Peruvian Carneval

Happy February!! Here in Peru this whole month is carneval which is basically a big game that is played all throughout the country. Since this month is the hottest because it is he middle of summer the people here are always looking for ways to keep cool and normally that means ice cream or the beach, but during this month it means playing carneval! It's a nationwide game of water balloons! Although it's less common here in Lima, you still have to be on the lookout while walking down the street because when you least expect it you can get hit with flying balloons by complete strangers! If you're super lucky maybe the balloon will even be full of flour or paint instead, yay!!! I haven't gotten to participate yet because I've been stuck in bed sick but I've already got a few people I plan on playing carneval with :P

Navidad y Año Nuevo

Christmas eve here began with everyone prepping the living room at around 7 at night by putting the grifts under the trees and finishing up cooking the christmas feast. We had lots of family staying with us, about 30 people in all. After everyone was dressed and ready to celebrate we took a ton of pictures and then champagne was given to everyone age 9 and up. After a toast, we all sat down to eat dinner around 11 at night. We had a baked turkey and then a few different types of rice and a pasta salad that I looooved. Right before midnight the kids (one kid from each family) took the family Jesus figurine and we had little parade to the front yard to place the Jesuses in the manger. When I asked my mom why we needed 4 Jesuses she said that just because you're not in your own home for christmas doesn't mean you can abandon your family's Jesus doll. So the whole night fireworks had been going off and at midnight the explosions became more frequent. We all headed outside and the sky was literally full of glittering thunderous fireworks. We even set off a few of our own! It was so cool to see all of this celebration from so many people for this one holiday. After the fireworks were done we all headed inside for the kids to open up presents and then it was bedtime, welcomed by everyone!!!   In the morning on christmas day is probably a tradition I will bring home with me, Peruvian hot chocolate and pannettone for breakfast. Mmmmmmm soooo delicious. Besides this however, christmas day isn't really celebrated at all here.
New Year's Eve all of the exchange students headed over to one of our houses for a party with almost all of us together and we had a blast!!!!  We got there and after hanging out for a bit we all ate turkey and rice (pretty similar to christmas) that the mom of the house had made just for us! So after we had all finished eating we turned up the music and started dancing and getting everything ready for midnight. When the time came we all headed up to the roof of the house with glasses of champagne, ready to ring in the new year. Again, as it came closer to midnight more and more fireworks were set off and we had an amazing view from up so high. We had our own little iPhone countdown to midnight and set off our own fireworks while yelling feliz año nuevo!!!!!  It was such a great celebration and even though it was so hard to be away from my family for the holidays I feel like it made me grow up a little bit. It also made me realize I will NEVER be missing another family christmas if I can help it!!! I missed our traditions soooo much and i never want to go another year without them or my amazing family.

Trabajo de Rotary para la Navidad

The last two weekends Ive been doing work with my Rotary club here helping to give presents to underprivileged children in Peru. About an hour outside of the city of Lima up in the mountains is a very poor part of Peru so we travelled up there in bus and began doing Santa's work! We worked from the kids' school and all of the kids came there while we spent the day entertaining them, feeding them, and keeping them out of trouble. Entertaining involved singing to them and me personally dressing up as a princess haha and feeding them involved a traditional fruitcake called panettone which I guess is popular in some parts of South America and Europe. Panettone is insanely popular here and you can find in in nearly every peruvians house during christmas time here. Theres four in my house right now, but thats another story! So, after the children were entertained by us, an actual company comes in and puts on a real show for them and the kids play games and win prizes and its a great time for them, and us because we can get a little break! It gets so hot up in the mountains and especially now that summer is beginning, the heat was killer! Once the show ends we corral all the little kids into different classrooms and watched over them until they got called out to go and finally receive their gifts, which is what these kids are really looking forward to. As we were waiting in the classroom the kids were telling me what they asked santa for and one kid told me that he had no toys in his house so he just asked for anything to play with, which broke my heart but I was happy because we were there to help him and now he would have a toy for christmas. After all the kids had been given their gifts and sent back home we helped clean up everything and when we finally got back on the bus we were all sleeping because we were so tired!  This was the first weekend and we worked with about 800 kids, the second weekend we had 1500 kids! It actually turned out easier the second weekend because they were all kept in bleachers watching some form of entertainment instead of running around us going crazy like the first time. It was nice to do some volunteer work during christmas time and i was really glad i got to help out and make some christmases better for these kids.

