Awake and Awareness. My Little Bit of Buddhism.

Since I stayed home this weekend and really the only exciting thing worth mentioning is that we had a birthday party for Ahnika and went to a carnival (where I almost got whip-lash on one ride and rode the Tilt-A-Whirl 3 times). But in class last Thursday we talked about homesickness. There is this common back and forth feeling of homesickness that pretty much all study-abroad students feel about this time of the trip...and yet I am not. I am very excited about this news because this was my time to prove to myself that I will be able to handle possibly living outside of the United States in the future. Since my entire life is changing the minute I step foot on the plane home, Peru is what's comfortable to me. I know Peru, I know how to live here. When I return to America, my real life begins. I am an adult. I walk across the graduation stage and then move on to the rest of my life as an adult. I don't know how to do that. I still call my mom for what to take when I have a cold. The pressure I feel is immense. I have already seen jobs get taken down before I get a chance to apply for them, and have been turned down by a few.... what the heck am I qualified for!? (I am still not sure why so many entry-level jobs require __ years of experience... hello! entry level??) Anyway, with all this craziness in my life, I have started thinking more and more about my need for awareness in my current life.

The street art responsible for my inspiration

Translates to "AWAKE"

I took an Eastern Psychology class in school a few years ago and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. Buddhism is something I think everyone should try at least once. No, Buddhism is not always a religion (which I thought it was before the class), it is more a way of life...a philosophy. It is being aware of everything in your life and realizing that everything is connected...or to use the correct terminology, everything is one. It is about respect for everything/everyone, and awareness. I have found awareness to really be lacking in my life lately. To be awake is to notice and take in. In class we meditated everyday. Sometimes we walked and meditated, and one day we even ventured outside to admire the beauty and simplicity of the life outside. Being alone with your thoughts and focusing on calm and peace is relaxing. There are too many times when people are so caught up with errands, homework, work and thousands of other things. But taking a moment out of your day to reflect is a beautiful thing.

Living in a new place can be overwhelming. Everything is different. But I try my hardest to be awake throughout the day and notice as much as I can. So much of life passes by without us realizing it if we are caught up in our phones or worries. I am not saying I don't look at my phone or stress out often, but I am making an effort to live in the moment and respect the time I have. I am here, so why not let it inspire me? Walking to class everyday, I make sure to notice the beauty of the trees, the way the man fixing the concrete is hunched over cracking the sidewalk by hand, the dogs playing in the lot across from my house, the hummingbird that occasionally visits my window. It may all seem unimportant, but who's to say what is important and what is not? There is so much life going on all around you that, when noticed, it can be amazing. Just wondering about the life of someone or something that you don't know. What has this tree seen? How far has this bird flown?

I am at a stressful time in my life (yes, I realize it may not seem like it because, to you, it looks like I'm on vacation 24/7. Trust me, I'm in no way saying living here is in any way bad, but...). Classes are in a different language and are pretty difficult. This is my final semester of college- college life as I know it is pretty much over. The stress of finding a real job is starting to weigh down on me. Life when I go back to America will be so different: as a person, I have changed from this experience, and I will be moving to a new place- any place that will take me- to begin a career. I have spent a lot of time at home watching Netflix lately and I think I'm terrible for doing that. But when everything costs money and I'm accustomed to working at least 20+ hours a week, not having an income is a little stressful (and I'm a little stingy with my money sometimes- emphasis on the sometimes).
These are my stresses. These are the things I am trying not to worry about. But I'm not perfect.

Awake. Live in the moment. Enjoy the moment. Don't let life pass you by. How many cliches can I tell myself until it finally clicks? So I start thinking, when will I ever live here again? When will I ever have these experiences again? The future is the future, but life is happening everywhere around me here. It is time to notice it, before it's too late.

What is "a field trip?"

How many beach vacations does it take to make you relaxed?
Answer: At least two.

