Puno/Arequipa (Día 6)

Finally, here is Day 6 and the final day of our Puno/Arequipa trip.  Although this was the last day in Arequipa, we were still able to get a few more tourist-y things done.  We started our day at 11:30 a.m. because we slept in since we had had a long day the day before at Colca Canyon.  When we left the hostel we got a taxi straight to Molinos de Sanbandia, which is an old mill that was built in the 1700s and it lies in the outskirts of Arequipa.  It was a nice little trip, but there wasn't a whole lot to see.  However, it was nice to see some fields and there was a good view of Volcán Misti.

The grinding mechanism

The watermill which causes the mill to work :)

Volcán Misti

After the small trip to the mill we headed back to the central plaza and found a kind of sketchy place to eat pollo a la brasa (grilled chicken).  Luckily, all of us survived the meal, probably because we followed it up with the deliciously creamy ice cream from the supermarket.  We also went shopping and found a Andean Christmas CD complete with panpipes and guitars. :)  It's a pretty joyful CD.  This is essentially what it consists of:

Our next stop was an art gallery that (obviously) had a few pieces of art in it.  As we looked at the artwork, I began to look at the booklet I was given about the art, well much to my surprise the art was done by people who did not have use of their upper limbs so they painted using a paint brush in their mouths.  I was amazed!  The artwork was sooo good and there was so much detail in some of them.  I guess that teaches you to push the limits and never say "I can't."

Me with one of the artists

After that, we took a stroll through the Casa de Moral, which is an old house that was built in the 1730s.  It has a mixture of baroque, European, and indigenous architectures and, in my opinion, the set-up of the house was pretty interesting.  There was also an art gallery in the house and because the house is now owned by one of the banks in Peru, there was a gallery of all the different coins and bills from the past.  We also were allowed to go to the roof of the house as well to check out the view.

Dining Room

View from the roof - the house is a rectangle with a patio in the center

Bedroom

I took a picture of this because it's Larcomar!!!
(Larcomar is the mall that was two blocks from my house in Lima)

Old money - The Inti

Once we were done at the Casa de Moral, we picked up our bags at the hostel and headed to the bus terminal.  We had a long journey ahead of us.  We left Arequipa on the bus at 4 p.m. and we had a 15 hour trip over night back to Lima.  On the bus, we watched the movie Real Steel, which I thought was going to be terrible, but I actually really liked it!  We also played Bingo and we were fed a decent meal.  Unfortunately, Tonisha and I also had to work on our presentations since we had those the next day at 10 a.m.  Tonisha went to sleep while I watched the movie, The Knowing and then I went to sleep as well.  Tonisha and I took pictures every hour of the trip, well not every hour, but every hour before I feel asleep.  There's a total of 8 photos and some of them are quite unattractive as the trip goes on, but I will show you the starting and ending photos. :)

4:08 p.m. (Leaving Arequipa)

6:58 a.m. (Pulling into Lima)

Overall, the 6 days away from Lima were amazing!  It was a fun trip and a great way to end my time in Peru.  I hope you have enjoyed reading about the 6 days away!  I'm still not done blogging so keep checking back to see my lists of "Things I miss/don't miss/on the fence."  Have a good night!

Puno/Arequipa (Día 5)

Day 5 = Colca Canyon tour day!

We woke up at 2:05 a.m. and we were on a bus at 2:50 a.m.  It was cold outside, but luckily the tour company gave us blankets on the bus and I tried to sleep most of the way.  We stopped at 5:30 a.m. to get a closer look at the mountains and Volcán Misti.  We also saw some vicuñas, which is a relative to alpacas and llamas, but the vicuña is known as the princess of the Andes.  When we stopped to check out the view, it was -2 degrees Celsius out (28.4 degrees Fahrenheit).  I was reluctant to get out in the cold, but I did anyway so that I could snap some pictures.

Some mountain peaks.  One of them is
Mount Ampato where Juanita was found.

Vicuñas

Sun rising

Our next stop was at 6:15 a.m.  We went to some hot springs, which were so nice since it was still really cold outside, but I felt fine after getting in the 38 degree Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) hot spring.  Next we stopped for breakfast, which really just consisted of bread, tea, and coffee, but in my opinion, that was a perfect breakfast!  Once we were on the road again, we stopped several times (too many) before making it to the Colca Canyon.  We stopped at a town called Maca, where I got to hold an Andean Eagle.  We also stopped along the road several times in order to look at the landscape with all the terraces.

