Peruvian Independence week - Viva el Peru!

Hi guys!

I got back from my week-long adventure through the South of Peru last Saturday. Taylor got here on Monday (after a LONG delay) and by Monday afternoon we were in the Amazon (more about that below)!! We are doing great, but thought we should check in :)

Anyway, my mini-vacation was a great trip, but with over 7 days of action-packed adventure, you better grab a snack or something, because this is a long update! ;)

Hope you are all great!! ~Kristyn

Friday, July 23: Leave for Arequipa
We (me, and 3 other gringos - Mike, Fanny, and Victoria) left for a city called Arequipa last Friday. We

opted to take a short flight there instead of the torturous sounding 18 hour bus ride, and arrived quickly and easily. The first thing we noticed once we landed was the SUN! Lima is SO cloudy 24 hours of day. You can't see the sun, the stars or anything...but we could actually SEE the sun and the moon! After doing a little happy dance on the tarmac, we grabbed our bags and headed to our hostel. We dumped our bags and went to find dinner: Arequipa (Air-ah-key-pa) is known for its amazingly beautiful main plaza and for being a gastronomic capital of South America.
We quickly found a place offering "traditional" food, and ordered things that were excitedly and repeated recommend by all the Peruvian we work with. I had rocoto relleno, which is a slightly spicy red pepper stuffed with beef (or alpaca) with this amazing creamy, cheesy sauce. It was awesome!

After eating too much, we wandered to the main plaza to see it all lit up at night. The cathedral and buildings are carved out of this cool white, volcanic stone, which gives Arequipa the nickname of the White City. We bought cookies and ice cream while meandering around, and went back to the hostel early to get some rest before our early morning.

Saturday, July 24: Headed to Colca Canyon!

On Saturday we were picked up by our tour bus to go to Colca Canyon. The canyon is the deepest in the world, but its also really, really high up. I totally forgot to bring my altitude sickness meds...but figured I would be fine. The mini-bus took us out of town and towards the mountain pass that threads through the valley of 2 huge volcanoes that sit outside of the city. We passed by alpaca farms, llama farms, and wild vicunas (a cousin of the other two!) which has fine, red fur. They can only be sheared every 2 years, and a scarf made out of its fur can cost over $1500!

After staring at the animals, we started to go over a pass that was over 4,910 meters (OVER 16,000 FEET!). Just to give you an idea, Denver is about 5,280 feet, and the highest mountain in the 48 states is only 14,500 feet. I started to get a little headache, but we tried drinking some water and Coca tea,

which is supposed to help with the altitude...I was doing ok until we got to a windy mountain road. Then me and the two other girls just kinda curled up into balls in the back of the bus and counted down the minutes until we got to our lunch place.

We got to lunch without any major incidents, but we felt pretty crappy. I was just so amazed that just

being at that altitude can have such an immediate effect. In Arequipa we were all a little out of breath if we tried to climb stairs (7,800 feet above sea level), but we didn't feel bad. I spent most of the lunch time just appreciating the fact that I wasn't moving, but luckily we had descended to about 12,000 feet. I eventually had some amazing Peruvian soup and a soda, and felt mostly better.

We were then taken to our little hotel in the middle of nowhere at the mouth of the canyon and we able to just hang out and lay in the sun for a couple hours. After relaxing, we headed to some geothermal hot springs in the canyon! It was pretty cool, and there were 4 or 5 different pools to choose from. We watched the sun set and the stars come out over the valley before getting out and redressed for dinner. The tour included dinner at a restaurant with traditional dancers. The food was underwhelming, but the
dancers were great! They were so much fun to watch (I have videos to post eventually!) and they of course dragged us all out of our seats for the end of every dance.

We went back to the cute hotel, and went to bed...except one of the girls couldn't sleep (snorer in the next room) so she knocked on our door to see if she could swap. When she woke me up I was completely disoriented...I had the WORST headache I have ever felt. I grabbed for my water and Advil, and after about 2 liters and probably way too many ibuprofens, I tried to go to sleep. It got so bad that I attempted to call Taylor on my Peruvian cell (he, of course, did not answer ;) so he could Google what I should do. I was definitely really sick from the altitude, but besides getting evacuated I didn't know what I could do or if I was in trouble.

I watched the minutes tick by for about another 90 minutes, and must have briefly fallen asleep because when I woke back up, the headache was going away. Glad I wasn't drying from altitude sickness (yay!), I tried to sleep until our 5am wakeup call. I am still amazed that I was so affected by the thin air, and will never again forget my altitude meds!!