To start off with: Crazy Tuesday nights. After another movie showing for class, Danielle, Ahnika and I decided to not go home and watch more netflix. We headed to Miraflores to a book store then planned to hang out at a coffee shop...until our plans started to change. Bum bum bummm. After the little book store that, understandably, had mostly books in Spanish, we headed across the street to Pizza Hut. Realizing we did not know where a coffee shop was, we decided to haul our backpacks to Parque Kennedy to hang out with the cats. After a while of being surrounded by the hundreds of cats, we decided to head home. Until we heard it: it was hard to miss. The traffic was loud and bustling, but with strained ears we caught a glimpse into our soon-to-be-future. Karaoke!! We walked with a purpose down Pizza Street until we found the place. All three of us had been longing to Karaoke for a while now. We sang a few songs, sober and obnoxiously. But with only 3 drunk girls in there, we didn't care too much. After a while we started to pay our tab when those same girls invited us to go to a discotec with them! Why not?? So with our backpacks and unfinished homework in tow, we headed to the discotec and danced the night away with our new friends. We also ran into our professor Josue at the club, which was hilarious!


Thursday was my 22nd birthday and it was a great beginning of the weekend for me!! Instead of our Thursday's class, our group had a "tour" of the United States Embassy. So I am happy to report I got to spend a little of my birthday on American soil with all of you :)
The tour actually ended up us sitting in a room and having someone talk to us for an hour or so. But it was amazing. I was, as Ahnika put it, "geeking out" hardcore. The lady who spoke with us was named Belinda and she had been working for the US State Dept since the early 2000's, so she had lived all over the world working in embassies by then. She told us her job, what different departments are located in the embassy and what an embassy actually does. I had a stupid grin on my face the entire time she was speaking because I was just so in awe and excited about what she was talking to us about.

Oh please tell me more

I am now determined to look into jobs in the state department because there is way more to do than I ever realized! Did you know they have teachers located around the world to help with English?? And her job is to improve the view of America to those in Peru: here we have a 70% acceptance rate, the other 30% are made up of upper-class housewives (who don't like America because "it's just not posh right now") and obviously the gangs and hooligans and what not. This tour was a great way to spend my birthday for sure!! Abby also bought me a white chocolate Reese's as a gift because they don't have Reese's outside of the embassy, much to my dismay. Also since phones were not allowed, I also did not get any pictures of this... for security reasons.

Later that evening most of us went out to celebrate me successfully making it another year in the life of Shelby. My restaurant of choice was the Burrito Bar in Barranco because, as I know I mentioned a few posts ago, they have the most beautiful tacos I have ever laid eyes on- oh and they taste out of this world, as well. So I savored the chips and salsa that I never get anymore and a few margaritas on the side and was extremely satisfied with my choice. Afterwards we proceeded to El Gringo Bar (the other Barranco site for us) apparently for a few drinks. Normally I would've been all for going out on my birthday, but we had a bus to catch the next morning at 7am sharp, and most of us still needed to pack (ehem, yes that included me- procrastination does not seem to be something I grew out of after 21). But we all enjoyed a few drinks (and shots for the birthday girl, of course, thanks to Claire for the tequila) and meandered home to pack. Somehow we all got up by 5:30 in order to pack and head to the bus station for yet another trip to the beach- although this one was considered a "field trip" which means free!!*

*Other than food at the 5-star restaurant :(

Tequila and Sunrises

Thanks to all these lovely ladies for making my day unforgettable

Paracas!!

