메리 크리스마스

Google Translate tells me that's Merry Christmas in Hangul (Korean alphabet)!

NOTE: I have a lot of free time on my days off so I played with my blog layout. Click the title of the latest post to read the whole thing! Sorry to some of my not-so-technologically-advanced family members :)

Like I said before, I had to work Christmas Eve until 7:00pm. I went into work with somewhat of a bummed mentality, but it turned out to be a great morning because....

I WAS SANTA CLAUS!

Yep, that's me in the Santa suit! Bet you never thought you'd see the day where a 5'3" blonde female would dress up as the big guy! Of course all the kiddos knew it was me, but I still had a blast. I got to sit in the gym for an hour and call them up one-by-one to give them a present and take a picture. They were all so excited. It definitely got me in the holiday spirit :)

I also got a ton of goodies like cakes and cookies from some students. Very sweet. A lot of my classes had exams so it was an easy day. I promised Blue class new balloons this week after most of theirs popped during science last Monday, so that was their Christmas gift from me. I got to snap this gem...

Seriously, be cuter.

Christmas Eve after work and Christmas Day were spent in Incheon watching Christmas movies, hanging out with new friends, and eating Chinese/Indian food. Not the most traditional of holidays, but that will make me appreciate it so much more when I'm home next year :)

The one good thing about my Christmas in Korea was that it SNOWED! It snows all the time here, but I couldn't tell you the last time I had a White Christmas. YAY!

I've told some people my plans for New Years Eve, but I'll wait to reveal it publicly once I have some pictures. I hope everyone's holiday was wonderful! Much love<3

I'm letting myself be homesick...

...for a few hours, and that's IT! As much as I'm enjoying Korea, it's hard not to get a little homesick when Christmas is a few days away, especially since it's my second one away from home (sorry family!). No Christmas lights, wreaths, trees, bells, cookies, etc. No neighbors with insanely tacky inflatable Santa displays. NO YULE LOG :(

But, on the bright side of things, I've made some awesome friends who I'll spend the holidays with and make the best of it. The kiddies at school are fun too as they all still believe in Santa and are learning Christmas carols and are very eager to sing them every chance they get. We do phone teaching once a week where we call the little ones and talk for 5 minutes. Last Thursday, when I called sweet little Jeungyeun, I asked what songs she learned in class and she proceeded to sing me an adorable, high-pitched, 5 year old version of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas"...the whole song. It was hilarious and adorable and I love her. I also got to bake some NUTELLA christmas cookies tonight with a friend who is fortunate enough to have an oven. I guess I shouldn't complain too much, but I do miss my family a TON right now. Especially when Mom sends me funny videos of her, Maggie, and Terry's faces in Elf costumes dancing or tells me stories about chasing Maggie when she steals cookies and then tripping and falling on the floor.

Tomorrow is my last day of work before my week-long vacation! It's sucky that I have to work until 7pm on Christmas Eve, but I get to spend my day with cuties like this...

Wonseuk, one of my favorites. Shh don't tell the others!

Selina insisted I wear her sheep hat. How could I say no?

Please excuse the bags under my eyes. I have been wickedly sick for a few days and by 5:30pm on Friday I was ready to crash. Which I did, but not until about 9:00pm. This weekend consisted of a lot of tea drinking, sleeping, a LITTLE exploring/shopping, and seeing The Hobbit for a friend's birthday. I'm feeling better, but having 8 days away from coughing, sneezing kiddos will do me some good.

Happy Holidays to everyone! Love & miss you all so much. Eat a ton of delicious food for me this week :) I'll be chowing down on kimchi, dumpling soup, kimchi, meat, white rice, more kimchi, AND the cookies I baked :)

Seoul Mates

Wouldn't that have been a cute name for my blog if I met some gorgeous, perfect man here? Oh wait, I'm in Asia. Perhaps once I return to South America...

Instead, the title of this post is referring to the friends I made in Seoul this weekend, and the awesome time I had! I spent the day shopping and frolicking around Myeongdong, the neighborhood in Seoul that has the potential to ruin my dream of saving money. Aside from the usual H&M, Forever21, Body Shop, etc, there are a million Korean shops, street vendors, and even a CAT CAFE to suck you in and take your money. Cat Cafe? Stay tuned for THAT post. Later on, we met up with some more people for dinner, drinks, and a night out. We started in Itaewon at a friend's birthday then made our way to Hongdae, where I've been dying to go since I got here. It's a cute little neighborhood with tons of bars & clubs that stay open until the wee hours of the morning. I only made it until 4:30am this time before I rounded up the troops to taxi back to my place for a full fledged slumber party that even included Spice Girls music in the morning.

Friends!

Duh

At what age does it stop being appropriate to take girl pics in the bathroom?

