Baths and Burgers.

Hello everyone. Today was a crazy crazy crazy day.

It began as usual with work. I'll have to admit that work seemed pretty long today. As much as I love working with the kids, three hours seems so much longer with all of the screaming and crying and running. I can't imagine how bad my back will be by the time I leave here, as I give piggy back rides and play horsie every single day with these kiddos. Oh well, it's worth it to hear their giggles and "Otra vez!"s. It's not like we all don't know I didn't pack along some Icy Hot. =]

One of the little girls totally wet her whole body, so the mamitas to break out the bucket and give her a hosing down. It was so cute though, even though like any other baby, she screamed the entire time. I also took a lot of photos today as well, but still I remain too lazy to upload them, so I'll leave you with two. =]


Santé, my favorite little boy, Nicol, my favorite little girl, and a tired looking me. They´re cute though, so it was worth posting.

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When I saw Nicol in her Little Mermaid dress, I explained to her just how much I loved Ariel and knew I was meant to meet this little girl. =]

Sidenote: It is not uncommon to walk into our house and hear "Under the Sea" or any other Disney favorite (Usually from The Lion King or Aladdin) being bumped loudly on the speakers. Have I mentioned I feel at home?

After work was over, I decided to save some soles and walk back home. It was a really nice walk though, and I quite enjoyed myself. It wasn't too hot or sunny, so I took my leisurely time, knowing I had til 1:30 for lunch. I won´t lie, sometimes it takes me a good five minutes to contemplate whether I should walk home or not, but it usually ends one of three ways. I either:

a) Tell myself I need to lose weight because of this uber-carb diet the Peruvians love so much
b) Set a time limit for myself by saying, "If I´m not at "this point" by "this time", then I´ll take a taxi and somehow end up home by that time, or not even checkin the time, or
c) Take the taxi because I can´t take carrying my bags any longer or am just too lazy.

I´m happy to say that a majority of the time, (B) has been the prevailing option, so rest assured I´ll come back looking relatively the same. Or so we shall all hope.


When I got home, I made a call home to my mommy using the wonders of a phone card, and really enjoyed our catchup time. =] You don't realize how much you should be grateful for certain daily talks with people until you have to start thinking about time zones and phone cards.

Lunch was super delicious though, because we had this meatball soup thing, followed by a pork stew sort of dish over rice. It made me happy that I had decided to come home for lunch, since most of the time I debate about staying out, since I can portion control easier that way, and actually choose what I want. But today was a good meal. Still, I haven't been able to fully expand my stomach to peruvian size, so I gave the boys the rest of my food. They never seem to get too full. =]

Afterwards, Ciara, Matt and I headed over to CCC to look for shoes and Sour skittles. We got lost plenty of times, and still found no sour skittles. =[ Ciara and I had separated from Matt when he went looking for shoes, and then had to go look for him. But I looked at the time and saw that it was already 2:35, and I had class at 3, so I left and sprinted back to the house to get my backpack and grab a taxi. I DID however manage to get this awesome dessert there before I left, which is now one of my new favorites. It's a strawberry jello on the top layer and a creme brulee type custard on the bottom. All for 50 centimos! Or half a sole! Which is like...16 cents! I love it. =]

Of course, I don't know why I had worried about being late to class, because I still waited for ten to fifteen minutes after 3 until going into class. In that time, I was able to listen to my iPod, buy a Coke, use the restroom, study my notes from the last class, and sit around looking like a weirdo. Class was pretty good though, and I'm really begining to appreciate the personal attention of a private class. I get to practice my speaking more, and Jorge always makes the funniest questions. He's such a gossip lol.

Sidenotes:
1) I usually am a Sprite drinker, or will choose Pepsi over Coke if I have to. But here, the Coke is made with real sugar and not corn syrup, so for as long as I´m a Peruvian, I´m a Coke drinker. =] Oh yeah, their Sprite is disgustingly sweet. =[
2) "Chissmiss" means "to gossip" in Tagalog, so sorry to all of you that didn´t catch onto that. =]

Continuing on...