The school booked us all at a 5-star hotel that was amazing. I just happened to get my own room, where I struggled to take up the whole king sized bed and balcony overlooking the pool and the beach. This weekend was more relaxing than our spring break because I just sat around all weekend. Enjoying the sounds, the views and the company was all I really needed. The pool was huge and beautiful, and although we couldn't swim in the ocean because of the stingray problem, the time spent in the sand and in the pool was a complete dream. Eating at a 5-star restaurant guaranteed some delicious food, too. But the best part of all: the air conditioning. You don't quite know how long it takes to get used to not having air but I'm not sure I've reached that point yet. Especially since I don't have a fan in my room so I've been sleeping in short spurts throughout the night for the last few weeks. Thus making my stay in an air conditioned room all the more heavenly (and really cold). The actual "educational" part of the weekend was visiting Islas de Ballestas. This was a really cool sight!! I saw so many sea lions, birds, TWO penguins, and dolphins (that I got a little too excited about, but that's expected). That took up about half of a day and the rest was spent back at the pool. We did not do many things in Paracas because it was very touristy and expensive, so we figured why not just have a weekend of doing absolutely nothing? In the bar downstairs we found a Monopoly game, which we stole for the evening and played on my larger-than-life bed. It turned out to be a Peru Monopoly game!! It was a ton of fun because all the normal properties were different places around the country that we had fun picking out the ones we had been to and those we are going to! The rest of the game was pretty normal except the money was in millions, so the math took a little longer, and the Chance and Community Chest cards were in Spanish, so we had to decipher those together as well. I also got a chance to ride a catamaran and go paddle boarding thanks to the awesome hotel, which were both a lot of fun!!

What's better than slippers and ocean views from the balcony?

Free mimosas with breakfast? If you say so

Only one of the amazing meals I had: Salmon with gnocchi and mushrooms in a parmesan sauce

Islas de Ballestas 

Do you see the sea lions?? More to come

Tunnels are cool

Two of penguins decided to grace us with their presence and I was so glad

All those little brown things? Those are sea lions...and there were many more spots like this!

Hammocks

They make for a great time

Coolest Monopoly game

This was the best birthday weekend I've had yet! Not only did I get to celebrate, but I also got to enjoy the beach, great food, air conditioning, a king sized bed and some pretty fun people. And to make it even better my host family got me this beautiful cheesecake to celebrate! :)

Beach Bum

Spring break after just one month of school may seem a little out of place, but it was much needed. It was weird for most of us to get used to the fact that as soon as we got to Lima we needed to start planning our Spring Break trip. But after a month of not only a different lifestyle, but a whole new world and language, we were exhausted and ready for a break.

Destination: Mancora, Peru
Duration: 8 days
Directive: The Final Spring Break

I have ridden a bus more in the last two weeks than I have my entire life. 18+ hours to Mancora and back makes for an extremely long trip, but by upgrading to first class (yes there is first class on a bus) we made the best decision we could have. All the seats had little tablets in front to choose a movie (some in English with Spanish subtitles and vice versa), games and more. Also with only 12 seats in first class, we had 2 poor other souls destined to sit in a group of young American girls that always have things to talk about...okay we weren't that bad but come dinner time we were pretty loud trying to figure out everything we were served (a lot of smelling and guessing went into this).

Another great decision we made was to rent a house in Los Organos (a town about 13 km away from Mancora) so that we could all stay together. We cooked here, we had a private beach, private neighborhood pool, a stereo and an amazing view of the ocean from our many balconies. So much bonding took place here over our many card nights. The bad decisions that came with this was us taking mototaxis to Mancora for the first few days which cost an arm and a leg. Luckily a kind local told us about the bus which was about 239% cheaper than the mototaxis and much safer. We love kind locals!! 

Our beautiful house

From our balcony you can see the pool and the beach which was only a block away

Mancora itself was very much a laid back beach town and was packed with tourist shops and Cevicherias. We did a lot of shopping and I am pretty proud that I only bought a tapestry, a shirt and 2 bracelets...the necessities, ya know? Fresh seafood was amazing, although half the time we were not sure what we were ordering (seems to be a reoccurring problem for me, at least). For example, one time Marki and I decided to share a plate of Langostinos al ajo, which obviously is lobster and garlic, right? Wrong. Out came a plate with 6 shrimp in a lumpy yellow-garlic sauce. It was good, just not what we expected- it adds a little bit of excitement to our already hectic days! I only went out one night to Mancora and that was enough for me. It was not like Lima at all and was way too crazy. All the bars along the beach were packed and it seemed fun at first until all the guys started getting creepy and one girl almost got her purse stolen. Everything ended up good, but I figured I would just wait to get back to good ole' Lima before I go out to the bars again.

