Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Holy Week Was Good to Me

This past weekend was Semana Santa, where instead of celebrating Easter like most Christian/Catholic countries, everyone goes on vacation. They get Thursday and Friday off of school and work and head out of town. So we did the same. A few of us packed up our backpacks and crammed in a bus to Punta Hermosa to enjoy the beach. We stayed with one of Danielle's friends and the apartment was packed. Thursday night we just hung out in the apartment waiting for everyone to arrive (and celebrating me getting a job offer:)!!!). And then Friday we went to the beach for a little bit and Emi and I went exploring on the beach. We found this really amazing cave and little door into the mountain that I took maybe 100 pictures of. We went in the cave and it was all drippy and creepy and damp and it ended up just being an open space. Nothing too exciting. 
How cool does that look??
Even better up close
The cave
The stairway we had to climb a rock to get on
But we still climbed it, of course. We're adventurers!
Me being an idiot in a picture, what's new?

That night we went rode in a cramped van with 13 people for an hour to another beach, Asia. There I ate a terrible burger at their local fast food joint, Bembos, then headed to the overly expensive club. After I bought a bottle of water for an overly expensive 10 soles, Emi and I were ready to go home to sleep. So Danielle, Emi and I waited outside until the rest of the crew was ready ro head back. 
Saturday we woke up super early because, even though we went to bed around 3, apparently Peruvians don't sleep. So the music was blasting by 8 am. We got up for a lazy day, but it was Emi's 21st birthday so it was a good one!! We walked to the stores a few times and ate dinner at a little restaurant before getting ready to go to another club in Punta Hermosa that night. We got a box in this club so it was a lot of fun and they played American music for a little bit, which always pumps us up. Then we all salsa-danced the night away. I had a really great night and almost made it to see the sun rise, but I missed it by about 30 minutes. So going to bed at 4:30 and being woken up at 9 did not make for a happy Shelby. But Danielle and Emi made some bomb grilled cheeses and we were on our way back to Lima. We made some really good friends this weekend and everyone was so nice and welcoming!! Us Americans also had a weekend full of practicing our Spanish (although we did cheat a few times and speak English with the Peruvians as well). 
Angelo! And Cristina! 2 awesome people I met this weekend
Hey thanks for letting me borrow your clothes. Love you <3

Happy birthday to my hair-flipping child
I wish I would've gotten a picture with the tall furry blue hat she was sporting all weekend
I have beautiful friends :)

The rest of the week has been pretty normal...I've had sushi 3 days in a row, which makes me a very happy camper. Other than that, just livin the normal Lima-life! Not quite ready to come home and it's stressing me out, especially since I have a new job so it's like real life I have to go start. Woah. I'm so excited about this job though. Seriously. And not just because it's a job, it's exactly what I've been looking for!! Not only is it a non-profit, but an internation and well known non-profit!! And I'll be both marketing and fundraising (which are two different jobs I was looking for in one!) and a bonus of overseeing event planning for fundraising events!! I am beyond blessed to recover this job at the start of my career with a boss I think I'm really going to get along with (from how the interview went). 

And to add to all of that happiness, my mom arrives a week from today!! Then the next weekend in the Amazon swimming with dolphins and playing with monkeys, then the following weekend my dad arrived for a few days in Lima as well! I'm quickly running out of time and becoming very busy, but that's what the last few weeks of vacation college is for right??

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Tip: Don't Get Lost in Sketchy Neighborhoods


This is from the last post but I just got the picture and it makes me happy :)

