Having fun and being busy!

Hey everyone, yay I finally get to get online!!! I{m so happy when I see all the comments that you guys have left me. Allison, I will go to red robin with you if you come visit me. Also Im sorry for the finance stuff I left you to deal with. Tab, I was thinking earlier about playing that game! I have no idea why.. but I guess I telepathically felt it that you were thinking about it. and John, yes the water bottles suck and I never really thought that you had to do it too.. but sometimes I accidentally run my toothbrush under the water and then I get scared.. but so far so good.

On to my trip... lets see.. so much has happened since I got on last. I actually had to get out my journal to remember (thanks Meggan for the journal). But after I got on the internet last, Kathyrn and I went to buy a phone so that John could call me. We bought one for 99 soles which is like 35 dollars and split it so it was like 17 dollars, not bad. its and LG with the phone company claro, which is something like Verizon maybe. Well we had trouble getting it to work because it is prepaid and we bought the wrong card for it, so then Leo (professor) sent his friend with us to help us and talk to the Claro people.. and turns out his friend didnt even speak english so it was really confusing and frustrating and they sent us walking to 3 different claro stores and they told us it wasnt activated and all this stuff but finally we figured it out. I called mom on it and it worked.. but so far I cant receive calls on it but I should be able to, so maybe after I get more minutes because it is really low. So that was an experience. For dinner that night we went to this sandwich place called San Antonios which was really good and nice, in the Miraflores district. On our way to the restaurant we noticed we were on the road that Kathryn and I will be living on. It is in a great discrict of Lima (Miraflores) and is near the beach and near the main road and near school. So we are excited. At San Antonios the sandwich did not come with and fries or anything, I guess because dinner isnt usually a big meal. After that we went back to the hotel and repacked for our next 3 day trip and went to bed at 1030 to get up at 5am. That is the earliest I have gone to bed in years!

Next morning, left at 5am for the airport to take a flight to Cuszco. Our group was divided into 3 flights. Well. the first flight left but the 2nd and 3rd flights got cancelled because of neblina (did I already mention this? it means fog.. and it happens all the time in Lima). So we ended up sitting in the airport for 5 hours and had a flight at 215. Then we got to the hotel in Cusco, and there were a bunch of sick people so a doctor came to treat them. The altitude is really really high so some people got sick from that. We all took medicine beforehand to prepare our bodies from the lower amounts of oxygen. So after the DR came we left again for the hotel in Pisac that we stayed at. We just left our bags at the hotel in Cusco because we were coming back in 3 days. So we took the bus and it was night, and I cant wait to go on the hike because the stars were so beautiful, better than any night Ive seen them in NC. We finally made it to our hotel which was really cute (most of them are), then we went and ate a late dinner at a place called Urlikes cafe, and had pizza. It was different than American pizza. The woman that owns the place moved here from Chicago because she loved it so much. After we left I basically went straight to bed because I was so tired and slept for 9 hours! wow. Then when we woke up and it was actually daylight, we could see the scenery around us. we were in the middle of a bunch of mountains that were so tall and pretty. The hotel was really pretty too but we left in the morning to go visit the pisac ruins. It was a hike, so it kind of prepared us for the big hike to machu picchu. It was really fun and so beautiful.. and the ruins are just so amazing. I took a ton of pictures! The path we were on was like on the edge of the mountain so some of it was scary because if you slipped you would probably roll like a mile downhill. Literally. But, as you can see, I didnt fall! When we hiked down the mountain, it was crazy to see how high we were because we hiked back down to the town.There was a market there with a bunch of pretty Peruvian stuff and I wanted it all.If anyone wants anything let me know. I bought jewelry for mom, shirt for Jimmy, Alpaca wool hats (Alpacas are like llamas and their fur is really soft, especially baby alpaca. baby alpaca actually means it comes from their neck.), also a peruvian bag.. and I cant think what else but I wanted to buy everything and I will be buying more. haha. AFter the market we ate at Urlikes again and then we went to a new place, spelled something like Ollataytama (mom can look at the schedule and clarify). but the hotel there was a piece of crap. we didnt have a toilet seat to start with.. and there was a hole in the wall and there was barely room to stand up. I could hardly stand to sleep there, Im glad we are at a new hotel tonight, haha. We ate a wonderful dinner buffet with a lot of potatoes and other stuff. There are over 3000 kinds of potatoes here so they are at every meal basically, and more than one kind at every meal.

We woke up this morning and went to see more ruins. My camera said the battery was full.. then all the sudden the battery went low and died. I was not happy but it is charging now. The ruins were awesome.. the view was amazing. The mountains are so huge, they reminde me of the alps, but maybe not as pointy and without snow. Although we did see a few with snow. After those ruins we left on the bus and had a huge buffet lunch at this really really pretty restaurant. the buffet had a lot of peruvian stuff.. some of it was good, some not. I tried alpaca meat... it was good ! Oh, I also wanted to point out that the towns that we were in today and yesterday are probably the ones that most of you have in mind of Peru.. run down, poor, Peruvian women wearing traditional clothing walking around with their babies in the bright colored peruvian cloths. But they live in such beautiful places. After lunch we went into a peruvian homein one of the poor towns.. and wow! They raise guinea pigs to sell because people eat them here. dso the pigs are just living among them in their houses. and all their beds are in one room, with a stone dirty floor.. they dont have a refridgerator or anything.. but they do have power. then we went to another ruins which were cool.. yea I know, a lot of ruins. Machu Picchu will be the best though. Tonight we stopped by at a textiles place and the ladies showed us how they take the Allpaca wool and dye it and make it into all those things that you see at the markets. It was pretty cool. there are always little girls and boys running around trying to sell stuff to you, its so cute.. they just yell un sol! un sol! and you feel so bad for them.. and you probably end up buying whatever they have. haha. Oh also I bought a smallpainting today, mom will be happy. We just got back to the hotel in Cusco which is nice but now I need to find food and everything is closed. Tomorrow is a trip to a church and I dont remember what else. Okay a lot of the end of this was rushed but I had trouble with the internet at first so I wasted a lot of time.. but I will get on tomorrow again I think!! Love you all..