Que la fuerza este contigo.

A traves del amor,
A traves de la amistad,
Un corazon vive mas de uno vida.
[Through love,
Through friendship,
The heart lives more than one life.]

This is only the beginning of the wealth of information that Jose has taught me over the past couple of days. Isn't it a beautiful saying? I kind of want to buy a white t-shirt and do some puffy painting with those words! We have gone over conjugation in present tense in regular verbs and moved on to irregular verbs today. I have learned so much vocabulary in just a two-day period and I feel slightly overwhelmed, but we play a lot of games and find ways to laugh and make four hours of Spanish a day fun. Yesterday, we had a slightly awkward conversation about our ex-boyfriends (everyone in the class is girls) but other than that, I love waking up and going to the academy every morning. I have started challenging myself to try to understand what everyone around me is saying and to try to figure out what is going on on the T.V. We have homework every night and tomorrow I have to give a presentation on my family.

It is 9:30 p.m. here but I am already exhausted. We pack so much into every day! Elisabeth and I joke around about how old we feel because we seriously go to bed at 10 p.m. every night, but it gets dark at around 6 p.m. here and we have to get up early in the morning. Actually, my host father told me that they only get one more hour of sunlight during the summer months. Can you believe that? I couldn't imagine it getting dark at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. every night, but I do love being able to see all of the lights of the city here. Anyway, if my blog post stops making sense, you know why . . .

Where to start? Well, Tuesday after I left you we went to the classic market of Cusco. The tour took pretty much all afternoon, so we didn't get to shop at all. They had everything from Peruvian trinkets to fruits, vegetables, meats, and flowers. The meat part was extremely disgusting for me, but there is another part of the market which is very traditional that sells animal parts. Luckily, my friend Jackie shielded me from this madness by pulling me around and covering my eyes while she led me through the market. Slightly embarassing, but I am so grateful for this act of kindness. It was interesting to see the traditional market, but all of the scents of the market left me feeling sick and by the end I had a horrible headache. When we returned to the academy, there were quite a few of us that went to Romana's, a local pizza place. The pizza was so delicious! I split a vegetarian pizza with Dr. Molina and Mrs. Seals. It was made without sauce, but I still really enjoyed it. It was just nice to be out with a group of students from Alma because we usually go our separate ways after our scheduled activities. When we got home, I was able to meet Rafael, our host father. He was away on business at Lima, but he was extremely talkative and friendly! He has helped me with my Spanish so much and plans on taking me biking in the mountains next Friday morning. He has also offered to take Elisabeth and I and a few friends to the silver factory here, so we can see how pure silver jewelry is made and buy some souvenirs. We also met Shane, an eighteen year old student from Denmark who the Eliases have been hosting for about 7 weeks now. Since it is free for students to go to college in Denmark, he is taking a year off to explore the world and the different options he has in life. He's extremely nice, but he's not around too much.

Yesterday, we had a free afternoon. We decided to go shopping at a market which is only a few blocks away from here. Our apartment is located very close to most things, which is very convenient! We have about an 8 minute walk to the academy, but most students have a 20 minute-50 minute walk. We met up with quite a few people there. The stands all have very similar things, including Alpaca purses, stuffed animals, and clothing (socks, hats, sweaters), traditional Peruvian clothing, glassware such as teasets and figurines, and jewelry (some made of pure silver). It was fun to just explore and bargain with the local people here. I am not very good at bargaining because I know so little Spanish and also because the people sound so sad when you walk away or try to talk their prices down and then I'm sad because they're sad . . . it's a vicious cycle. I'm getting things for extremely low prices here because 1 dollar=2.8 soles. I did end up buying a couple of things and making a list of other things I can buy for everyone. This weekend, we're going to the Indian market of Pisac, and I'm going to hold off on buying anymore souvenirs until after that because they have one-of-a-kind items. After that, I left Elisabeth to go back to the original market of yesterday with some other friends. While there, I bought some flowers for my host mother because it was her birthday yesterday. We watched a traditional dancer out in the street before walking back to the academy for our salsa lessons! I absolutely loved them. Don't get me wrong, I did a horrible job and I'm still having difficulty with the basic steps and didn't trust my partners to swing me down at all, but I tried my best and laughed the whole time. My original partner, Adam, was pretty understanding of my lack of dancing skills, so that was good. I have to go to "la discoteca" now. Dr. Seals is trying to get a group of us together to go! After the salsa lessons, we came back home to give our flowers to Monica and I think she liked them. :)

