!
Well well well, I missed yesterday so I´ll give it to you know:
Monday. We started Spanish lessons with Rosario (she´s awesome, sooo nice) and it was kind of hard because in my mind, as long as it´s not English it must be Spanish, so I kept speaking French! And I didn´t even realize I was doing it, I was just thinking ´wow Spanish is easy, I know every word!´... yeah right! Anyways, we did Spanish and then had lunch... rice with lentils, sauce, bacon, and potatoes... kind of weird but I ate it. I am not picky here at all, I´ve been surprising myself! I´ll try anything... hopefully I can keep that when I go back home! Anyways, after lunch we were supposed to have a session with Kent but he was out for a couple of hours so we decided to go SURFING! It was insane! Some of the girls promised to go weekly, so Bruno (the instructor) gave us special rates... usually it´s $20 American, but he charged us s.30, which works out to about $12. Anyways, we got our wetsuits on, did some stretches with our instructor Carlos, grabbed a couple of boards and got in the water. First of all, the water was not blue... more of a green brown, so it was grossssss. And I´d say as a group we swallowed enough to fill a bathtub haha. Anyways, some of the girls (Jess and Celine) caught on really fast and did awesome. As for myself, things were a little difficult. First of all, you have to be constantly paddling, which is like ridding a bike with your hands underwater. NOT EASY! I got tired so fast! So anyways, I paddled out to where Carlos wanted us to be and waited for my wave... it came, and Carlos told me to paddle... but I didn´t know that that was when I was supposed to try to stand on the board! So I paddled and paddled as fast as I could and the wave carried me faster than you could imagine and I just kept paddling with my eyes closed (pretty sure I knocked someone over... I had my eyes closed but I felt my hand hit and knock over a board! ahh!) until I felt myself hit the rocks on shore! Then I was bummed, because I wanted to be back in the water! So I tried and tried to get back in but as soon as I would get about 4 feet in, a huge wave would come up and throw me into the rocks... I´m surprised I can walk today haha. Anyways, eventually Carlos came to shore and helped me back out, but I still had a rough time for the rest of it. As for Kelsey, she was snuck into a private spa by Bruno... but that´s another story.

Anyways, surfing was haarrrrrdddd but I don´t regret it at all! It was still fun! But today I am soooore. After than we had our session with Kent and then we moved the couch into the dinning room and watched Atonement on the computer... it was really cute haha!

We had our second day of Spanish today, and it was a lot better. I feel like I´m kind of catching on, and although it´s four hour sessions, they go by really fast. I find it pretty easy to understand, it´s just thinking of the appropriate words that takes time. But it´s only the second day, so I´m confidant that I can get it. After lessons we had a session about our placements with Anna Maria, and then we booked our flights to Cusco (where we will be volunteering). After that some girls had to go to the flight offices, and some needed scribblers for Spanish, so we headed out into Miraflores and did a little window shopping. Then we went out for waffles! They were so delicious and the place we went was adorable, the lights were tea kettles hanging from the ceiling. Anyways, we´re back now and everyone is just studying for Spanish! It´s nice having a lot of girls in the house, we always seem to be hanging out together but haven´t gotten sick of each other yet! (not that we will right?!)

Cioa chickas!

desperdicios nucleares

It means ´nuclear waste´... it came up today at lunch, when Melanie from Ottawa was going through her English-Spanish translation book, and saw that phrase, and asked us why anyone would ever want to know that. We tried to convince her that printing the translation for nuclear waste is not a waste of space in her dictionary, and that we use it all the time... so now we´re trying to do that. hahaha!

But I´ll start at the beginning:
This morning Kelsey and I got up t 9:00 for church, but didn´t know what time it started at and hoped it was at 10:00... but then we heard church bells at 9:15 and ran out the door, getting there at 9:30 just before the first reading. The church was beautiful, very spanish looking with colourful patterns and gold embelishments... also there were tons of statues and carvings in the wall, and some really beautiful stoned glass windows. Next week I´ll take pictures. Mass was all in Spanish of course, but we could kind of follow along and always understood Amen and Alleluia hahaha.

