Cusco

I made it to Cusco last Saturday.  It was quite a long trip from Brazil to here. 
The last night in Brazil, I went out to eat with Camila, Lucia, and Lucia's boyfriend.  We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant.  They ordered, so I am not quite sure what all they this was.  I ordered the noodles.  The thing that looks like an omelet was actually a pancake, it was just a really weird color.

 This is what I ordered.  It was really good, but not like what I was expecting.  I think I thought it was going to be like Chinese food, which in a way it was, but it wasn't at the same time.

 This is the flight between Sao Paulo and Lima.  It was a good ride, I was really tired though.  My flight left Sao Paulo at 5:10a.m.  I was staying with Lucia, and she lives 30 minutes from the airport, so if they would have taken me from her house, we would have to had left around 2:30a.m.  In Brazil, driving is a bit different(?) For them an hour to drive is so miserable, maybe because of all of the traffic.  And it actually might be different, but that's kind of what I observed, is that a drive for us (ex. 2 hours to Lubbock) would not be the same for them.  Anyway, we went out to eat, so we had to pick up Camila, and then we got to the restaurant around 11:00p.m. and then left around midnight, so they took me to the airport, and they dropped me off at the airport around 1:00a.m.  It was good though, because once I got everything figured out, it was 2:30a.m. when I got back to the gate.  So I just hung out there, and had some food, and creeped on Facebook, and then around 4:00a.m. we started to board. 

The flight from Lima to Cusco was only about 55 minutes.  It was the second flight that I didn't get a window seat, but it was okay, because I sat next to a lady who was from Florida, so we just talked the whole time.
Once I got to Cusco, ISA picked me up from the airport, and took me to my host family's house.  It is beautiful here.  I would post pictures on here of it, but I haven't taken any, and I should probably clean my room before taking a picture of it.
This is the view out of the window where we eat all of the meals.  It is a lot prettier than the picture makes it out to be.  You can see the mountains and the sky is almost always cloudy.  It is very nice.

This is a picture of a park about 4 blocks from my house.  There is one that is closer, and is prettier, but I don't have any pictures of it.  

 We went on a tour of the city, and they took us up one of the mountains.  The next few pictures are pictures of the city from the top of the mountain.  I actually don't know if they are mountains or hills, but they would be mountains in West Texas.  They say that the city looks like a Puma from the top view, but I had a really hard time seeing it.

This is here in Cusco.  So I didn't have to go to Rio after all.

This is in the Plaza de Armas, which is like the center square of the city.  It is beautiful, with many touristy shops.  There are two churches, bars, restaurants, and shops.

This is the Plaza de Armas at night.  The city itself is a beautiful sight at night.  This was on a Wednesday around 7:00p.m., so there were not so many people in the Plaza.  We went out on Friday night, and there were a ton of people out.

 I found this interesting.  There are many people who just walk around with bags or sweaters or really anything, trying to sell it.  And it is all very cheap things.  So if anyone wants me to buy them something down here, let me know, I'll let you know the price, and see if you still want it. 

The next few pictures are just pictures of what I have been eating.  The food here is different.  Some of the things I love, and some I hate.

 This is a normal breakfast for me.  Flat bread and butter, tea, a banana, and cereal.

 Breakfast again.  I love the bread.  It is one thing that I will really miss after I leave here.

 This is their corn.  It has huge kernels. It is a lot bigger than the corn in Texas, but not as sweet as our corn.

This was probably my least favorite meal. I'm not sure what the potato looking this is.  I thought it was a sweet potato, so I was a tad surprised when it tasted like something totally different.  The white thing with onion and tomato on it is ceviche.  It is raw fish that is cured with lime juice. 

 This was a good meal, it was just rice, veggies, and chicken.

 

 This is how the table looks for breakfast.  For lunch and dinner there are just glasses, and the food is served to you.  The food is never on the table, so we don't ever serve ourselves.

 This was oatmeal.  It was really good.

 This was my favorite meal, hands down.  It was beef, rice, and potatoes.  The one thing here is they don't eat many veggies, other than peas and carrots.  So no salads or anything.

 This is my roommate, Magda.  In English her name is Madlyn, but I think people here have a hard time saying that(?) so she goes by Magda.  She is from Boston.

 We went out to a restaurant on Friday night with ISA, it was quite fancy.  It was a buffet, so all of us kids were super happy to finally choose what we wanted to eat.  I just got veggies.  Oh, and I tried Cuy.

 This is me and another one of the students.  I have Cuy in my hand.  I was not a huge fan of it, because there are tiny little bones in it.

 Afterwards a few of us went out and walked around the city.  We found a little hole in the wall place with music, dancing, and drinks.  It was a lot of fun.  After that I left this group and went with two of the other girls to get pizza.  I don't have a picture of the pizza, but it was SOOOOOO good.

 

On Friday night at the restaurant we also got to see traditional dancers from here in Peru.  It was quite amazing.  I have pictures, but they are on my camera, and I left my camera with Sam.  I think I will try and get it back today, so I will post pictures of them when I post my next blog.  I am going to try to blog at least once a week, but no promises here.  We are busy all of the time with ISA, or it feels like it anyway.

Last night we had a salsa dancing class.  It was a lot of fun, but I am a terrible dancer.  I think we all had fun though.  I didn't get any pictures of us dancing though.  I really want to go to a club and dance like that though.  I think it would be a lot of fun!!

 

Hope all is well with everyone.