Me with the Andean Eagle

Mirador de Antahailque:  The Colca River

We also went through a 400 meter tunnel that was in the middle of the mountain and we finally made it to the Colca Canyon.  The main place to view the canyon is from a place called Cruz del Condor, but we didn't stop there.  We actually stopped before that point and took a 45ish minute hike to the Cruz del Condor.  We also saw the place where Ciro was found.  Okay, so I know none of you know who Ciro is, but I'm going to tell you.  Ciro was a Peruvian man who went hiking with his girlfriend in Colca Canyon.  Well, they got lost and his girlfriend was found 10 days later alive, however, Ciro was found dead 6 months later.  Now, what's the reason I'm telling you this?  I'm telling you this because it was huge news in Peru.  There has been a huge controversy on whether it was an accident or whether it was murder by his girlfriend.  Well, it was found that the girlfriend was not guilty, but obviously some people still disagree.  It was funny though because before we left on this trip everybody was telling us not to end up like Ciro.  Tonisha, Sheila, and I decided that it was Mark that should have been worried since he was the only guy. :)

The area where they found Ciro's body.  They were clearly somewhere
they weren't supposed to be because you couldn't see any clear trails on that mountain.

Colca Canyon

Okay, now for the next controversial issue.  Is Colca Canyon the deepest canyon in the world?  Our guide told us yet, but I feel like he is supposed to say that, but everything that I have read pretty much says that it was, but now it's not, so pretty much it's arguable!  Recently, the Cotahuasi Canyon, which is actually close by the Colca Canyon, was named the deepest canyon because it is supposedly 335 meters deeper than Colca.  There's also another "canyon" that is deeper than Cotahuasi, but some scientist somewhere decided that it was a gorge not a canyon.  So pretty much Colca Canyon is either the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd deepest canyon in the world.  Moral of the story:  Colca Canyon is a really deep canyon.  Also, I do know that Colca is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, which is cool.  Although Colca was impressive, I'm really interested to see the Grand Canyon now, because, from pictures, the Grand Canyon looks prettier!

Sheila, Tonisha, Mark, and I at Colca Canyon

Okay, I'm done blabbering now, well, maybe not, but you get the point.  We finally left the canyon after awhile, but before leaving we saw a condor fly by, hence the name, Cruz del Condor.  On the way home, we stopped at an Arequipeño buffet, which was really good, but it was kind of a tourist trap because obviously the tour company would take was to an expensive buffet place.  At least it was good though, right?  Right!

We finally headed back to Lima and we drove through the National Reserve of Salinas and Aguada Blanca, where we saw a bunch of alpacas, llamas, and vicuñas. See...

Once we got back to Lima, we were finally able to go inside the Catedral of Arequipa.  The outside is beautiful so I was excited to finally see the inside.

Organ

Our next stops included a stroll in the Regional Library and a peek into the Iglesia de San Francisco because they were in the middle of mass.  Then, we went shopping to the markets, where I picked up a few Christmas presents. :)  By that time, we were all really hungry because it had been a long day so after a long time of debating on where to go for dinner, we chose a pizza place and we all got the lasagna special.  It was pretty good, but the best part was our waitress!  She was SO nice!  We gave her a huge tip and I'm pretty sure she was shocked by what we gave her.  We then hit up some more markets, got some ice cream (of course), and headed back to the hostel.  I worked on Tonisha and I's presentations that we had to do and we watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in Spanish.  Then, it was off to bed to get ready for our last day in Arequipa! :)

Bueñas noches!  Happy Holidays!

Puno/Arequipa (Día 4)

Okay, here's Day 4 of the Puno and Arequipa trip!  On this day, we slept in a little bit and when I woke up, I took a much needed long and warm shower.  As we were getting ready to leave the hostel for the day we were asking the owner of the hostel what to do and for any suggestions of his.  We'll we got to talking about our Colca Canyon tour that we had scheduled for the next day and it turns out that we (I) picked a ricidulously priced tour company.  We were going to pay $35 dollars for the tour when in reality we should only be paying around S/.50 ($18.54).  Thank you owner of the hostel!  You saved us $16.46!!  We didn't end up leaving the hostel until around 11:45 a.m., but don't worry we still got a lot done during the day, starting with going to Colonial Tours to get a better Colca Canyon tour scheduled.  After we got that scheduled we went to this place called Mamut for lunch.  It was delicious!  It was a nice little sandwich place and they had really good juices as well.  I had a turkey sandwich and a delicious chicha morada con maracuya (the purple corn drink mixed with passion fruit) to drink.  After that, we took a short trip to the ATM and the supermarket (they had soft serve ice cream for sale that Tonisha and I got).  It was so creamy!  Sorry Tonisha for being a bad ice cream influence.