St. Patrick's Day was quite the event.
First, my host dad guilted convinced me into waking up at 5am to go pick up yet another new host sister from the airport. So my day started very early, but Anna is from Oklahoma and is super sweet! I'm excited to get to know her in the month I have left!
For class we headed to Central Lima to see the changing of the guards, which I never ended up getting to see. This begins the Week of Lost Shelby. Mariah, Purina, Gabi and I hopped in a cab an hour and a half before the changing of the guards started at noon. This was the first female cab driver I had seen in Lima so that was pretty exciting, but she took us through some back roads and some sketchy parts of Lima. She would point out the window and tell us that that is one of the poorest parts of the city...cool. Then we sat in traffic for a solid 40 minutes maybe moving a maximum of 4 blocks that whole time. We were only about 6 blocks away from the Presidential Palace at this point so we kept asking if we could walk from here and she said "no, we are very close" alright. It is now after noon and the changing of the guards has started. We wait in the steaming hot taxi in a part of the city none of us had ever been to before until we got to a gate that was closing the road we needed to take. We decided to get out here and walk the rest of the way because the traffic was making us all way too annoyed. We walked through the gate and then got to another gate where some police officers said we could not pass and had to walk around this other huge building. So we started walking. And walking. And walking. We were not sure when we would be able to turn to go around this building because we passed another closed street. We walked deeper and deeper into the neighborhood we knew nothing about. Now, by this point in my study abroad I am used to being yelled at and whistled at. It happens so often that, just like the constant noise of car alarms, I don't really pay attention to it anymore. But during this walk, it was bad. Very bad. We were all holding onto our purses and I was walking as fast as my little legs could carry me. We walked down a street where on the other side of the road were upwards of 20-30 men standing and leaning against the building. They proceeded to yell and scream and make a large ruckus as we hustled along the other side of the road. This was terrifying. Having that many people at once was new to all of us, so we kept our heads down and moved along. We eventually got to the part of Central Lima that we had been to before and we relaxed a little as we just caught a glimpse of our group going into a large church as we made it to the square. We were finally safe. After looking at the church we all headed to another square, then to China town for lunch. I was starving and about ready to punch a wall out of hunger, so we found a really delicious Chinese restaurant that had lunch for only about $4! Score!!
We then headed to supposedly a hotel that has the "Best Pisco Sour" to begin our St. Patrick's Day celebrations (unfortunately it was one of the worst pisco sours in my opinion). We spent the next few hours at an Irish bar before heading to Emi's to pregame a little before the club. I did not make it to said club, instead I decided to walk around the city all night talking my little heart out with Emi's boyfriend.
China Town
We like free drinks- thanks Starbra <3
The worst "Best Pisco Sour"

Friday we went our college's International Student Orientation (for the students starting school this week- their summer just finished last week, so we're on a different schedule) then spent some time at Claire's pool. We headed to Miraflores to go back to the amazing sushi restaurant we ate at a few weeks ago and wandered around hoping to run into it. Which we eventually did, and it ended up being closed for another 45 minutes. Just my luck. So instead we went to Chili's and our server was racist and rude to us the whole time. We complained to the manager about being ignored and having all of our food messed up and how rude our server was and apparently the server's excuse was that he "didn't speak any english." That is not an excuse to be rude to us because we never once spoke in English to him, I even asked him a question in Spanish, but apparently that was not enough to treat us with respect. Instead he joked around with the table right next to us and had someone else come fling ketchup on our table. We ended up getting a free dessert out of it so it didn't end up too bad.

Sunday I went with my host parents and foreign sisters to the pool where we all got burnt to a crisp. I am still nursing my tomato-red stomach, but my legs did me proud and turned into a tan instead of nasty peeling. After the pool, as a family, we went to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Let me say that again for emphasis: ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT SUSHI. Good? Okay. It was amazing and I am not able to remember how many I ate, but I could barely walk back to the car. It was so delicious and somehow I even fit a few dessert sushi rolls in there at the end. Ice cream wrapped in crepe with fudge on top. Omg.
Before the burns
Leche de Tigre ("Tigre's Milk") is so delicious
Barra Libre= All You Can Eat!!
I love my parents lol
The dessert sushi :))

Tuesday night a few of us went to Parque de Las Aguas which was so cool. There were water shows with lights and water tunnels and fun stuff. I need to go back so I can enjoy it to the fullest potential, and not when I'm hungry.
Ice Cream dates are fun
I didn't get to see the whole show...
...which just means I have to go back again...
...right?
You could walk inside this one!
Aren't we beautiful?
Nah this is a better view
Water tunnel!!!!
So majestic

Other than that, my week hasn't been too exciting. I've eaten sushi 2 more times since Sunday because why not. And I bought my tickets for my TRIP TO THE AMAZON!!! Just wait for that exciting blog post because there are so many animals I will see and (Im going to swim with dolphins...I will 200% cry).

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The Witch and the Pool House

A few exciting events happened this week within the beautiful city of Lima. Since our class was changed last Thursday, Ahnika, Francesca (my German host sister) and I headed to Barranco to hit the beach a little bit. We didn't get there until late afternoon, but we got a little time to enjoy the sand between our toes before heading up to none other than the Burrito Bar. I enjoyed showing Francesca my favorite part of the city and the plaza that comes to life at night!
The city is filled with murals, and this is another that I found and love!!