Sunday, July 25: The canyon and the condors 

We woke up early to a cold and windy morning in the canyon. It was about 40 degrees, but as soon as the sun rose over the ridge and hit the canyon floor, it began to warm up. We started the 3 hour drive to our goal of the day: the Andean Condor lookout at the top of one of the deepest parts of the canyon. The Andean condors are the world's largest flying bird, and a huge attraction here. Along the way we stopped at quaint towns with beautiful plazas, ancient per-Inca tombs and ruins, and so many scenic vistas that we almost got tired of staring at the canyon! It was so pretty, with huge terraces that sloped into the canyon (like giant rice paddies), a river running through the bottom, and the bluest sky.

We were approaching the Condor lookout and were super lucky to find a group of condors flying away from the huge group of tourists that had convened at the official lookout. Our driver pulled over and the condors literally circled right over us for about 20 minutes...It was awesome! They can have a wingspan of over 10.5 feet and weigh up to 33 pounds! They just glided around our heads and dipped and dove into the canyon for a while before we peeled ourselves away to go join the rest of the crowd. And when we got to the real lookout, there were even more! We saw at least 20 huge, adult condors....they were circling, swooping, and zipping around everywhere! We spent about an hour watching them glide around on the hot air rising out of the canyon, and then all piled back into the van for our drive back to Arequipa.

It was a 4-5 hour drive back the same way we came, and after a short stop for lunch (yummy food!), and another trip over the high pass of 16,000+ feet, we made it back to Arequipa. We had a relaxing dinner and all fell asleep early!

Monday, July 26: Sightseeing in the White City
On Monday we woke up refreshed and ready to explore more of the White City. We headed to the Santa Catalina Monastery, which was a breath-takingly beautiful old convent that had been mostly opened to the public. I took us hours to wander through all the maze-like corridors, cloisters, and gardens, but it was worth it. After the sight seeing, we felt like not being tourists for a while, so we found a Chinese food place for our late lunch (they LOVE Chinese food here, and call the Peruvian-Chinese cuisine "Chifa") and then a cute Moroccan themed bar to relax in. We had a few drinks and waited until it was time to get on our overnight bus.

Tuesday, July 27: Nazca and the famous lines
Overnight buses are not my favorite, but they are a really efficient way to get around. You don't have to pay for a hostel on the night you take the bus, and you wake up in a new city. Plus, on these huge, double-decker luxury buses (way better than greyhound) they feed you almost decent meals and play movies, like a airplane! I didn't sleep too much, but we made it to Nazca around 6:30 am, and were immediately aware we were in the desert. It was dry, cool in the shade, but blazing in the sun. We took a quick nap at the hostel, and then Mike and I set off for the next adventure: a chartered plane ride in a Cessna over the mysterious Nazca lines.

The lines are a series of 70+ huge shapes in the desert. Nobody knows why, but the ancient Nasca people created huge drawings of plants, animals, shapes, and lines by removing the first layer of darker desert stones to reveal lighter rocks. From the air, they are amazing, with some lines reaching almost 5 miles in length. We went to the airport and hopped into a little 7-seat airplane and took off over the desert. I saw a giant spider, a monkey, a condor, a tree, a dog, and a bunch more! It was cool, but after about 30 minutes of repeatedly circling the lines on each side of the plane (tight spiral around the line clockwise, then counterclockwise for the people on the other side), we were both getting a little green and were ready for solid ground.

We got back to the airport and had been completely left by our driver (and I had sort of forgotten the name of our hostel...) so we had to ask around at the ticket counters in the airport until we figured out where to go and flagged down a driver. Proud that my Spanish was actually decent enough to help us survive, we got back to town and had a huge lunch. The lunches here are spectacular - at most places the "Menu" or special of the day for lunch includes a huge soup or appetizer, a main course with potatoes and rice (who doesn't love a giant pile of carbs for every meal?), and a giant pitcher of mystery juice/tea, all for around 5 Peruvian soles (1 dollar = 2.82 soles, so that's about $1.77 for a HUGE and scrumptious meal!!). Its fantastic.

The girls had gone to tour an old cemetery in the desert, so we went back to the hostel for the hottest part of the day and took a little siesta. We woke up in time to take Mike to the bus station - he had to go back to Lima and fly back to the states. We all said goodbye and then we three girls went to find some food and drinks. Nazca isn't a very big town, and we walked around it about 3 times in search of a bottle of wine before we gave up, had a couple of Pisco sours (the national drink) and bought some weird but delicious Passion Fruit flavored soda "fortified" with vodka (think wine coolers).

