number two pero numero uno

well hello friends and family! Emily here. The last couple days have been muy interesante.  Getting here, was definitely an emotional experience for this girl.  Getting off the tiny plane walking down the steps into the cold yet sooo bright outdoors, mountains so close and soo big was pretty surreal.  In the plane I had been trying to formulate sentences on how to interact with the taxi driver en español, quite honestly, trying to prepare myself for the days and weeks to come all in one moment, cursing myself for the mental block that kept me from preparing ahead of time was getting me super overwhelmed, but when I looked past Sleeping Leslie with her head against the wall out the window of the plane to see this mountainous land, it started to hit me.  I bought this ticket and now I am here.  On another continent. Whoa.  We are in Peru.

Since then, I´ve had one small meltdown, two cappuccinos, lots of unwarranted attention, and a great time with my girl Leslie.  Days feel long when you don´t have much to do, but we walk. we walk, we see, we smell, we talk, we people watch, and try to muster up confidence to use our spanish more often.

Like today in the cafe we chose for our daily caffiene fix.  The two who ran the place were pretty young, seemed pretty in love (at least on their way there), and the guy was very nice and helpful.  He was my first victim.  We sat at our table in the corner and I used ye old spanish dictionary like a noob to formulate my first complete sentence that I think was correct. It was "¿Puede usted darme la santayseña por la wifi?" (lols). He smiled at me and corrected me: "contraseña."  In my head, i cursed at leslie´s fucked up spanish dictionary,  but he was happy to help me enter it into my phone.  Later, Leslie asked for a bottle of water and after that I even asked him if he knew of any restaurants for dinner that served Arequipan specialties.  It was like a little Spanish lesson with someone who was willing and even happy to help us and listen to us jumble our words.  Then, Sexual Healing came on over the sound system and all was well in the world.  Shout out to Daddy. (Nicky).

Another nice moment of today was the time we spent in la Plaza de Armas.  This place is beautiful guys.  You can look it up if you feel, but I´ll set you the scene.  It was a warm day today, the sun really works it´s magic here heatwise.  The square is a city block, at one end there is a beautiful white stone church with two belltowers, the snowcapped mountains rising up close behind. There is a fountain flowing in the center, palm trees scattered through out.  There are tons of people.  We have been to the plaza a few times now, passing by, and even at 7:30 in the morning, the plaza is full of people.  It is so great to me.  I love it.  Anyway, there were still about 5x as many pigeons as people, and the children.  The children!  They loved to play with the pigeons.  Little ones, two of whom we named Mr and Mrs Toddles had no fear.  Mr Toddles just sat on the cobblestone and the pigeons walked around and on him, he was just having a ball.  Freaking cute.  This would NEVER happen in the US.  People hate pigeons where we are from.  I bet these kids have killer immune systems. Anyway, evening started to fall and as soon as the shade came, it was time for pants.

Tomorrow, we leave in the afternoon for Puno.  There we will be at the edge of Lake Titicaca which I hope to get shown around on a boat.  I hope my reading is not too painful to read, I may not be as eloquent as my dear friend Leslie.  But man.  It´s happening.  Every now and again I retreat miles away into space and look at the globe and I am stoked at where I am on it.  Awh yeah.  Una adventura.  By the way, when I get home, expect me to speak in spanglish.  It´s gonna be a hard habit to break.  Love ya´ll.

Emily