We then went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos, which is famous for having the ice princess, Juanita.  When we got to the museum, we saved money for the second time that day because there was an awesome student discount.  Advice for future study abroad students:  Bring your student ID everywhere!  You never know when you'll get a discount!  Anyway, we started the tour with a 20-minute video on the finding of Juanita, as well as other mummies that have been found on the mountains/volcanoes of Arequipa.  Juanita was found on Mount Ampato by Johan Reinhard and Miguel Zárate.  She is thought to be in the lower teen years and she was killed as a sacrifice for the Incan gods.  Anyway, the tour was pretty good, but it was cold!  They keep Juanita at a cold temperature to perserve her because that's the climate she was found in.  It's also very dark in the room where she is.  It seems that they keep her very well perserved, but Sheila told me that actually she's already starting to deteriorate, but who knows.  We weren't allowed to take pictures obviously, but here's an internet photo.

Juanita

Anyway, after the museum, we headed on over to the infamous Monsterio de Santa Catalina.  It's a monastery that was closed to the public for 390 years and then it was open to the public in the year 1970, so now there are many tours that go through there daily.  There are still people living there in solitude and silence, however they are in a new part of the monastery that is obviously not open to the public.  First of all, the place is ginormous!!!  It's literally huge.  I wish I could explain it to you.  There are so many nooks and crannies everywhere and if the workers at the monastery hadn't told us to stay to the left while walking through it, we would've honestly gotten lost in there.

A map of the monastery.  See, it's big!

We saw so many cells and kitchens and the "streets" of the monastery are really pretty.

A cell

Kitchen

Calle Toledo (one of the streets)

At one point on the tour we were allowed to go to the roof and it was an amazing view of Arequipa.  It was probably my favorite part of the tour.  You could see the mountains and Volcán Misti that surround Arequipa.

View from the roof

Next, we started our hunt to look at the local churches since there are hundreds of them (not really hundreds-I don't think).  We started at the Iglesia de la Compañía.  It was pretty just llike all the other ones. :)  The work inside the churches are always so intricate.  There's always a ton of gold work.  I tihnk that the gold work is pretty, but personally I prefer stained glassed window, but I didn't see a lot of those in Arequipa.

The front of the Iglesia de la Compañía

We tried going into the Catedral in the Plaza de Armas, but it's closed on Sundays, which doesn't make any sense to me, but no worries we moved onto the next church, Iglesia San Agustín, but they were in mass, however, we did get to peek in at the inside and then we saw the flood of people leaving because mass ended soon after we arrived.

The people getting out of mass

After all the walking and touring, we were hungry and we wanted to try some Arequipeña food, so we found a restaurant that appeared to be local and indeed it was.  All four of us got a different dish so we could try everything.  I got cauche de queso and the other dishes were rocoto relleno, pastel de papa, and soltero de queso.  To be honest I didliked every dish except for Sheila's pastel de papa.  It pretty much tasted like scalloped potatoes.  Yum!  I also decided that Arequipeñas really like their cheese because every single dish had cheese with it and the cheese ice cream that I tried at Mistura (the food festival) is Arequipeño.  Speaking of ice cream, since we're (I'm) ice cream addicts, we went for ice cream after dinner.  It wasn't the best ice cream however it was still good because I tried a flavor called Selva Negra.  I'm still not sure what it was, but it tasted familiar and it was good.

Pastel de papa

Soltero de queso

Rocoto relleno

Cauche de queso

We then took a trip to the supermarket to get snack/water for the next day on our Colca Canyon tour.  We went back to the hostel and watched the movie Hitch in Spanish and we were in bed by 9:15 p.m. because our tour for Colca was starting the next day at 3 a.m.  Well, that's the end of Day 4.  Stay tuned for Day 5 in Colca Canyon, arguably the world's deepest canyon.

Puno/Arequipa (Día 3)

Okay, I'm finally getting back to writing my blogs.  I actually wrote some of these Puno/Arequipa blogs on the plane so all I had to do was type this up and add pictures. :)

Anyway, finally it's here...Day 3!!  Day 3 didn't start very well because I woke up at around 5:30 a.m.m and had probably one of teh worst headaches of my life.  The altitude finally caught up to me.  I must not have drank enough water the day before.  Plus, the lack of oxygen when sleeping is kind of rough.  Anyway, I tried to sleep until breakfast, but it was hard to do with the headache, but fortunately, Sheila had Advil so I was better by the time breakfast was over.  Breakfast consisted of this pancake/crepe looking thing, bread, and tea.  It was good and soon after we said goodbye to our host family and Benigno (our host grandfather) walked us to the port, where we then said goodbye to him.  We boarded the boat and we went on our way to Isla Taquile.  It was about an hour boat ride and I slept the entire way.