We relaxed in the hostel and hung out, deciding we didn't feel like dealing with going to a bar or figuring out the local scene, and went to bed.

Wednesday, July 28: Viva el Peru!
Wednesday was Peruvian Independence Day and we woke up to the sounds of parades. We got packed up and wanted to go check them out, but one of the girls was moving a bit slowly, and we ended up not having any time before our bus. We went straight to the bus station, and passed a couple of marching bands, but overall it didn't seem that crazy. We had a fast breakfast and got on a bus headed for Ica, a small town about 2 hours away in the desert. We got to Ica with no problems, and got a taxi to our hotel, which was actually 15 minutes outside of town in the middle of the giant dunes beside an oasis.

Honestly, I had no idea anything like this actually existed (much less in Peru) but the oasis was a green lake ringed by palm trees in the middle of huge, mountainous sand dunes. It was pretty cool, and since it was a holiday, it was swarming with Peruvian families. We checked into the expensive hotel we had booked, because nothing else was available for the holiday. The room was pretty spartan, and we were all sort of amazed at what we were getting charged for our one night! Just to put in in perspective, most of the hostels we had stayed at were under $10 a person…and this place was $108 for the three of us!

But it was a beautiful evening, so we hired a taxi to take us to a wine and pisco vineyard for dinner. They call the local family run pisco producers "bodegas" and we went to one that had a nice big outdoor restaurant. We tasted wines and piscos, got the grand tour of the production areas, and then had a tasty dinner. It was cool to see all the similarities and differences between the way they make everything here and the way they make everything at the other vineyards I have visited.

We went back to the hotel and hung out a while before trying to find a bar or club to go to. The bars near the lagoon were supposed to be pretty cool, but we wandered around for a while at about 11pm trying to scope out the scene with no luck. Apparently Peruvians start the evening pretty late, because we ended just hanging out at a place that was usually supposed to be fun (according to all the suggestions from our lambastes) and around 12:30 it started to fill up!

We stayed and talked to some people for a while, had a couple of drinks, and danced a bit, but ended up leaving around 3am because the girls were getting tired. I think the club was probably going to go until dawn, because on our way out there was a line around the block waiting to get in!

Thursday, July 29: Wine tasting in the desert

I slept in while Fanny went out super early and climbed the giant sand dune next to the oasis. I had wanted to go, but the thought of attempting to get up at daybreak to trudge up a sandy hill started to sound worse and worse the later we stayed out the night before, and I opted to just look at her pictures upon her return :)

When she got back we went to a quick lunch and headed out to wine country. Ica is surrounded by vineyards, and I was really excited to go to a big winery and see what it was like I really just love seeing vineyards: its always warm and dry, the vines are beautiful, the surrounding landscape is always spectacular, and everyone is so relaxed and happy. Plus, you get to try wines! The vineyard we went to, named Tacama, is South America's oldest vineyard. It was beautiful, surrounded by mountains, but in the middle of a dry looking flat valley. The building of the vineyard were all painted a rosy pink, and were so pretty!

We took a tour of the place (in Spanish) and then got to try the wines. Apparently Peru is known more for their whites, and the hot climate makes the wines sweet. We had 2 amazing sweet and semi-dry whites, a decent red, and some yummy champagne :) We lingered for a while, but we had hired a taxi driver to take us on the 30 minute drive to the vineyard, wait for us, and then drive us back in time for our bus (cost = 50 soles or $17 for our 3 hour voyage!), and it was nearing the time to leave, so I reluctantly said goodbye to the pet eagles and the vineyard, and we returned to the dunes.

We got on a bus and went only 45 minutes to a town called Paracas. It is a beach ton in the middle of one of Peru's few nature reserves. We found our hostel easily, had a great dinner of super fresh seafood, and wandered the town….it only took us about 10 minutes to circle the whole village, so a free "welcome to Paracas" drink at our hostel's bar, we hit the hay.

