Monstruos, Inc.

First, I'm going to start off telling you something that I forgot to tell you yesterday.  I learn so many new things that I can't remember them all.  I try to jot them down as they happen so that I remember, but sometimes I still forget.  Anyway, interesting fact about Peruvian weddings.  When my host mom and I were looking through photo albums yesterday, we came across pictures of her daughter's "wedding."  I say "wedding" just because the first pictures were not like the traditional American wedding.  She told me a story about her daughter getting married at the courthouse.  She explained that they (her daughter and son-in-law) went to the courthouse to sign the papers and then a week later they had the religious ceremony.  I asked if that was a normal thing and she said yes.  Usually a couple is legally married at a courthouse and then soon after they have the religious ceremony.  I just thought that was interesting and I wanted to share. :)

Entonces..on to today...I made it to my 8 a.m. class today.  Unfortunately though I had my first quiz over the reading that I "read" yesterday.  The quiz wasn't too bad or it wouldn't have been had I actually throughly read through the article, but again I'm not worried about that class yet because I still might drop or audit it.  My second class Realidad Social Peruana was interesting, too.  We're still talking about the Andian people (people who live in the Andes mountains) and today we discussed some of their farming techniques and technology, like the terraces they build in the mountainsides to farm easily.  He showed us pictures of the Valle Sagrado (which I'm going to in two days!) and another place that is cerca de Cusco, so I hope to go there, too.  Also, we talked more about cuy (guinea pig).  Apparently there is a belief that cuy can help diagnose a person with an illness.  A person who is ill rubs a guinea pig over his/her body and then they cut the cuy open and supposedly the cuy will be infected in the same place that the person is.  Now I don't know what you guys think of that, but according to science the results of the cuy are over 95% right.  ¡Qué extraño!  There have been scientific articles written on it.  I guess I'll believe it when I see it. :)  Then, I had Living and Learning where we talked about miscommunications in language and culture.  I had Spanish writing workshop today, too.  Nothing exciting happened in that class, so moving on...Etnografía Amazónica..oh wait, nothing happened in that class either because it was cancelled..again!  The professor did at least send an e-mail this time, apparently he is really sick, which is unfortunate.  It sounds like he needs to get ahold of a cuy.

Anyway, since I didn't have that class, I happily came home and watched Monstruos, Inc. (Monsters, Inc.) on TV.  I don't know if you know this or not, but kids movies are always cuter in other languages (when you know the other language)!!  Also, tonight I had Pardos Chicken for dinner.  Which is the restaurant that my host mom took me to the first day that I met her.  I've been craving it for awhile now so I'm glad that I got to eat it again finally. :)  I leave for Cusco in the early early morning.  I was supposed to be at the airport at 5:15 a.m., but our flight got changed so now it's 4:30!  That's early.  That means I will be getting up around 3.  Good thing tomorrow is a rest day so that we get used to the altitude to avoid altitude sickness!  Hopefully that doesn't happen to me.  Anyway, I will blog when I get a chance to.  Hopefully, I'll have access to a computer just so that I can space out my experiences a little rather than having one HUGE blog again.  Buenas noches!!