Isla Taquile and Lake Titicaca

Once we arrived to the island, we hiked to the Plaza (yep, just Plaza, there's no police force there either).  The hike wasn't too difficult, we that's what I say now because I am not there hiking it, but I'm not going to complain because the Taquile people (and others from that region) can carry almost 40 kilograms (around 88lbs) on their backs while hiking, which is just crazy.  I witnessed it and it just didn't look fun.  Anyway, at the Plaza we walked around and also looked at the Tejido, which was pretty much a market filled with things sewn by the men and women of Taquile.  I didn't buy anything there because stuff was rather expensive there, however, I did buy two bracelets from a little girl, Mary Luisa, on the street.  After the time in the Plaza, we hiked to some nearby Pre-Incan ruins.  There were still some stone houses, but other than that, there wasn't too much to see.

Pre-Incan ruins

However, two interesting things we could see were the snowy caps of the highest mountain peak in Bolivia and the town of Picuyo (I think that was the name of it), but since I am not 100% sure of the name, let's just call it cocaine land, meaning it's the town that has the highest cocaine production in Peru.  Our guide told us that it's also the town that has the most luxerious cars in it.  Our guide also told us that no police are allowed in the town.  Ha, I wonder why?  Pretty much you're probably in danger just for going near the town.

After that, we hiked to a restaurant for lunch.  Every restaurant on the island has the exact same menu choices: trout (from the lake) and an omelette.  They also, like the houses on Amantani, have a rotation so that each restaurant gets the same attention from tourists.  Before eating though, we learned some things about the Taquile people.  Number 1:  Their wedding ceremony is 7 days long and it's fun for everyone except for the couple.  The couple have many rules that they must follow.  For example, they have to remain serious, they cannot eat using their hands, they can't talk, and a couple months before the ceremony, the women must cut off her hair and the man weaves it into a belt.  More on the weaving habits of men... Like on Amantani, the man must be a good sewer or a woman will not want to be his wife.  A woman will put water in the man's hat to test his sewing abilities and if it holds water for a long time, than that man will most likely make a good husband.  Also, there's no divorce on this island either.  Also, we learned about the traditional dress of people on Taquile.  For example, men who are married have all red hats, men who are single have red and white hats, and the presidents/officials of the island sport brightly colored chullos.

Men's hats

Also, there is a certain positioning to the hats: to the back means that the boy is under the age of 12 or something like that, to the right means they are happy with their marriage, and to the left means that they are unhappy with their marriage.  It makes me wonder how many people in the U.S. would be willing to openly express if they were happy or unhappy by wearing a hat.  Also, you can differenciate between single and married women by the pon poms that they have on their shawls.  Big pon poms equals single, small means married.  We also learned the proper greetings between men on the island.  I hope you are finding all of this interesting.  I, personally, think it's all pretty cool, but if your not interestied then just skip ahead.  Anyway, men exchange coca leaves to greet each other.  We also watched two traditional dances-a planting potato dance (that's what I call it :)) and the marriage dance and lastly, we witnessed a woman weaving and a man using a natural shampoo to clean wool.  And man did that shampoo work.  I wanted some considering we all had not showered in four days-whoops!!  Anyway, we finally ate and we had soup and I chose to eat the trout from Lake Titicaca.  It was delicious and how many of you guys can say that you ate trout from the highest navegable lake in the world. :)  Also, I should tell you that there are only five types of fish in the lake: trout (which was brought from Canada in 1960), catfish, something called ispi, and two other smaller fish.  After lunch, we hiked to the port (there are 5 ports and 6 communities on Taquile) and got on the boat for a three hour trip back to Puno and again, I slept for the majority of the time.

Lunch-yum!!

When we got back to Puno (the mainland), we went to the bathroom, ate ice cream, and picked up some food for our bus ride to Arequipa.  We took a taxi to the bus terminal and we took the 5 o'clock bus to Arequipa.  Tonisha and I talked for some fo the bus ride, but then we fell asleep, but it wasn't too long before we were waking up because it was SO cold on the bus, but finally we made it to Arequipa around 11:30 p.m.  We were going to just take a taxi to the Plaza de Armas, and then find a hostel, but then our taxi driver ended up recommending a place and man am I glad he did because the hostel was great.  But I'll rant and rave about the hostel on Day 4.  Anyway, we got to the hostel and I went straight to bed!