Friday, July 30: Penguins!
On Friday we woke up and I walked back to the bus station to meet other friends that happened to be coming to Paracas. We all dumped their gear at the hostel, had a continental breakfast, and headed to the dock to meet our tour - we all wanted to go to the Ballestas Islands, a group of tiny islands off the coast that is home to millions of birds. I was particularly psyched to see wild penguins! We hopped on a boat and took a 2 hour boat ride to, around, and through the islands! There were sea lions, so many birds (literally millions), and of course, the adorable penguins :)

We got back to dry land and spent the last day of our vacation lounging around. We ate more awesome seafood, took naps, and read by the beach. Overall, it was a great way to end the fun week! The next day we took a 4 hour bus ride back to Lima, and I started getting ready for Taylor's arrival.

Now!
After a bit of drama (4 hour flight delay), Taylor made it to Lima! He got in at 4am on Monday morning. We had a short day in Lima, and then went right back to the airport in the afternoon and flew to the Amazon. We are staying here in Iquitos so Taylor can collect blood samples from patients infected with malaria for his research. I am his official translator (and tour booker, restaurant picker, and price negotiator :), and since work days here have been pretty short, we have had a very relaxing time. There is so much good food….I really can't stress enough how amazing all the Peruvian cuisine has been, and the jungle has even MORE! There are so many fruits I have never heard of or seen, I could spend 2 weeks just wandering the markets tasting them!

After arriving Monday, we spent Tuesday with our boss from UCSD touring different lab sites around the area (he was here to show some US government big wigs around, so we tagged along). Since then, we have just been going to lab or strolling the city during the day, and eating and drinking too much in the evenings. This weekend, we went to the giant market in town on Saturday then hung out with all the other gringos (there are 3 other girls from UCSD here, what a coincidence!). We went to see some live music at this huge outdoor venue. The band must have had about 30 members, and it was even complete with very scantily clad dancers.

On Sunday, we got up early and had our first real Amazonian adventure. We got into a water taxi at the docks, motored 20 minutes downriver (while our driver bailed out the boat…haha), and went to a Butterfly Farm & Animal Orphanage. It was great! They had over 40 different species of butterflies, and around the area were tons of tame-ish monkeys. We also saw (and I got to pet!) an ocelot, a jaguar (no petting allowed, but I did make sure to ask), and tons of other animals they had rescued.

We are having a great time, and are planning to spend this weekend at a lodge up the Amazon river (after Taylor is done "working"). I will take lots of pictures and bring lots of mosquito repellent!

Pictures on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2604787&id=5100214&l=58f7cee77b

Ciao,
Kristyn

Made it BACK to Lima!

Hey everyone!

I successfully made it back to Lima and my new place! I am living in an apartment with 7 other people (6 women, 1 guy, and me!)....there are 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a tiny kitchen and a huge living room (we also have a washer/dryer, a nice tv, the internet, and a MAID 3 days a week!!). The apartment is in a nice part of the city, called Miraflores. Its near the ocean, but its winter here, and 90% of the time we are fogged in almost completely.

I am sharing a room with a woman named Mariella - she is a Peruvian woman who is supposed to live there and take care of the house and answer questions, but apparently she has a boyfriend and is always at his place, so I essentially have my own room for the moment!

The other roommates are from all over. There is a girl from Sweden, a girl from London, two Americans, and Mike from Jersey. I still think I am missing someone, but its been kind of crazy tiring to meet everyone and remember who is who, because there are always people in and out and this weekend there were a ton of guests at the house. I kept wandering around asking "Hi, I´m Kristyn...I live here, do you?", hahaha.

Anyway, when I got in on Saturday I was pretty fried - on Friday night a bunch of us went out for our last night in Cusco. I didn´t get home until the sun was beginning to shine (bars never close here, its dangerous!). Then I pretty much went straight to the airport. After the quick flight (it only takes one hour by plane but 20 HOURS by bus from Lima to Cusco) I arrived in Lima. I decided to brave it and take a taxi....but was still to chicken to bargain, so I got an official airport taxi. He was super nice, but had no idea where we were going. After about 3 calls to the house and innumerable stops to ask people, I finally made it to the new apartment after an hour and a half.

When I got in I was informed that there was going to be a party in the apartment that night....haha! So I went to lunch with a couple of the girls, went to the store to pick up the basics, showered and got a quick nap before I was woken up by the invasion of salsa dancing Peruvians. It was cool to meet more exchange students from the US (most people at the party were from the States), but at around 2am I had to crash.