After that we went back to the house, and met up with the others and then we all headed out to the grocery store... it´s so swanky, they give out free wine samples! Anyways, Kent headed back to the house but we decided to wonder a little bit, and looked over a photogrqaphy exhibit by Kennedy park before stopping for a cheap Peruvian lunch... chicken, fries, and dessert for $3! So we ordered and ate, and then when we were waiting for the bill Kelsey and I went to the bathroom. As soon as we opened the door we were faced with a lifesize and very risky picture of Marilyn Monroe in fishnets... a little unsettling while you are trying to pee! Anywyas, when I was in there I heard ´´Oh no!! Caitlin!!´´ and I was like ´What Kels?´and then she told me that she thought she had brought 20 peruvian dollars... but brought 20 peruvian cents!! all she had was a little bronze coin with a 20 on it... worth about 7 cents american! Anyways, we worked it out but it was preeeetty funny at the time. After lunch we split up - four of us headed home and three of us stayed out to shop a little. I headed home, and read a bit while waiting for the others to get home.

When they got home we decided to learn a little Spanish, and translated Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes... we plan to memorize it and sing it to Rosario for our first Spanish lesson tomorrow hahhhaha! Then we got a little crazy and started translating EVERYTHING, and made up a few sentences that we hope to hide under our plates at lunch tomorrow and whip out to impress our chef Lupe! hahahaha if we carry it out, it will be preeetty funny. Anyways, I better get back to the Spanish! More later!

Marathon

Hola!
Today was so fun - but I'll start where I left off.

Last night after I updated Kelsey, Jessie, Melanie and I went for a walk to the grocery store, because Melanie was leaving and she wanted to get some Pisco [the Peruvian drink, it's a grape gin I think?]. Anyways, white girls are pretty popular here so we got free samples and basically it tasted like super super strong wine. It was gross and it burned!! Then we came home and met Kent, our coordinator. He is super nice and very helpful. Then we said our goodbyes to Mel and hung out around the house before heading to bed around 10. We go to bed so early because the house was pretty empty and it gets dark so early!

This morning we woke up and there were three new girls here - Melanie, Joanie, and Celine. They are all from Ontario, and French Canadian, but their English is super good. Everyone is so awesome, I love all of the girls and so we are all good friends already! So at 9:00 am we left for a tour of Lima, on a double decker bus. We went through downtown Lima which was so different from where we are - apparently the VA house is in a pretty well off neighborhood and downtown is not so well off, very dirty and falling apart. Our tour bus stopped at a Cathedral called San frasisco (named for St. Francis of Assisi) and we toured the church as well as the catacombs underneath... this is basically a graveyard, but more open. We saw tons of bones and skulls etc. etc., it was gross! but cool... if you have ever read Matthew Lewis' The Monk, then it was exactly like they described it in that novel. We even saw a decomposing body... it was apparently a ´special tomb´, and so they were not taken apart but one entire body that was hundreds of years old. Grooosss. Also, in the cathedral, there were paintings all over the walls, but the strange thing is some of the faces in the paintings were whited out, or scratched off hundreds of years ago and no one know why! It was so weird, like, there were faceless statues, and no one knew why the faces were removed. Also, there was a very famous last supper painting that is particular for a few reasons - first of all, the table they were eating at is round. Secondly, there were children waiting on Jesus and the disciples. You should look it up on google, it's by a belgium man. Then we went outside and checked out a wall that is ruins left over from the wall that used to sorround Peru, or maybe Lima? I forget, our tour guide was Spanish haha.

We came home and left again to exchange our American money into soles, the peruvian currency. Then we went for a walk to the beach and had a talk with a 50+ surfer named Bruno, who promised us lessons and told us to go see his band! ahahaha! He told us that we had a Peruvian friend in him. We continued to walk for about three hours - into Borronco where we got some Pisco sour [Pisco, egg whites, and something else? It tasted like merigue... how do you spell that?] Then we walked home together and arrived around 6:30 - we had left at 2:30! But we weren't even tired, which means we are super strong. Anyways, we are all back at the house now and having a good time! More updates later!

Things I tried today:
Peruvian pasta, it had lime green sauce! But tasted like pesto, so it was good!
Inka Cola, the Peruvian pop, tasted like cream soda
Pisco sour, peruvian egg drink! yikes!

Best quote:
Hi. My car.

Eager as a Beaver

That is what I concider myself for writing on this two days in a row. Eager as a beaver. But I figure I should take advantage while I can, because I don´t know if we´ll have internet in Cusco.