I stayed at Maximo for about and hour and a half after my class ended cause it was raining outside and I was wearing my capris and gladiator sandals. =/ In the mean time, I signed up for private classes for the rest of my time here, and also signed up for the Tandem program. The tandem program is when you meet up with a local who is trying to practie their English, and for half of the time, you speak to them in Spanish, and the other half, they´ll speak to you in English. It´s really the best way to get some practice in and help someone else out as well. Plus, you usually roam Cusco with your tandem partner, so you get chances to have someone help you practice it at the market, restaurants, and find out all of the hot local spots. =]

When it did clear up, I walked home by myself partially because it was still light out, but MOSTLY because I wanted to pick up another one of those delicious custard/jello cups. So I went back to CCC and was successful in my jello cup hunt. I also caved in and got this fried donut thing with honey on top. I can DEFINITELY get used to Peruvian desserts. Of course, we'll see how I feel in a few days since it is street food nonetheless. I suppose I don't learn from my mistakes very well. =[ Or at least when it involves food lol.

When I got home, I watched Heroes for a while with Ciara and Ebony, and was both happy and saddened at the fact of how good the first season was compared to the second. Then Ben announced that he was going to Bembo's tonight, and asked if I wanted to go with. Bembo's is the hamburger joint here that I had yet to try, so I decided to go. We left around 6:30, but somehow hit a HUGE traffic jam so we didn't get there until about 6:50. It was so funny watching our taxi driver, because he was so extremely annoyed with the traffic that he kept hitting his head on the steering wheel every other stop.

I must say, Bembo's was totally worth the money, and way better than the stupid McDonald's they put in the HISTORICAL Plaza de Armas. (Now I´m not some anti-McDonald´s person, and would never refuse some salted fries or their apple pies, but throwing one in the most historical part of the city just seems so wrong to me.) Ben also snapped a picture of me and the Bembo's mascot, so stay tuned for that pic sometime in the future. I look just like a little kid at Disneyland in it, that it would be blackmail potential if I had not okayed it. =] I ended up ordering a Hawaiian burger, which was totally delicious. Juicy burger, mayonnaise, pineapple, bacon, and cheese, with fries and coke and the side. Doesn't get much better than that. =]

Afterwards, we met up with Jake so he could buy his bus ticket to Bolivia. Ben and him are going there the first weekend of October for the two days to mostly collect another stamp in their passports. It was supposed to be a huger trip with more people from our house going, but us Americans are not allowed in Bolivia, and throwing one´s self into a dangerous country is just not common sense on ANY level.

When the tickets got settled, we headed over to Real McCoys, thinking we´d be late for the pub quiz. What a lie. Our two tables were still reserved, and we were the first ones there. And actually, the only ones there for a good thirty minutes. We were almost positive that we were about to pull a three person night for the quiz, but eventually people showed up. A strange thing though was the fact that they all of a sudden got a sponsor for the pub quiz and it suddenly is all official now, with a scoreboard and score collection after each round, plus specially organized answer sheets, with invitations to other fundraising events, and a volunteer slideshow running on the tv rather than the most current sports game.

So pub quiz was quite a depressing night. We were pretty much in the lead or head to head for the majority of the game, but we ultimately lost by 2 points. Coming in 2nd is quite depressing, because you become bitter about it. When you´re last, at least you know you had no chance. But 2nd? It´s like someone is telling you, "Awww, too bad, but you sucked JUST ENOUGH to not win." And the two questions that we missed that the winning team got?

1) What planet is Spock´s mom from in Star Trek?
2) Who created the Daleks in the series Doctor Who?

The answers:
1) Earth
2) Davross

At least I´ll know I´ll never forget these important scifi trivia. In fact, it´ll probably haunt me for the rest of my life. At the end of the night, we kept telling ourselves it was okay, because it was for the kids, but that just wasn´t doing it. So we decided to stay out and try and cheer ourselves up by discoteca hopping (again) and waiting to celebrate Yuen´s 27th birthday.

I´m not going to really write anything about the discotecas, because let´s face it, you all know the story pretty well right now. We dance, drink, get offered illegal substances, get hustled by little kids with puppets and gum, women with free massage coupons, and end up back at home in several different groups by about 2 o´clock. Some highlights though include:
- Having the Peruvian 16 year old that offered me free cocaine and his hand in marriage with promise to go back the US with me recognize me.
- Meeting an Irish guy with crutches because he broke his leg while drunk
- Dancing with some guy in a sailor hat and have him say Hola Chica, I´m from the United States. (I now know why americans are looked so poorly upon. Can we say sleazy?)
- Falling asleep to "By the Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

That was it for the night, so until the next blog.

P.S. Sorry for posting so late, I´ll explain it in the next blog. =]