Fiesta de la Promocion

Wednesday night was my prom here!!!!  So lets start with what i wore, I was going to wear a really pretty blue prom dress sent to me from home but the package never got here!!! So, i had to improvise with a dress i already had here and borrow shoes, buy jewelry and all of that fun stuff. It ended up urning out alright though :)  I got ready with another girl from the states and we had a great time. I met with my prom date and his best friend and we headed off to the prom location. Here in Peru the boy gives the girl a corsage but the girl normally does not give one to the boy, so I have one with a fake flower which apparently is more popular here than real flowers. Anyway, we get there and there is a professional photographer out front and he takes a picture of everyone with their date and alone and then when we get inside its super pretty so we took a few more pictures ourselves before going in. The actual prom was held under like a giant tent with a dance floor and tables around it  on the grass, which was difficult because our chairs kept sinking into the dirt all night!  So when we for there at like 9 people just kind of socialized and took pictures and that fun stuff and then dinner was served around 11:30 or so -I was dying- and it was some really weird food that i didn't even really eat. After that the dancing began and there was an open bar which shocked me but hey, alright Peru. So from that point on into the wee hours of the morning we just kept dancing and talking and it was a great last night to be with all of my peruvian friends together. Prom here ends at 6 in the morning! That was actually hard for me because around 2 i was about done for the night. But I pushed on, and made it all the way to the end!! When it ended the majority of people took buses back to the villas, which is a place thats like a gated military community where most of the students of my school live, but a few just called taxis to come and get them. I went back in the bus to the villa with all of the exchange students and from there we separated and went back home.  I got home at like 8 and after some breakfast and changing out of my dress I slept and slept and slept. My goodness was I exhausted! But i really did have an amazing time even if everything didn't go according to plan :)  Too bad in peru you only get to go as a senior!!!

Elecciones

I know I haven't finished about my trip yet but today was election days and there was a few interesting things that I thought I should mention. First of all you HAVE to vote, there's no option here. If you don't vote you have to pay a fine of like $30-$60 depending on the importance of the election. Also, voting is very fast here and only takes like 5 minutes in and out. My mom here said that she hates voting and normally writes in "waste of time" on the ballot and votes for that because there's soooo many candidates and she does't know anything about any of them. It's not like in the states where there's coverage on tv of who the candidates are and what they want to do, if you want to know about them, you have to really do your research and a lot of people can't be bothered to do so. Finally, they do not sell liquor, and it is prohibited by law to have parties or gatherings on the day of and the days before election day. I guess they don't want any disturbances nor people going to vote drunk. The liquor law might be the same in the states but I'm not entirely sure. So yeah, just thought that was interesting :)

Machu Picchu

So the say we went to Machu Picchu began suuupppeeeerrr early and with an oddly terrible stomach ache. We ate breakfast, got all of our things together, and headed down the road to catch a bus up the mountain to the ruins.

The bus ride was about a half an hour zig zagging up the side of this mountain at scarily high speeds, and as we got higher and higher, I could feel the magic of Machu Picchu!! As we got higher we became enveloped in clouds, turning our view of the valley into a blank white slate. I noticed that the trees began to change too, from normal tree-y trees into twisty exotic plants that looked like they had come out straight from Incan times.  (not great pictures)

They made me get excited for the ruins that we were about to see even if my stomach was fighting every step I took. We all began to walk through the ticket booth and up the path, following this brick wall until we got to an opening and we saw the real life wonder of the world, Machu Picchu!!!

 first photo!