The best calamari I've ever had

First and only night out...but a good one!

Activities: As much as I was lazy and sat around by the pool or on the beach all week, I was somehow pretty busy as well. Playing in the waves took up a lot of my time and energy. I have never really spent time in the Pacific Ocean before, but I can definitely tell the difference between Pacific and Atlantic. The waves were a lot bigger and the currents a lot stronger, there were many times I was tumbling under a wave or having trouble standing back up from the current. But don't worry, I was never out there alone, and I deepest I went was my hips (although the waves sometimes made me not able to touch).
Banana boats= danger. Some of us decided to enjoy a fun ride on a banana boat while hanging out on the beach. It looked like a blast! Little did we know we would be pelted with water drops, have to keep our eyes closed, and swallow half the ocean. It was a lot of fun and we laughed a lot, but that also could have been us covering up how uncomfortable we all were. There were quite a few times where someone almost fell off, I thought I got a concussion from slamming my head into Mariah's back (I didn't, don't worry). To make our crazy ride even better, as we were crossing the last wave before finally reaching land again, our banana went airborne from the huge wave and threw us all around, and the jet ski that was pulling us flipped in a 360. When we finally recovered to struggling off the banana onto precious land we realized the entire packed beach was staring at us. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see.

The happy before picture

I went scuba diving(!!!) for the first time ever and I am so glad to say I can check that off my bucket list! I dove with Claire and an instructor and he was always with us to make sure everything was going well. We dove around an old oil drill sight that was abandoned and pulled ourselves along by a rope. All my practice snorkeling always told us to never touch the coral, but the rope had coral on it and there was not way to avoid hitting the pipes, I scratched my hand up a little bit. We only went down about 35 feet, but what I saw of it was amazing. What I didn't see, though, was even cooler. For some reason, I decided to make my goggles tight, like I used to when I was on swim team (so annoying when they would fall off in a race)... little did I know that was the wrong thing to do. About halfway down my eyes started feeling heavy and were hurting, I just figured it was the pressure and it happens to everyone. It got to the point where it was hard to focus on things and when our instructor pointed out an octopus and I realized I could not see it at all that maybe it wasn't normal. I told him my eyes weren't feeling well (with the cool scuba sign language, of course) and all of a sudden we were swimming back to the rope very quickly and began ascending. After we went up a few feet I figured out he was telling me to blow out my nose, this immediately helped a lot! For the rest of the dive I had to hold onto my goggles or they felt like they would fall off but the sights were amazing. We were in the middle of a school of fish and I stopped to look at this blue fish and he stared right into my soul. Even when I turned my head he followed it! Then we ascended to the top and my instructor informed me how scared he was about my eyes. According to him and Claire, my eyes were purple and extremely bulging out. This terrified me. I am fine now and my eyes are back to their good ole' working-selves, but for the next day I waited for the bulging/puffiness to go down and the redness to go away. (Disclaimer: please do not google what my eyes would've looked like because I made that mistake and almost got sick, it is not a pleasant sight but I am sure mine did not look that bad)

Here is Claire about to jump in and I am next! 

My little Blue Fishy Friend

The company we dove with had awesome murals around town!

Here is the oil rig and the sea lions that were hanging out there

...hopefully more Scuba pictures to come!! :)

Back on to good times...the next day, most of us went on a day trip. If you have read my blog, you may have noticed that a common occurrence is us signing up for tours and not knowing what it really is, well you will be happy to know that this has happened once again. Turns out we paid 40 soles to go to 3 other beaches and go see a crocodile sanctuary-thing. The beaches were cool, but very similar to the beaches by our house and Mancora, the crocodile thing was filled with a bunch of sizes of crocodiles and it smelled a little (it was not the cleanest park I have seen). This was another day with 4 hours in the car :(

The amazing pyramid/castle Abby and I made (we even got a stranger's compliment!)

Yurina as a Mermaid

So many birds!!