Yesterday I didn´t do much besides laundry (YAY!) and go to the grocery store all by myself. In Lima, everything is an adventure. Its not the safest city, so nobody carries any ID, credit cards, or basically anything of any value. To be honest (don´t freak out!), muggings are sort of common, but violent crime isn´t. Usually its just opportunistic crimes against rich looking tourists or someone who wants your cell phone....so I have to adjust to never carrying a purse and only taking the money I need for the day. But our neighborhood is really safe, and so is the house :)

I went to work for the first day today, but nobody that I´m working with was here, so I´m now hiding in the library! I need to study more Spanish, because I feel REALLY dumb when I have NO idea what people are saying or what´s going on around me. Its pretty humbling/humiliating to be this mute...but everyone is so nice!

Anyway, as usual, this e-mail got way too long! But I wanted to say hi...I posted a few more pictures from Cusco, and I will try to take some of the new apartment soon.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2596778&id=5100214&l=cfbb779a65

Hope everyone is doing great! Miss everyone!
Kristyn

Lake Titicaca and the 4th of July :)

Hey everyone!

I went to Lake Titicaca over the 4th of July weekend! I arranged the trip with the school, so they arrange all the details for you. I was the only one to book the tour, but luckily, at the bus station I found 5 other students from my school (my housemate Sarah, she´s originally from Uganda but lives in Chicago, 2 Dutch girls, a Swiss dude and a Belgian dude), so we joined forces!

We took an overnight bus from Cusco to Puno (a city right on the lake) and arrived at about 4 in the morning. We were picked up by a driver, and he brought us to his house for a few hours until the shops opened and we could get onto our boat. It was interesting that he just grabbed us all, bargained with my friends for a price to take them too, and then led us to his house and let us hang out there on his couches :)

At around 8am, we caught a shuttle bus to our yacht (I'm using the term "yacht" VERY loosely here ;) and made our way to the "floating islands" of Uros. They are man made islands completely made of reeds! It was cool - there are about 50 islands and about 1500 people live on them all together. They lash huge piles of reeds from the lake together, and every couple weeks or so have to pile more reeds on top as the bottom layers rot away...it gave the area a distinct and interesting (but not alltogether unplesant) aroma.

Afterward, we went to the island of Amantani in the middle of the lake. Just FYI, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, and at that point we were at 12,500 feet! Amantani island has about 4000 inhabitants, and we stayed with a family there. There are no cars, no running water, and only some places with solar powered electricity. The family had a realtively comfortable house, and the bathroom almost looked normal (it had a shower, and a toilet, and a sink with faucets) but no running water....so you had to go fetch a pail of water to "flush" the potty or to wash your hands. And then use freezing cold well/lake water to bathe...needless to say I skipped showerering for 3 nights (overnight bus, no running water, then another overnight bus!).

The family we stayed with had 2 little girls (Alison, 7 years, and Pamela Alejandra, 1 year 2 months) and they were SO ADORABLE! We ate lunch with them, and then set off for a hike. We hiked up to the top of Panchmama, a "mountain" on the island that gets up to 13,200 feet!! It is definitely a struggle to hike at that altitude, and it was slow going for me, but the views from the top were incredible. We had amazing panoramic views of the lake, the snow capped mountain on the Bolivian side of the lake, and watched the sunset. The whole time I felt like I was staring at the ocean, the lake was so expansive!

Afterward, we had a light dinner and then we all dressed up in traditional Amantani outfits, and went to a fiesta with the locals (pictures to come, hilarious, I promise!). We danced, listened to their music, and played with the kids for a few hours. On the way home, the stars were AMAZING! There were so few lights and we were up so high, it was beautiful!

We went to bed early (its hard to want to stay up if you have to use a flashlight to walk outside in 30 degree weather to the non-functional bathroom!) and woke up on Sunday (July 4th - I totally forgot until I ran into other Americans later in the day) to another perfectly clear and beautiful day. We had a light breakfast of bread, jam and tea, and said goodbye to the family. The 75-ish year old grandmother threw the baby on her back and led us down the treacherous path back to the harbor. She was practically running down the hill, and we were stumbling and slipping all over the place. It was obvious she knew the entire island like the back of her hand!

We got to the boat and headed off to our last island destination: Taquile island. Taquile is smaller than Amantani, with only 2000 inhabitants. They choose to be more isolated, and most people only marry other people from the island. They even have their own traditional types of clothing that are different from the other islanders of the lake.

We hiked up 1000 feet to the main part of town, wandered around the shops, then went to lunch at a restaurant on the island. We had fresh trout caught in the lake, and then wandered the long path that went around the edge of the island. It was so pretty! Just steep cliffs, sapphire water, and clear blue skies!