SKRILLEX
Four of us decided to spend $30 to go see a concert. This was one of the best choices I could have made for a weekend at home. Leaving from my house, we headed to KFC to grab a quick bite before making the drive to wherever this place was. The fries were beyond disappointing and I pulled back my nail for some below-par ketchup. The night is not starting out well. Around 8:00 we get to the concert (an hour before the ticket says the starting time is) in order to get good spots. We walk in and the place has way too many kids for this concert. But we get some drinks and head into the crowd. We spend most of this hour trying to figure out how we can get into the VIP area so we can be closer to the stage. It was unsuccessful, mainly because we didn't actually act on our ideas. The opener comes on and is very quiet and not that exciting. We bare through that and I cheer very hard when he finishes up because I am ready for him to leave the stage...finally. Then, instead of Skrillex, another opener comes out. Ugh! Luckily this one is much better than the last and I enjoy it more. But around midnight when Skrillex was still not on the stage, too squished, too hot, and too sober. Annika and I decided to leave our spots and head back to a table so we could have some breathing room. This is what turned the night around. Right when we got back there we sat on a high-top table and at 1:00 am, Skrillex decided to grace us with his presence. I got to enjoy the concert with room to breathe and a place to sit if need be. Some guys who were sharing our table with eventually asked if we would like a drink, so we graciously accepted. They turned out to be very nice and gave us more than enough drinks to enjoy the rest of the concert. And the best part was, they didn't judge me and Ahnika for our eccentric dance moves! The night ended up being an absolute blast!!

Brisas del Titicaca
The next morning, for our Thursday class that was moved, we went to a Dinner Show-typeofthing. They served us lunch and had dance performances and opportunities for the audience to dance as well! All the music was traditional Peruvian music and all the performances had very intricate costumes and were so interesting! Even though it was a billion degrees in the building and I saw one too many fans not being utilized, it was a great experience and a lot of fun! I'm sure it would have been even cooler if we were Peruvian or with a Peruvian that knew the history of each of the dances, because there were many times I was lost. Some of those masks and costumes were a little creepy... During the audience-dance-breaks, there were these 2 cute old ladies who came over to pull us out of our seats. In our culture, being the first one on the dance floor (or even setting foot on the dance floor) is dreaded. But here practically everyone left their seats and were dancing it up to the lively salsa music. It was a great sight to see!
My huge plate that I barely put a dent in, but it was so good
Sorry I didn't take many pictures, but this is the one I did get

Millionaire Life
Sunday, instead of going to a pool with my host parents like was planned, they took us to a friend's house outside of Lima for a BBQ! Except this was their not-on-a-beach beach house, it was like a small resort that they owned and it was so beautiful. There was a huge garden, a pool, like 5 rooms you could easily make into a small hotel. Francesca and I enjoyed the day in the pool with our parents and their extremely nice friends. Also the cookout was so delicious that the food melted in my mouth (salivating just thinking about it). It was a beautiful day, not too hot and just the right amount of color on my skin. I literally spent the whole day thinking: "I am so happy. This is a great life." I could not stop smiling on the inside just thinking about how great my weekend had been. :)
Also I really love my host family. They are just great people and I am so lucky. My dad isa riot and we have so much fun picking on each other. He has taken a liking to calling me "Bruja" (witch) whenever he greets me and I have not quite figured out why yet...one time he motioned to my hair but that still does not clear it up for me. More news to come on that.
Me and Francesca living it up by the pool
Jaime was yelling at me for taking too many photos of the house and not enough of him and his friends
The patio
Pool life
I really like fountains.


Tuesday night my parents took me and Francesca to see the "club" they're apart of. This "club" is way beyond a country club or whatever I was expecting. It is like a whole city! There are 3 beaches with tons of beach chairs and umbrellas. There were shops. There were at least 5 restaurants and even more little concession stands. There were indoor olympic sized pools (that walking into the building gave me flashbacks to my childhood as a swimmer). There was a huge gym. Anything you needed, other than a place to sleep, was there. We got the grand tour from my parents and then headed up to enjoy dinner overlooking the entire coastline of Lima. It was breathtaking and so amazing. I'm considering going during the day to enjoy the beach, but it was 80 soles, which is expensive for this cheapskate.
You can see this cross from all down the coast. And I found the base of it!
A lovely night on the water 
...even if I look like a giraffe
The views and the breeze.