On a little boat to see the crocodiles

This was only one of the crocodile areas, so many more! (I thought they all looked dead)

I took a lot of pictures of the boats, they were just so interesting!

The last day I surfed. The last day I found my passion. The last day I pet a turtle. The last day was the shortest, and one of the best. I am a little angry I waited until our last morning to try surfing, because I would've done it many more times if I had the chance. This experience was absolutely amazing! I caught a lot of waves and my instructor was very nice and helpful (and bonus: spoke a little English). The thrill of standing up and riding a wave was exhilarating and was definitely worth the paddling it took to get out to the waves. And the paddling sucked a lot if you were wondering. And one time while my instructor and I were waiting for a good wave a sea turtle swam right up next to my board!! I swam with it a little before it went away but that was such an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yes, we could've paid to swim with sea turtles which would have been cool (we could not because it rained too much so the tours were cancelled when we wanted to do them), but having one swim up next to you without having food in your hand or paying to (specifically) see one was better than I can describe. Unfortunately, I was informed it was sick which is why it was that close to the shore, which made me very sad and wishing I could help in some way but I couldn't. :( Anyway, surfing was so worth it and even though I face planted (...a few times) I was able to sit down on my board without falling after I rode a wave, which made me feel like a pro. A few of us have decided that we will be surfing in Lima in order to become a lot better by the time we leave in a few months. I think it is a great hobby and I love the ocean, so what better way to make all my muscles sore?

At one point my instructor flipped me off my board thinking I wanted to swim

Overall spring break was amazing and I wouldn't have wanted to spend it any other way or with any other people. I got plenty of relaxation time, and times of being busy. I am now back in Lima trying to decide if I should start my homework for tomorrow yet or not, wishing I could still be on the beach. This past week has reinforced that I will be living on a beach in my future, even if I have to deal with constantly being covered in sand- you win some, you lose some, right? This was easily the best spring break I have ever had.

My little <3

Our night out was National Pisco Sour Day, so of course we celebrated

We also celebrated National Pizza Day (soo good!!)

The sunsets were so breathtaking

I thought this hotel had an interesting name...I'm assuming business has gone down lately

How can I get my head out of the clouds with views like these?

Catacombs:

For one of our classes, we all went on a tour of downtown Lima on a double decker bus and stopped to tour the catacombs at the San Franciscan Catholic Church. No pictures were allowed but the church and beneath were really cool. We only saw part of the catacombs, but there were so many more parts we didn't see. It is so crazy to think when people died they just put the dead bodies in piles. Even creepier than that is years later when most of the church goers didn't even know they were right above an ancient burial ground, someone went down and organized the bones. There were parts with only femurs and parts with only skulls, some areas were in patterns...just crazy. The whole time I felt like I was Indiana Jones looking for some long lost treasure because some of you know how much I love those movies. 

The capital! 

There was a ton of European architecture in this area and it was beautiful

Panorama of one of the really cool squares we drove by

Don't remember what this was, but it was a majestic building lol

Since our Thursday class was moved to Tuesday for the bus tour, for the long(er) weekend some of us decided to take a trip to Huaraz. 

Huaraz:

The overnight, 8 hour bus ride consisted of no room to move around, no wifi (although it was promised), and a screaming 3 year old for over half of it (not an exaggeration). We finally arrived early in the morning in Huaraz and headed to the hostel to catch some much needed sleep. Later we explored a bit of the city and I found some llama park thing where, of course, I try to go make friends with them-they were not looking for any new friends I learned.  

Park of llamas I wanted to befriend 

Leo watching as none of his fellow llamas wanted to eat the grass I had picked as a friendship token. :(

I am ashamed to say I paid for this llamas friendship, and it was short lived. I saw it coming though since obviously he's too cool for me. 