It was so crazy to think that I was finally seeing this thing that I had seen so many pictures of and imagined how it would be. It was totally different than I expected. First off this may sound a little odd but it seemed so much smaller than i imagined! But the feeling of it was so much more powerful than i expected. It was really crazy to think ancient people lived here and built this, that this was their world up here in the mountains and the clouds. So our climb started at mid level of the ruins so we began to climb up some stairs, and i puked, and then went to a natural platform to take pictures, and i puked, and then began touring the edges of the ruins until we stopped to see some  rocks, and i puked.

 me dying 20 seconds pre and post puking

  The tour ended after 3 hours and then we were free to explore Machu Picchu on our own. We were allowed to leave at any point and just take the bus back down and although the president of rotary told me to go down there was no way i was leaving, who knows when ill get to come back!!! So after walking a bit with an awesome Danish girl named Sascha we met up with some other students and they decided to do one of the 3 hour walks around the whole thing. I obviously couldn't do it so i decided to hang out in the shade where i could at least look at and take some pictures of the beautiful view and the ruins. After a little nap on Machu Picchu and my bug spray leaking all over my leg i decided to catch a bus back down the mountain to the hotel. On the way out though I met up with 3 other girls from rotary and we all took the bus down together. The rest of the afternoon consisted of soup, pills, and naps in the hotel lobby with everyone watching me. Oh and i can't forget planet of the apes on tv! Hahaha so even though it wasn't exactly as planned, I still had an amazing time  and got the pictures that i promised hahaha.

Viaje a Cusco y Puno

So I will start by saying that this was a really amazing trip and I'm so glad that I got to go on it and see all these really cool parts of Peru. This trip included going to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, along with a bunch of ancient ruins and other places. Our first day we flew in to Cusco and did some tours of the city, starting with an old church that was built around old Incan structures.

 One of the most notable characteristics of Incan structures are that they are built with square shaped stones that are cut to fit together so perfectly that they say the thinest piece of paper couldn't get between the stones. Another characteristic of these structures are trapezoid shaped windows and there is a very scientific reason for them. Peru is a country that has a lot of earthquakes and the shape of these windows worked to absorb all of the energy from the tremors instead of all of the energy staying in the walls and tearing down the structures. This is why places like Machu Picchu are still around, because the structure is so solid it has been able to endure countless earthquakes and years of damage.

Another thing that I found really interesting is that the Incans built well type structures that they filled with water and used as mirrors to track the stars. The used the well things because they were stationary and made recording constellation movement very easy.

 They also used the position of the sun to mark their new year which falls on June 21st by building structures like sun temples, and on this day the sun would shine on that specific spot and the new year would begin. We also got to see replica of an art piece that showed the order of important things to the Incan people, religion wise. They believed in a god similar to the modern christian god and that was the most important to the people and under this god was the sun and moon, who took the roles of father and mother to the earth and the people. The order continues with other things like the starts and clouds and water until finally it ends with the Incan people and minerals.

Our next stop was some more ruins which didn't have anything really interesting until we got to natural slides, like park slides made of rock. It was a little scary because you slide down reaalllly fast but it was a ton of fun. Also at this stop was a cave pathway which got completely dark and we had to use the flash on our cameras to see where we were going so we didn't run into walls.

We visited a third ruin site which really only had a fountain thing that they used to collect water, which was kind of cool but probably not worth walking up the mountain to see it haha. 

The second day we started out by going to a zoo! We saw a puma, condors, llamas, ducks, parrots, and a few other small animals.

Then we went to the sacred valley which is literally a valley which was very important to the Incan people and there's a river there that goes all the way to Machu Picchu. In the sacred valley we stopped in a silver shop and they showed us how to identify real silver (another night we did the same thing in an alpaca shop).

After that we went to two more ruins and one of them had a sun temple, which I mentioned earlier.

 To end the day we caught a train to the city of Machu Picchu which is where pretty much just where people stay on their way to see the ruins.

We went to hot water springs that night and then got ready for the next day which was Machu Picchu!!!!!   I'll add pictures to this later because its not working  and continue tomorrow :)