Wednesday morning the Nebraska girls all went to a very small school in Central Lima that's in a shantytown. It gave me flashbacks to my trips to Haiti, but I loved it (probably because I loved Haiti so so so much). There were murals that were painted on the side of buildings that were amazing and I wish I would have gotten pictures of them, but alas, I did not. Anyway, in the classroom we split up the 11 kids into 3 groups and played games with them. I was in the math group, and since math isn't the best subject (sorry Gabi) we decided to bring some candy to make it more exciting. So we played math Bingo with our 4 kids and they loved it (I'd like to say it was because of the game, but it was probably more based on the candy they had sitting on their boards). After the first game was done, we headed out to recess where I was expecting, based on my experiences, to get mauled by children. I was correct. I ended up being a horse running around the courtyard playing freeze tag with a 9 year old child on my back. But I loved it. They were all so happy to have us running around playing with them, and I could not laughing (or sweating). We only got to spend just less than an hour at the school, and I wish I could have gotten a lot more. But the experience was still wonderful and made my heart full. :)

It's crunch time and we are all ready to start kicking our live-life-to-the-fullest attitudes to the test. I only have so many more days left (I refuse to actually count them out because I am not going to be focused on the end. Only the now.), so the trip planning and pure happiness is about to start rolling again.
I cannot wait.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Machu Picchu, The Sacred Valley, and a Little Surprise Adventure

Last Thursday, Claire and I went out for some Sushi with 2 of her Peruvian friends and it was some of the best sushi I have ever eaten. We then went to the beach for a while and explored a new part of Miraflores for the afternoon. I then returned home and found my birthday package from Kendle, Brandon, Tony and Totzel which just made my day that much more amazing. I loved it!! (And of course Tony threw in a picture of us to decorate my desk with haha)

The Reese's melted, but that just meant I had to eat them right away ;)

This past weekend we traveled to Cusco and went on a trip to see a lot of ruins scattered around the region. I loved it all so much.
I woke up at 5am and headed to the airport in order to make it there by 6am, we then sat around for 3 hours waiting for our plane. None of us really know why our school told us to be there 3 hours in advance, but being the good, timely americans that we are, we did it. Finally arriving in Cusco that afternoon, we headed to the hotel to drop our stuff off and our tour guide, Nilo, and bus driver, Dino, picked us up to take us to Saqsaywaman ruins just outside of the city. Here were some enormous boulders that were somehow lifted and sculpted to make the walls and it was a huge complex.
So amazing!
These upside-down steps were for the souls to leave the burial chamber- creepy!
This is one of the many sacrificial rocks
This is another, they changed which rock was used depending on where the sun was
Group pictures for the win
Probably the most breathtaking church I have ever seen.

MACHU PICCHU:
This is the day I have been waiting for since I decided to come to Peru. My first world wonder and it was absolutely amazing. This was another early morning, leaving the hotel by 6:20 and taking a bus, a train, and another bus to reach the mountainous ruins. We did not hike to the ruins, but there were 4-day, 2-day and 1-day hikes available- I would really like to return and actually hike to the ruins sometime!! Anyway after we climbed some steps...a lot of steps... we reached the picturesque location overlooking the iconic ruins. And unfortunately, as amazing as they were they looked exactly as I had expected. This was disappointing to me until I took in everything surrounding me. The huge mountain range, and the ruins on the mountain tops surrounding Machu Picchu made it a lot better. But what I found to be even better than the basic picture-taking spot, was the venture into the ruins. Yes! I actually got to walk where the Incan people lived so long ago! This was so breathtaking: the intricacy of the buildings, the way it was set up, the lack of barriers preventing me from falling to my death below. Our tour guide had a ton of information that really put the whole place into perspective for me. And I find it so interesting that "Inca" was actually their name for their king, not the actual group of people! It was an amazing day of exploring, but it was very rushed. Our tour guide was constantly telling us to keep moving so it was hard for me to take in the grandness of it all, which is why I would like to go back eventually and really take it in.
Unfortunately, the pictures I took on my camera did not turn out (none of them) >:( so I will have to share pictures from my friends who graciously is filling that void in my life.
We returned to Agua Calientes to eat, shop a little bit, and board the train back to our van. The shopping was amazing, the market was quite large and there were a lot of souvenirs!
The patchwork of the valley was absolutely beautiful
Mountain ranges and valleys
We enjoyed our picture stops on the drive to the train