Day 2 began our 3 day adventure. Some guy that stopped us outside the bus station tried selling us his tour, he ended up riding in our taxi to our hostel and since Amelio, the guy who ran the hostel, seemed to know what he was talking about we figured it wasn't a scam. So we handed over 100 Soles for our 3 days of adventuring (for those that don't know the conversion hat is $30. Yes. $10 for each day!) So Day 2 we hiked/rode some crazy horses to a glacier. The best purchase I have made so far is the 5 Soles I spent to rent a winter coat at the bottom. A sweatshirt and rain coat would not have helped in the sideways sleet that was pelting us. The view was pretty but really hard to enjoy when you just want to seek cover from the sleet hitting your eyes and neck. 

We were very happy about our new Peru hats

This is a picture of "Christ's Profile" (the far right of the snow capped mountain: the black parts are the hair, eye/eyebrow and beard)

You can easily see how excited this baby llama was to take a picture with me, I love her. 

We were so excited about our horses even though they ran up the mountain

You can see how cold it was but I almost got close enough to touch a glacier but we were too miserable to venture farther in the sleet to touch...more ice

That night after returning I bought an Alpaca sweater. This is the softest thing in the world and I love it so much because it kept me warm for the rest of the trip. (Side note: everyone in Lima told us to pack for winter, but when they wear jackets at night in Lima thinking it's cold when it's not we idiotically chose not to listen to them. Awful decision on all of our parts. It really is cold, even for Nebraska girls). 

Day 3 we hiked to Laguna 69 which is by far the most difficult thing I have ever done. On the drive there we stopped at another lagoon which was amazing, then had to continue another hour on a road that almost threw me out of my seat a few times. 

But seriously. How beautiful?

Now, the hike: dun dun duuunn

I'll set the mountain climbing scene: My shirt soaked in sweat, light rain drizzling down, gorgeous views, what felt like a completely vertical climb, my constant urge to throw up from start to finish,  the pounding headache, and soaking wet shoes from choosing the wrong path across the flat wetlands was what my day consisted of. But the sight at Laguna 69 was absolutely amazing that I can't put it into words. Now that my symptoms are gone I can say it was totally worth it, yesterday I may have had a different answer. There were so many times I wanted to give up and even more times when we thought it was right around the corner to then find out we weren't even half way there (these two usually events went hand-in-hand). I owe it all go Danielle and Gabi, we stuck together through all the pain, angry cows, hundreds of little breaks and wet shoes. It's easy to figure out that this was a very early night for us all. 

FINALLY we can see it!!

SUCCESS!!! 

I've never worked so hard for a pb&j sandwich and nor has one ever tasted better 

Absolutely amazing. 

For some reason I've had a hard time taking pictures seriously lately

Candid but cool (these people wouldn't move from where I wanted a picture taken lol) -photo cred to Danielle

Don't worry, I got the pic

Day 3 was...an adventure to say the least. Originally we were supposed to go to the glacier on this day but we changed it to the first day in order to do something different on day 3. So when we woke up Sunday we had no idea what the day held. We got on a bus, dressed for whatever mountain top or valley we were dropped off at and prayed to God it was not another hike. He must have heard us because we found out from someone who booked the tour knowing what they paid for that we were going to ruins that included no hike. YES!!! The ruins were interesting and we got to go down in a few labrum th areas below the structure. Ceilings were low and steps were high. I know people were shorter back then so I honestly have no clue how they got up and down those steps because it was a struggle for someone my size to conquer. 

Kind of hard to see, but this is the building

A bit closer

Underground

I love feeling like an explorer, even though I didn't discover this I kept looking for hidden messages or false rocks. Also I tried going down a dark staircase to explore fo real but unfortunately was talked out of it :( still regret that

Great way to end a day of exploring ruins

An even better place to have lunch. 

All in all it was a great, relaxing way to end a crazy weekend filled with llamas, exploring, new friends from around the world, and sore muscles. The 8 hour bus ride Sunday night had no air conditioning so it was again a sleepless 8 hour ride. This may be a rough week but we leave Thirsday afternoon for our 10 day spring break in Mancorra. One week I'm in the mountains, the next I'm laying on the beach for a week. No complaints here!!