We had to descend almost 600 stairs to get back down to the harbor on the opposite side of the island, and when we finally got to the boat (with shaky legs!) we had a 3 hour ride back to the mainland. We got picked up by the same driver who picked us up at 4am on Saturday morning, and he took us into town and dropped us off. Some of the girls wanted to go shopping, but I hung out with the guys and celebrated the Fourth of July by having a couple 80 cent beers in the main plaza overlooking the lake. We all met back up for dinner, and ended up going ti a cafe afterwards for dessert because they had apple pie on their menu, and as the only American born citizen in the group, I insisted I get apple pie for Independence Day....it wasn´t that great (more like thick applesauce in a crust) but I think it was as good as I was going to get in the middle of nowhere in South America! :)

After the apple pie (and a terrible glass of whiskey - it was the closest thing to an American nightcap that I could find) we went to the bus station and caught our 7 hour overnight bus ride home. We got back to Cusco, and my housemate and I caught a cab back to the house and promptly passed out. I had to get up at 6am (I desperately needed a hot shower, but at least I figured out how to get hot water!) and had classes all day today!

Anyway, it was a great trip, and everything went really smoothly. Its interesting how laid back everyone here is, and how unofficial everything seems to be. Someone just stands in the bus station with a sign that says "Krystine" and I assume they are there to whisk me away to the next destination - its weird but cool!

Also, I am really lucky and am one of the ONLY people at the school that hasn´t had to go to the clinic yet for some form of parasite/stomach issue, so knock on wood! Maybe it was all the vaccines, the probiotics I bought in Ireland, or my stomach is just awesome, but I´ve been super lucky!

Well, hope you guys are great and everyone had a great 4th! Keep me in the loop, I love hearing from you guys!

Ciao,
Kristyn

PS - Here is a link to my pictures so far!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2594609&id=5100214&l=722fc6807a

I'm in Cusco!

Hey everyone!

Just in case you were wondering, I made it to Cusco on Monday! Its at 11,000 feet, so it has taken me a few days to be able to climb stairs without wheezing uncontrollably. But, I´m better now :)

My classes have been great, and I have 2 hours of private lessons in the morning (from 8:30 to 10:15) and then a break for lunch, and then more class with a group (from 2:30 to 6:30pm).

My host mom is nice (she has 2 daughters, but they are both off to college). She cooks me 3 meals a day and she is super patient. The house is pretty nice....but it gets below freezing here at night, and the water in the showers is SO COLD!

Anyway, in case you are interested, I am including the couple emails I have quickly written to Taylor, they have a little more detail. I only have internet when I´m at school, so its hard to blog or upload pictures, but I will try soon!

Hasta luego!
Kristyn

Day 1 in Cusco:
Made it to Cusco. Flight was delayed 3 hours because of rain here, so that sucked a little. Got up super early, rushed to the airport, paid a bunch of money for my bags (you have to check everything, so with 2 bags I was overweight by 13 kilos!), only to sit there and miss all my morning activities at the school.

Once I got here I couldn't find my driver, so I just took a taxi....apparently I missed him because they seemed a little ruffled that I arrived to the school without him. Guess we missed each other and he was still standing at the airport waiting for me - whoops! Took a brief 30 question multiple choice exam (I think I got a whopping 6 right, haha), and then my host Mom came to pick me up. She is super nice (but speaks NO English), and loves to have students. She lives in a 6 bedroom house (!) and has 2 daughters (both off to college, one is going to be a Dr and one a lawyer). I think another student from the school is coming tonight, too, so there will be two of us staying there.

She fed me and had to run back to work. She's a nurse and usually stays at home or tries to arrange her schedule around the students, but today got all messed up with the delayed flight, so she had to leave me alone after about an hour. But she left me a nice lunch of spaghetti and one chicken leg and a banana. I have also been drinking coca tea like its my job....its made from the leaves of the coca plant (where cocaine comes from - weird, huh?) and is supposed to help with soroche (altitude sickness). I took my medicine, but the air here is definitely thin, and it was a major struggle to haul my suitcase to the 3rd floor of the house!

Day 2 in Cusco:
The school had a welcome dinner for all the new students - it was good. Ate at a "traditional" restaurante with a Peruvian flute band (lots of South Park jokes). Then about 6 of us went out to a bar with two of the people that work at the travel agency attached to the school. There was a live band that played classic rock and a lot of Maroon 5. It was an interesting mix of music and people. The two who work for the school are Dutch, and there were 2 English girls, one dutch student, and 3 Americans including me. It was fun - the Dutch people made me drink starfruit daquiris (pretty good). I REALLY need an alarm clock. I almost missed my flight yesterday and I barely woke up by my watch today. Might go try to find one and a hair dryer.

