Let's write, shall we...

I'm lazy... that pretty much sums up my life. However, I guess there are some other things going on other than just sleeping. In my art with sugar class, we finished my bouquet! And it looks great! After all this time working we got all of the pieces to fit together. 

Finished product

There's always Marinera of course which is going well. The schedule has been quite odd this week though because of Christmas and all of the holidays. I've been out with my friends a bit, but not much and with the holidays, everyone is busy with family. Tomorrow we'll be having a family celebration and nothing too fancy for the New Year.

Happy 2012 everyone!

L

Kassia!!

I'm seriously one of the luckiest people in the world. Not only do I have 9 awesome exchange sisters (Kassia, Sarah, Clarissa, Sonja, Carol, Vici, Manon, Valeria, and Paula), but the first of them all came to visit me from Brazil!
   I made sure that we would pick her up at the airport on Thursday morning and take her to her hotel! We just hung out and walked around Miraflores the first day. We shopped in the Inca Market as well. We saw Larcomar (a big, really nice mall) and we ended up seeing the sunset before dinner at Tony Roma's. The next day we hit up central of Lima with a trip to the famous catacombs of San Francisco church and many city squares. We walked like fiends that day, but not nearly as much as the next day we had in Pachacamac! We walked the ENTIRE ruins! It's quite large, and we walked about 3 hours in total.

I think my favorite though, was walking from Miraflores to Barranco. It's really not that far in retrospect, but it's about an hours walk. We walked on the beach a while and watched the surfers. It was fun to just walk and talk! We finally had to say goodbye that night which was quite sad! She got to feel a real Peruvian earthquake while she was here too! It was a wonderful visit from a great sister! 

L

Feliz Navidad!!

I just made sugar cookies for my host family! They are delicious!! It's Christmas here, but I'm sweating. We had Chinese food for lunch and shopped all day! A great Christmas Eve and in about 6 hours, Christmas Day!! I will be missing my family there, but I do have a great family here!
Merry Christmas!!
L

Prom!

I went to my first prom dance on Thursday night (and didn't wake up until this morning!) It was absolutely CRAZY!! I went to my friends house first where we all met up. I got all pretty and stuff... When my date finally arrived, we all hopped in the Limo and took about an hour ride! We all put our heads out the sunroof and took millions of pictures! When we did arrive, the driver took out a red carpet for us to walk down. Very glamorous!! After a million more pictures we went in and took more pictures lol! We finally went inside to a gorgeous party room! We sat, talked, and took pictures until about 11:30 when dinner was served. At about 12 we all got up and started to DANCE!!!! It was awesome!! I have to let you know that at Peruvian proms, there are open bars... It was nuts to say the least. I danced with all my guy friends and had a great time watching the mostly drunk boys dancing like maniacs! I danced Salsa, Meringue, and all sorts of other fun stuff.
    I didn't drink anything at all!!!! But by 5am when breakfast was served (I didn't stop dancing other than to go to the bathroom or take a drink) I was DED dead!! We all went home (Xiomara's dad took me) and I went straight to bed. I woke up a little bit yesterday, but soon fell back asleep. Mama said that she tried to wake me up, but I just grumbled at her! I woke up at 9 this morning and couldn't feel my legs from the knee down!! Dancing 5 hours then sleeping 27 is a bad mix, but I feel much better now! No pictures now because my camera is at Lesly's house. Tomorrow I shall retrieve it!!
L

Arte con Azucar

I started a class recently that is called Art with Sugar! I'm pretty much learning how to artistically decorate cakes. My teacher, Nestor, has been decorating cakes for some time now and his work is really beautiful! Here's some of my progress so far.

Finishing a drapery

About to apply bows

Finished model!!! I did all of that????

My roses and filler flowers. I really did make them!

L

Lake Titicaca

The rest of the trip to the Southeast of Peru was really lovely, but second by second posts are boring! I did take my first train ride ever from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo. It was fun, but I thought I would get motion sickness. We didn't really do anything between arriving back in Cusco and driving the grueling 10 hours to Puno and Lake Titicaca.

Soooo pretty!! 

  Lake Titicaca was AWESOME!! I thought at first, 'what's so great about a big, high lake?' Then I realized that it's the people that are so awesome! They made their own land to live on in the Uros islands. The literally built the whole island. It's really quite neat! We visited the island of SuchiMaya in Uros and they gave us a demonstration about how they make the island. We got tours inside their houses. There was a really cute little baby there too named Milagros or Miracles!

The little demo.

Milagros with our guide Estephany

We left the Uros to head over to the island of Amantani. It was about a 3 hour boat ride. The lake is huge!! When we arrived we were sorted into groups to sleep in different houses. I was with Julia and Addie!! We went to the house for lunch (quinua soup) which was delicious! Then we had some free time, so we went down to the beach to swim. I wimped out, but still have a picture! It was really cold!!

It was COLD!

They had a ceremony for us on Amantani that night with some boys from the town playing native music. They also put us all in native costumes and we danced all together. It was really fun and nice. We spent the night there and we got up really early the next morning to eat breakfast and head down to the boat! 