The Chullo Project

So, for all my friends, I got them chullos for their gifts from Peru.  To remind you, chullos are the hats that have ear flaps and they are very typical of Perú.  I mean, they are popular in the U.S., too, but the chullos that I bought are better than any other one that you would be able to buy in the states.  Okay, maybe that's a lie, but still they are pretty sweet and all of my friends seemed pretty happy about them, so here they are...

Taylor, Greg, Kayla, me, and Logan

Tim and I

Seles and I (and Tim)

Ian and I (and Seles)

Amanda and I

Chris, Kevin, and I

Kelsey and I

Shannon and I

I have one more chullo to give out, but unfortunately, Kelly is ridiculously busy and impossible to get ahold of, but I decided to take a picture anyway so that this blog at least feels complete.

Kelly's chullo and I

Anyway, it was amazing to see all of my friends and I'm glad that I was able to share a little bit of Peru with all of them!  Plus, the chullos will keep them warm in the cold Midwest winter! :)

Finally Home

Well, here I am sitting in my living room and writing this blog.  That's a little crazy to think about, isn't it?  Last week I was in Lima, Perú and now here I sit in my little country home and to be honest, I'm loving it!!!  I got home on Sunday and for the past couple days, I have been at my second home, Carthage College, but now I'm home home. :)  Anyway, let's get to talking about the last couple of days.

I came home on Sunday the 11th.  I left my home in Lima around 9:30 a.m., said my goodbyes to my host mom and thanked her for all she had given me throughout the semester.  I hopped into the taxi and I was on the way to the airport.  The taxi driver, like usual, switched the station to an English one, but considering it was my last day in Lima, I had to ask him to change it to my favorite station: 91.9.  He also handed me his newspaper that he had just bought, so I spent my last taxi ride in Lima reading the paper and listening to some reggaeton.  Once I got to the airport, I got in line at Spirit Airlines and I was so happy to speak Spanish with the workers.  Sometimes airport officials or people in Lima, in general, will automatically speak English no matter what.  Even if you speak in Spanish to some people, they insist on speaking English.  Sometimes I think they just want to practice their English and sometimes I think they truly think you don't understand them.  I think it just depends on the person.  Anyway, I spoke Spanish to everyone that I came into contact with and they all spoke it back to me.  Actually, the lady at the counter started in English, but then when I answered her in Spanish she switched back to Spanish.  It made me feel really happy. :)  Oh, by the way, my suitcase was supposed to be 40lbs and it was 26Kg (57.32lbs).  Whoops, although I was WAY overweight, everything worked out okay and I didn't have to throw anything out.  Well, I met Jacey and her family there because Jacey had the same flight as I did to Fort Lauderdale.  I sat there for awhile with her and her host mom and dad while we ate breakfast and chatted.  They then walked us to security and we said goodbye to them.  It's funny, I only met Jacey's host parents a few times, but they still said goodbye to me like they had known me for the whole semester.  I love friendly people!  And honestly, those weren't the only friendly people of the day.

When I arrived in Florida (Yea, I'm not going to talk about the first flight because nothing happened), everybody was so friendly and pleasant and it just put me in a good mood.  Starting with the guy at immigration, he was so friendly and he commented on my llama sweater. :)  However, I did think that I was going to be in trouble when 2he asked why I was there for so long.  I told him I had been studying and he said, "Oh, that makes sense."  Then, I moved onto baggage claim where Jacey and I picked up our luggage and we got in line to go through customs.  The K9 unit that was there kept sniffing Jacey's bag and we assumed it was because of the pork sandwiches that Jacey's host mom packed her for the plane, but also we each had some food in our suitcases like cancha and I had some packages of huancaína sauce.  Well, the woman asked if we were traveling together and it seemed like one of those "we're hiding something" moments because I answered "no" and Jacey answered "yes."  It was comical.  Needless to say both Jacey and I got our custom cards marked with a "K9," so we automatically had to go through the customs scanner, but everything turned out okay.  We didn't bring back anything illegal, so we still breezed right through.  Then we checked our luggage again and said our goodbyes because we had to go to separate terminals.