Anyway - my first Spanish personal lesson was good. My guy seems nice....he's pretty quiet, and not the most patient, but I think he'll help a lot. 2 weeks of 6 hours a day should get me as up to speed as I can probably handle.

Made it to Lima!

Hey guys!

Just checking in - I made it to Lima! :)

Its already been an adventure....when I tried to check into my flight they said I could not board the plane without proof that I would be returning to the USA within 90 days (I only had a one way ticket). After about 30 minutes of "discussing" this problem with the ticket agent, he suggested I just buy a refundable ticket to anywhere in the US and then cancel it when I have my real flight booked. Crazy FAA and their regulations! Thank goodness for free wireless internet and my laptop. I bought a ticket on my computer while standing at the ticket counter :)

But I got here, had NO problems with customs, found my driver, and got to the hostel. My driver even took all the lab supplies I was carrying and told me he would bring them to the University for me! So nice! Tomorrow I am meeting up with a woman from the lab here named Mayuko. We are going to go to lunch and then to get me a Peruvian cell phone. On Monday I fly to Cusco and go straight from the airport to the classroom to start my 2 weeks of Spanish classes.

It's so nice to finally be here. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well - love you guys!!

Hasta luego,
Kristyn

PS - I am one hour BEHIND Florida, and two hours AHEAD of California here.

The Emerald Isle

I had a great trip to Ireland. I have been so amazingly lucky this year and have gotten to travel to some AMAZING places for next to nothing. Ireland was no exception: I found a conference in Dublin that just so happened to be remarkably perfect and aligned really well with my field of study. So after a bit of sweet-talking, I convinced some people at UCSD to send me! This means that my round trip ticket would be free, my housing a food during the conference would be free, and the $500 conference registration would get paid for….overall a pretty sweet deal.

My labmate (and friend) Diana also came to the conference, which was awesome. It was great to have a travel companion and someone to go out at night with (and to sit through incredibly boring scientific talks with). We arrived to Dublin after a trans-continental and trans-Atlantic flight with an 8 hour layover at JFK in between. We did make the most of our layover though, and took a cab into the city since Diana had never been to NYC so we had bagels, saw Times Square, walked up 5th ave (focusing our time at Tiffany's), strolled through Central Park, and then had a Gray’s Papaya dog (and grabbed to-go cupcakes at Crumbs) before heading back to the airport :)

We didn’t get much sleep on either flight, so after our transcontinental red-eye flight (not to mention the fact that I stayed up ALL night the night before out flight packing and getting ready to leave the country for 6 months) so I was pretty exhausted when we arrived. But we got our bags and found the bus that would take us to the Hostel. It was super easy and after a direct bus trip 20 minutes into the city, we arrived at our stop. The hostel was supposed to be very close to Trinity College (where the conference was) so we got off in front of the College and started wandering around to find the hostel. After a few minutes of wandering in circles, we finally found our place. It was about 11:30 am, and we couldn’t check into the room until 2pm, so we dumped our luggage in their storage room and went out in search of something to occupy our time.

We (of course) headed straight to a bar and ordered the first of many rounds of Guinness. We relaxed in the bar (it was the lobby bar of a moderately swanky looking hotel) on a couple of couches, and used the free wireless intenet until the room was ready. Upon checking in, we were informed that we were on the 3rd level. In Euro-speak, that means the 4th floor…they call the 1st floor the ground floor, so you have to add a flight of stairs to everything. As expected, there was no lift, so we had to haul my giant bag up entirely too many stairs (Thanks Diana! I would have died without your help!). Oddly, once we got to the correct floor, the sign to our room still pointed up…

We climbed another flight, only to discover a long, winding hallway that led us in a giant U, to a flight of stairs that went down….so after hauling the bags UP the stairs, we got to haul them back DOWN to our room. By that point the lack of sleep was kicking in, and we thought it was the funniest thing in the world. We made it to the room and after a couple showers, pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. We napped for a couple hours, then forced ourselves to get up and go get some food. It was cool and drizzling, but we wandered to a street lined with restaurants and finally settled on a tapas bar called Havana. The food was great, and once we were full of sangria, paella, and lentil stew, we made our way back to the hostel and went back to bed for the night.