Me and my wonderful Little

"Shelby take a picture of us!" Alright, you asked for it
Very nice train taking us to Agua Calientes (then bus to Machu Picchu)
Omg we're finally here!!
I love this world.
Classic Machu Picchu picture
My lovely Little and me
Instead of the Incas, Llamas now inhabit this monument- they don't even know the beauty
My mind is still trying to figure out how they made these stairs from boulders all over the site
The intricacy of the buildings is so cool
I'm running out of adjectives for "amazing"
A sacrificial temple. The bottom of the stairs goes to below the ground, and the top goes to this world
And the very top temple is for the above ground sacrifices
Sacrifices (also our tour guide had us sit on a big rock then informed us afterwards it was used for sacrifices... cool)
I think I've fallen in love with Llamas
Once you feed them apple pieces, all is good with the world

The last day, we visited some ruins and shopping locations in The Sacred Valley, which was beautiful! The ruins did not really meet the expectations after Machu Picchu but it was interesting that they were all pre-Incan ruins! We visited another giant market that we wandered in and got lost in a few times, but it was very successful.
Panorama of the Sacred Valley
Two girls in traditional dress- I love it a lot!
A beautiful after lunch view of a garden and another one of my Llama friends
Represent #UNK
I watched this lady made these belts for a solid 5 minutes. This is how they make bracelets, blankets, belts and a lot of other stuff by hand. I also have a recording if anyone is interested!! :)

The weekend was amazing and it is something I would go back to see again in a heartbeat (even though most Peruvians think Machu Picchu is a one-time thing). I got a lot of my souvenirs bought and I may or may not have walked out with 2 blankets for myself... whoops. One is such a Peruvian pattern that I see all over in the mountains that I just had to buy it, and the other was made of Alpaca fur, so (again) I just had to buy it.
So much love.
...even if I did pay wayyy too much for it

Cusco itself we ventured out twice for just a little bit, but it is very touristy and we couldn't walk through any of the plazas without getting harassed to either buy a tour or go into their restaurant. But the churches were beautiful! We went in one church the first day, but pictures were not allowed, unfortunately. But the altars were so intricate and every wall was covered in detail- beautiful!

Then on Monday, I got to meet my German host sister!! She arrived Saturday while I was exploring Machu Picchu, but I already like her a lot and am excited to have her around! :)
I had a good great time teaching my host dad about Snapchat

My unexpected adventure:
So Sunday I noticed I had some blisters where some one of my bug bites used to be on my ankle. It itched like crazy and was just plain ugly. So when I showed my host parents Monday at lunch when I returned from the airport, they rushed me to the clinic. After getting a blood test and a doctor telling me I need to return the next day to see a dermatologist, it was unsuccessful. I returned at 1 the next day after class and apparently she was on a 3-hour lunch break, so I had to leave and return again at 3. I put my name in and was told to wait and I would see her at 5:30, great. Annika was there to help me translate the parts that I didn't know, and I am oh so extremely thankful for her because she didn't realize she would be there for 7 hours! The dermatologist did not seem too worried, I took the prescription to the pharmacy downstairs and bought some pills, a cream, and a shot (yes I had to buy the needle and injection fluid myself). I then took the needle to a nurse to inject me (in my hip, apparently). This was the most painful shot I have ever felt, and I'm usually pretty good with these. Walking Limping (due to my numb leg) outside to meet my host dad, I started getting very lightheaded and felt like I was going to pass out/puke. When my host dad and my German host sister showed up, they said I looked green and felt freezing to the touch, but I was sweating bullets.
Back to the Emergency Room I go.
A wheelchair was brought out, luckily I was sitting right outside the ER, and I was taken in. More blood tests, a urine test and an IV later, apparently the nurse did not dilute the medicine enough and should have put it in my vain since I am small. What I gathered was I just passed out from the pain. So I went from having an infected bug bite, to sitting in the hospital for 7 hours, ending with a visit to the emergency room. What a great day I had.
Afterwards, Ahnika, my host sister, Francesca, and I went across the street to get BOGO ice cream from McDonald's for International Day of the Girl (yes we all had 2, I think I deserved it).
Annika and Francesca took over my phone while I'm lying in the hospital bed, so grateful for their company <3 <3