Last picture before we parted :)

I headed to security and the guy who checked my passport wished me a happy belated birthday, which was really nice of him.  Then, I went through, but I had to wait there because they had to rescan one of my bins and my laptop again, but after that I was ready to go.  As I sat at the gate, everything felt like a dream.  The whole entire semester felt like a dream and it was the weirdest feeling in the world.  Had I really just spent 4 and a half months in Peru?  Luckily, that answer is yes and thankfully, it wasn't a dream!  It was an amazing time and it really did happen, but I will say that it was weird sitting in the airport.  I could hear everyone's conversation in English and it just felt so loud.  Anyway, I boarded the plane and I was seated next to a Polish woman, Helen, and her ex-marine son, Mark.  I had some good conversation with them and they obviously found out that it had been my 21st birthday the day before so when the drink cart came around, they bought me my first drink, a Jose Cuervo Margarita.  It was a really nice plane ride and I liked chatting with my seat neighbors.  I told them I had a clan waiting for me in Chicago and I'm sure they laughed when they got to Chicago because even I laughed because my clan was hard to miss.  Meeting me at the airport were my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my boyfriend, and my roommate and they were all wearing bright orange t-shirts.  Yep, they were hard to miss. 

Right of the plane and seeing my clan

Taylor, Greg, Kayla, me, and Logan with our chullos :)

After the airport pick-up, we headed to Kenosha, WI for a 1 a.m. breakfast at Marina Gardens, a 24-hour restaurant there.  It was awesome.  I made an event on facebook inviting all of my friends there and there they were!  It was sooo fun!!  There were 16 people there and my mom had gotten everyone t-shirts so we spent time there chatting and eating and enjoying each other.  It was a blast!  I couldn't have asked for a better welcome home present!

Me with all of my amazing friends!!!

Anyway, for the rest of this week, I spent my time visiting friends at Carthage and taking tests.  I stopped in for two dance classes just to see my professors and then I actually attended the ballet class because I just can't get enough dancing. :)  I stopped in at my work to see my bosses and I saw the study abroad advisor as well.  I went to the new student union to see it because I was gone when it opened and I can't wait to spend more time in there next semester.  I also went to Iluzion practice, which is the hip hop team I am on. :)  It was so great to see everything and everyone.  People kept asking if I was feeling reverse culture shock and in reality, I never felt too overwhelmed by everything, however, I do kept saying small Spanish phrases to people like perdon, gracias, and chau. (Pardon, thank you, bye).  Also, I continue to try and throw the toilet paper in the trash can.  It's weird being able to throw the toilet paper in the toilet.  I kept thinking that I am going to clog it just by throwing the paper in there, but I should know that's not the case.  Anyway, on Wednesday, I had to take a written test and a telephone test in Spanish.  These tests serve as my Praxis II, which is an exam that I am required to take for the Teacher's Education Program.  I wasn't nervous for the written test, which consisted of writing four short essays in Spanish, however, I was pretty nervous for the telephone test.  The test consisted of talking to someone somewhere for a half hour in Spanish and although I was extremely nervous, I actually feel pretty good about it after the fact!  Unfortunately, I have to wait up to 5 weeks to get the results back, but that's okay, I guess.  Anyway, my mom and I are setting up the Christmas tree tonight, which I'm pretty excited for and also don't forget that there are several more blogs that need to be written by me so stay tuned. :)

Hogar

So, I have been thinking about this last post for awhile now and I thought I would have a lot to say, but to be honest, I don't.  I don't think everything has quite hit me yet.  I have been here for 4 and 1/2 months and I go home tomorrow.  It sounds crazy to me, but still, it hasn't hit me, but I know it will.  I also know that when it does, I will have a lot to say/comment on.  So for this final post before I board the plane tomorrow, I would like to dedicate it to home....

Home - Michael Bublé

Coming Home - Diddy, Dirty Money, & Skylar Grey

(Not exactly about coming home from studying abroad,

but I still like the song)

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Bing Crosby

There's No Place Like Home - Perry Como

A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton

Thanks to all of you who have kept with me on this journey.  It sure has been a fun, interesting, exhilerating, challenging, and adventureous one!  Although I am coming home tomorrow, remember to continue reading to hear the rest of my Puno/Arequipa trip.  Also, stay tuned for my Peru "Thing I'll Miss, Things I Won't, and On the Fence" list, as well as my U.S. "Things I've Missed, Things I Didn't, and On the Fence" list!!!  Also, I'm sure there will be some exciting blogs about how I am dealing with reverse culture shock. :)  See you soon!!!