The woman I stayed with!

Next stop, Taquille. Taquille was really cool, but not to all the hype it got I think. It is a self governed island, so they have whatever rules they want. This includes that you can't give candy to the little kids. We just ate lunch there, but I did get a good picture of the rules on the way in. We headed back to Puno after on a 4 hour boat ride. It was a gorgeous day full of sunburn! 

The rules of Taquille 

Julia and Addie in the boat on the way back!

Lake Titicaca is so much bigger and awesomer that I had imagined! I would highly recommend it to anyone!

L 

What I do when I'm not doing anything!

Hi guys! It's been a slow day!

L

Marinera!

After three months of practicing Peruvian Marinera, this is the outcome! I wish I could've advanced more, but it's an improvement!
Hope you enjoy!
L

UNCLE LESTER!!!

It's probably the most important day of the year right now! Uncle Lester's birthday!! He must be like 35 by now! I love you Uncle Lester and Aunt Sue and I hope you have a happy birthday and Merry Christmas!!

Me, Uncle Lester, Valeria, Mommy, and Aunt Sue!!!!

Love Lydia

It's a Small World After All!

We've had some fun "it's a small world" moments here in Peru! In Machu Picchu, I was walking with Julia and we ran into a couple from Atlanta. We starting talking to them and it turns out the woman had gone on a Rotary Youth Exchange to Austrailia when she was young. It was really cool to talk about Youth Exchange in the middle of Machu Picchu! I also got an email from my dad today telling me about a woman that had graduated from UMR and is now living in Peru. I read the article and realized that she founded UPC, a huge university here in Lima. She's like the director of the University that about half of my Peruvian friends will be going to. It was so cool! I'm going to try to get in touch with her as soon as I can because I think that would be a great connection to have and a fun time. I put this video up just cause I like it and everyone should watch it!
L

Machu Picchu!!!!

I have changed my quote to a lovely Dr. Seuss that my daddy sent me!! I love it!

Machu Picchu... What else can I say, but that it really is wonderous! We got up at 3:30 and ate breakfast in the complete darkness. It was a delicious breakfast (pancakes) and we walked to the entry point of the last part of the Inca trail in total darkness. Now if I thought those crazy Inca stairs were scary in the daytime, they are pee-your-pants scary when you can't see them! We arrive there at about 4:40 and had to wait about an hour to pass through the gate.

Our early morning view from the waiting point

When we did get through to the trail, we walked for about 2 hours through the jungle! It was pretty cool to see all of the exotic plants and flowers on the path. It started to really heat up too! I finally reached the Puerta del Sol and really felt like crying! I was so happy to have arrived and to be able to see Machu Picchu at last, but I was exhausted.

The first view of Machu Picchu

From the Puerta del Sol it was only about an hour walk to Machu Picchu! What an amazing feeling it was to only have an hour left! We walked, I sang, and we finally arrived to see the crowded, but amazing site! To think about what was happening here only 500 years ago is mind blowing! Now it's just a bunch of rocks, but then it was a bustling city with temples that were visited by Incas from all around! I really loved to feel the sensation that I had done something incredibly important!

My very typical Machu Picchu shot!

It was beautiful! And an overall beautiful day, but I think that the pictures really speak better than words, and the pictures hardly to justice to the real thing!

L

Update-ish

This weekend was awesome! We had a required camp for handicapped people with Rotary! Now before we arrived I was NOT happy about a required work for my whole weekend. It turned out to be great though and I ended up learning a ton of sign language in Spanish! More detail later though! Today was my second "art with sugar" class and I finished the drapery on my cake! I'm having a great time and starting to get busier which is good! Goodnight for now though, colegio tomorrow!
L

We interupt this message to bring you...

A more recent message. I thought I'd share with you the crazy day I had today (technically yesterday.) I started of the day with breakfast and hoping in the van that I take to school. As we were driving along, we had to exit onto a bigger road. In the exit a man had stopped his truck to wait for the traffic. Needless to say, we had to stop very quickly to avoid creaming him. I breathed a sigh of relief when we missed rear ending him by inches.... until.... I feel that horrible jolty crunch from behind. Another van going to school rear ended us.. And HARD! We were pushed into the truck in front too!! Luckily there was no damage to the truck in front, but our back end got crunched good!

Our poor Movilidad

Nobody was seriously injured either. One girl who was sitting in the back did hit her head pretty hard and was crying for a while, but I think she's ok now.

   After school was the really fun part of the day though. I walked with my friends Lesly, Xiomara, and Cinthia to Lesly's house. Her mom made us Arroz con Pollo and it was delicious of course! Then we went to Wong, a huge supermarket, to buy sandwich fixings! We bought 4 huges baguettes (1 sol each) and ham and cheese and tomatoes. Ricisimo!! We went with our friend Ana back to the house after (Cinthia had to go home early) and we made huge sandwichs!

WONG!!!

Sandwichs!

We also watched a chick flick and hung out in the park! It was a really fun night!

Xiomara, Ana, and Lesly

L