 We were amazed that it was still light out, and the sun didn’t set until after 10:15pm! But we got to bed and got our rest for the next day (Monday, the first day of the conference). The rest of the week was an awesome blur of Guinness, science, and fun people. We met a ton of interesting characters, saw a bunch of great live music, sat through some horrendously boring science (and some fun science, too), presented our posters, and saw a lot of sights.

On Saturday, Taylor arrived and we whisked him out of the city and headed to Galway on the advice of fellow travelers. We picked him up at the airport, grabbed a rental car, and started driving! Diana came with us, and we stayed at a lovely B&B just 5 minutes walk from the main square. Driving on the wrong side of the road with a manual car was an adventure, but we made it safe and sound...But to be honest, driving through roundabouts was pretty terrifying, and I don't think I have EVER sweat while driving so much, haha!

 We spent 2 nights in Galway, which was kind of like a quaint, Irish version of Vegas. People apparently go there to have their bachelor/ette parties (which are called "hen" and "stag" parties), so there was always a group of people dressed ridiculously in each bar (a whole group of Cyndi Laupers, a crew of matadors, 10 ballerinas adorned with fluffy, pink tutu's, etc. ). It was a fun town, and we spent most of our time in the city eating, drinking and watching World Cup, or relaxing in the B&B's hot tub!

While in Galway, we took a drive out to go visit a castle. One of our lab mate's is named Ellen O'Dea, and she informed us before we left that there was a castle in the Irish countryside named the O'Dea Castle. Inspired, we went to find it! It was a little under 2 ours away from where we were, so we grabbed some road snacks and headed out to the countryside. It was a cool drive, and on the way we found the ruins of an old church and stopped to check them out. We pulled down a long, one lane driveway flanked on both side by stone walls. We parked and wandered the ruins, and noticed that there were a few people handing around in the adjacent cemetery...

By the time we got back to our car there was actually an entire funeral procession coming down the driveway. We attempted to quietly sneak the tiny car down the driveway, but since it was only a one lane driveway, we made it within 50 meters of the end when we got blocked in by 6 cars coming in and had to BACK UP (in reverse....with mourners all around us....with ME driving on the wrong side of the car!) the whole way back to the parking area and just sit and wait until they were all inside the cemetery with the casket and everything. It was really odd.

But eventually we were on our way and found the O'Dea Castle. It was cool, and had been restored and was now a little archeological/educational center. We took the mini-self guided tour, watched a video on the history, and wandered the grounds. It started raining when we were walking through the surrounding fields, so we ran back to the car, and headed on for the day.

We eventually made our way to the Cliffs of Moher - they were so beautiful! Amazing HUGE cliffs that tower over the deep blue water of the Atlantic on the west side of Ireland. There was even a castle tower that overlooked the cliffs.

We dropped Diana off at the train station (she made her way to Paris to meet up with her boyfriend) and drove south into the countryside. Last night we stayed in an amazing castle that had been turned into a quant guesthouse complete with a resident Irish wolfhound. Today we woke up to gorgeous sunny weather (a rare treat) and drove along the south western coast.

We are staying in a hotel on the ocean on a peninsula that juts west into the Atlantic. Tomorrow we head to Cork for 2 nights, then I will show Taylor around Dublin for 3 nights! Ireland is an amazing country and we are having a great trip!

I'm leavng on a jet plane...

Well, the date is looming closer and I am getting more and more anxious for my big trip. As of right now, I have 33 days until I leave sunny San Diego for 6 months. First, I am headed to Ireland for a conference (and then a little extra time off in the Emerald Isle with Taylor).

On June 21 I fly home to Florida! I will be in and around central Florida until June 26...then I'm off to Lima for one night (to drop off lab supplies) and then to Cusco, Peru for my 2 week Spanish immersion class. I will be staying with a family and taking intensive Spanish for 2 weeks round the clock....then, LIMA!

I will start my stay in Lima on July 10th....

So to recap:
June 5th: Leave San Diego
June 6th: Arrive in Dublin, Ireland
June 7th-11th: "Innate Immunity: Mechanisms Linking with Adaptive Immunity" Conference at Trinity College in Dublin Ireland
June 12th-June 21st: Traveling Ireland with Taylor

June 21st: Arrive in Orlando!

June 26th: Depart from Miami for Peru (overnight in Lima)
June 27th: Arrive in Cusco and take a 2 week Spanish class
July 10th: Lima, Peru for good!

Should be an awesome adventure, I can't wait!
Kristyn