This morning, I woke up early and Monica asked me to cross the street to the market to buy some bread. It was my first time out alone in Cusco, and I was extremely intimidated. I also felt so disrespectful for not knowing the language well enough, almost like I was intruding in their country. I know one vender was getting annoyed with me because I kept saying "dos soles de pan?" like I was instructed but it wasn't the bread I thought Monica wanted. Eventually, one old man came to help me. I had no idea what he was saying, but he led me to the bread vender. I ended up getting the wrong bread anyway, but it was an experience. I feel a little bit more confident in Cusco now that I know there are ways to communicate, but not that confident . . . this is such a big city and there's so much I don't know. It's been a humbling experience; that's for sure. I love to talk and laugh and be silly, but it's been hard in a place where I don't know the language and know only a few people well. I'm slowly getting back to being myself, though. Today definitely helped. :) After classes, we came home for a quick lunch and then headed to Sacsayhuaman (Sexy Woman :P). It's a beautiful place about 12,000 feet high in the mountains. After all the pollution in the city, especially with the deisel (there's definitely no EPA here, although I've heard it has improved a lot) it was so nice to get some fresh air! This is the first night I haven't had at least a slight headache due to pollution. It is an Indian ruin, and our guide is sure that it was made before the time of the Incans. The number 3 is ever present there because 3 is a sacred number. It represents nature, which the Indians worshipped and respected because it was the most sacred gift of their creator. There are 3 terraces and they believe there are 3 reflecting pools (to look at the stars), although at the moment they have only found two. It's amazing to see how advanced the Indians really were. Different sized stones were cut perfectly out of the rock, and even though cement was never used to this day no weeds grow out of them. Similar to the walls we saw in the city before, they were cut in different shapes and sizes and built in a zig-zag style to prevent against damage in earthquakes. Victor, our tour guide, had us stand in one corner appoximately 160 m away from the corner of rock he was standing in, and when he talked into the rock we could hear him. They had built a perfectly straight line and knew about vibrations and the speed of sound even then! There was one part of the old city where we could slide down rocks which was so much fun; I loved it. The part that we saw was only 30% of the original city because the Spaniards had torn down the rest. We were told that the name comes from the Quechua words Sacsay and Waman meaning "satisfied falcon."
Our tour guide also told us that Cusco was originally Qusco, meaning "the center." Cusco truly is the center of the Andean world, and was even before now. After our visit to Sacsayhuaman, we climbed to see the Cristo Blanco. The climb was steep but it was definitely worth it. Even now, I can see the Cristo Blanco from our window overlooking the city. It was a present from the Palestine to Cusco. Elisabeth and I could see our apartment from the Cristo Blanco and everyone else had a chance to point out where they lived so we have an idea of where we all are now. We ended our day by visiting Coricancha, or the Temple of the Sun. Although most of it had been taken over by the Spaniards, it was interesting to see the work of the Incans in their temple. It was absolutely beautiful. The original plan included five houses with one large central area and one gate for control. Even though many of the houses inside the temple are now crumpled, you can see the trapezoidal design that strengthened each house and how the stones are perfectly placed together. We were also to see the golden altar that pictured the creator and the gifts of nature that he had blessed the people with. Now, the center is built to be extravagant in the English style and the walls are covered with Christian paintings after the Spanish invasion. It was amazing to see the respect our tour guide had for his ancestors and how much this temple meant to him. After visiting Coricancha, Elisabeth and a couple other friends took a taxi to Jack's Cafe for dinner. It was nice to have American food, and I ordered a tomato and cheese sandwich with pesto and french fries. Although I really enjoy all the soy meat, vegetables, rice, and tea that I'm eating, it was nice to have a taste of home. Today Monica served her version of oatmeal for breakfast which they actually drink because it is so thin, and I actually really liked it. After Jack's Cafe, we headed home to do our homework for the night which actually took me a long amount of time. Tomorrow after class we have an orientation on our trips to Chincheros, Ollantaytambo, Awanakancha, and the Pisac market this weekend but otherwise we have a free day. I can't wait to explore the city of Cusco even more. There is so much history here; I don't think I will ever be able to fully describe it. The view from here is absolutely magnificent. Just looking out at all the lights and listening to the music in the streets and the night sounds . . . it's breathtaking. I absolutely love mountains.

Well, I have a busy weekend ahead of me, so I may not be able to update this for a while. Until then,
Que la fuerza este contigo.
[May the force be with you.]

Love always,
Chels <3