It´s 4:00 here, and Kelsey and Jessie (new girl who arrived this morning) are napping, so I figured it would be the opportune time to write a bit. I´ll start with the people:
Kelsey is of course the crazy Anne impersonator that I came here with.
Jessie, Melanie, and Tessa are other volunteers in the house. Three more girls are arriving tonight, but Melanie leaves tonight to go back home and Tessa leaves for her placement next week. Jessie is coming to Cusco with Kelsey and I at the end of the month.
Anna Maria is one of the coordinators, and she doesn´t live at the house but her office is here so we eat meals with her and see a lot of her. So far, she´s super nice.
Kent is the other coordinator, but he is in bolivia right now. He should arrive back at the house tonight though.
Lupe does the cooking and cleaning in the house, and she is so sweet. She is probably 50, and just a pleasant short little Peruvian woman. She knows very little english, but tries to talk with us and is always smiling. Melanie and Tessa can comunicate with her, and so I can´t wait until we learn Spanish and can too.
Rosario..or Rosaria? is our Spanish teacher. She´s gone away for the weekend with Tessa, so we won´t really get to know her until Monday.

The house is adorable. It´s so Peruvian! The walls are yellow and brown and green, all pastels, and rounded and lovely! The windows don´t have screens, just like, gate things so people and birds don´t come in. They don´t really have a problem with bugs. We can get up on the roof, and apparently it´s just like the one in Dominican, very concrete but gets a ton of sun so it´´s a nice escape. Our room has three sets of bunk beds in it, all with brightly coloured sheets and pillows, and the window overlooks the street with trees growing orange flowers and cacti... it´s awesome. There are two computers, one in Anna Maria´s office and one in the dining room that gives you crazy shocks! No one will touch the screen becuase it´s basiclly a suicide mission. Bad news.

Last night we went to sleep around 9:00, because even though it´s as hot as our summers here, it´s winter and so it gets dark around 6 or 7. We slept until 9 this morning, because we were suuuper tired still, and then had some breakfast with the girls. We hung out on the roof until lunch, then took a walk into the city and to the beach, down this crazy stone staircase that was probably 20000 steps haha. It wassoo hot too, which is nice still. Anyways, after that we just came home and that is where I am now! Jessie, Kelsey adn I are trying to book flights to Cusco but the website is Spanish so hopefully we get there! haha! Anyways, see you all in a few months!
:)

Feliz Navidad!

Helllooooo!
Well I am in Peru, and it is crazy! I will start at the start, giving you a disgustingly detailed play-by-play:

Wednesday, 6:00 a.m.
I wake up in my hallway in Brown's, excited for the adventures ahead. Maria and I make a few muffins, and I spend some quality time with the vibrating farm.
6:45 a.m.
Ben picks me up and we go to the Moore residence... ready for adventure!
7:30 a.m.
A couple of crazy girls load up into the Moore truck with some good company headed for Halifax...
Ok, this is going to take forever. Basically, we drove to Hali, then got on a plane for Toronto. The first flight was nice, only a few hours... when we got to Toronto we checked in and ate some Coyote Jacks (alright Courtyard Cafe!) then hung out in a crazy big black echo thing, and caught our eight hour flight for Lima. LONGEST EIGHT HOURS OF MY LIFE! Buuuut eventually we got to Lima, and all you could see from the sky was orange lights everywhere for miles and miles. It was nuts! So we checked in, got through customs problem free, and then checked our luggage and met Anna Maria who was holding a sign with our names on it. She took us out to our cab, and the driver was sleeping!
We got to the VA (volunteer abroad) house around 2:30 a.m. It is adorable! Everything is so pastel and round... I'll take pictures of it for sure. But anyways, we were tired and greasy so we slept asap.
THURSDAY! we woke up at 11:00, showered, and settled in. Lunch was at 1:00 and even though it was foreign and Peruvian I ate it all! And a crazy purple fruit called tuna (like the fish).
Sooo after we went for a walk down to the water with two girls who are finishing up their placements, Tessa and Melanie (super nice!) and guess what we did? WENT PARAGLIDING! CRAZY! It was SOOOO high and insane and the guy (Juan Carlos) who was driving mine kept making jokes about how it was going to crash (like : Ohh no, Ohh noo, God of the wind, give us more power! It freaked me out!). And how we got started was basically just running off a cliff! It was INSANE! Anyways, it was amazing and I will put tons of pictures up in a few minutes!
Now we are back at the VA house, it's awesome and we are so free haha they gave us keys and everything! Love it!
Anyways, more later! See you all in a few months!
Love love love Caitlin