This week at work has been relatively uneventful. Tuesday marked my 1 month anniversary, and I celebrated by opening a bank account and getting my very own Korean bank card. YAY! Science is still my favorite class, and this week I had the pleasure of teaching static electricity. In translation, I got to play with balloons for a whole hour. Blue class went absolutely nuts over those things.

My second Christmas away from home is quickly approaching. I work Christmas Eve, but I plan on spending Christmas Day with good friends & good food and a few Skype dates!

Why is your hair yellow?

That is the question I get asked on a daily basis. Well, that and "why are your eyes blue/gray/a weird color?".

Today marks my 3 week anniversary at SLP! Everything is still going well. I finally know most of my students names. The only difficult ones are the kindergarten classes that I only see once a week and still use Korean names. Hyunsun, Hyungjun, Seogyeong, Yaeun.....multiply that by 10 and that's how many of those I have to try to remember, let alone pronounce! The kindy science classes are definitely my favorite, albeit most tiring, classes of the day. They all hug me and love me and sing me songs. It's a great 50 minutes! Also, I get to make "science" crafts like flying Santas!!

Bumjun, one of my favorites

Ahrim LOVES to play with my yellow hair

This lil nugget from the youngest class (3 yrs old) KILLS me. She even had a tail.

My coworkers are wonderful which makes my job even more enjoyable. Several of them have shown me different parts of Seoul and introduced me to some fellow foreign teachers around the area. I finally mastered the subway alone and rode it all the way to the other side of the city to see a friend! GO ME! Some of the Korean co-teachers took me and another girl out for nakji (spicy octopus) and makgeolli (korean rice wine). It was delicious, but almost painfully spicy! Definitely one of the more adventurous things I've eaten!

I ATE THAT

I'm a little homesick this week because my big brother got ENGAGED (ahhh!) and I'm not around to celebrate and be excited with the fam. But, it's such amazing, happy, wonderful news and I'm SO happy for him and his FIANCÉ, Kelly! 

Temperatures have gotten down to around 3 degrees Fahrenheit here, yet it's been in the 70's at home. NOT NICE. Please send some warmer weather (or at least warm thoughts) my way! I had to buy a second comforter for my bed! 

Love & joy to everyone at home :)

My Apartment!

As requested, I made a little video tour of my nugget-sized apartment! It's not as nugget-sized as I expected and I'm already feeling at home.

Disclaimers:
1) I apologize for the beeping noise in the beginning. When I close my door, it deadbolts itself shut and beeps to let me know that I'm all safe & locked in.

2) I also apologize for my lack of editing skills. This is about as good as it gets for this girl.

I've only been here a week...

and I'm already in love! With some Korean babies.

Oh, and then there's this...

SO. CUTE.

Goodbye America, Hello Korea!

Hello friends & fam! As requested, I'm going to continue writing in my blog while on this trip! I guess I can't really call it a trip if I'm living here for a whole year! Anyway, I made it to Korea safe and sound! A (not so) brief blurb about my flight and first week...

The Flight

Mom & Terry kindly drove me to the airport very early in the morning on Saturday the 17th. They also kindly helped me lug my bags through the airport to check-in and dealt with my grumpiness after having to pay an obscene amount of money for one of the bags being a few pounds over weight. I'm moving for a YEAR here people...you try fitting your life into two bags under 50lbs. I then proceeded to undergo the most  annoying, disorganized security screening of all times. It took over an hour. DON'T fly out of Dulles my friends. After a short little flight from DC to JFK (thanks, whoever booked that flight) I sat in the airport for several hours. To make a long story short, my flight got delayed 19 hours. Asiana airlines did a very poor job  of informing us of the situation. I spent the night in a hotel in New Jersey and then finally got on my flight at 8:00am Sunday morning. I had every intention of self-medicating immediately and sleeping through the whole thing, but I was pretty anxious/excited so I stayed awake for a few hours, ate one of the meals, then slept the rest of the way. Twas a 14 hour flight, and I survived! I got off the flight, collected my (torn, destroyed, and plastic wrapped) baggage, and met my ride who took me....directly to school to meet my coworkers! I'm sure I looked/smelled like a dream.

First Week

I spent my first 3 days following the teacher I'm replacing to get to know the classes, schedule, curriculum, etc. What I learned: The kids are adorable, my coworkers are awesome, and I hardly have any planning. Not a bad gig! I stayed at my director's apartment for the first 4 nights because the teacher I replaced had to move out of his apartment before I could move in. Which brings me to....

Friday

I moved into my apartment! YAY! I also had my first solo teaching day. Overall, everything went well! Mondays and Fridays will be tough with a full schedule of 7 classes. But, the rest of the week, especially Tuesday/Thursday are super easy with 4 classes and lots of breaks. The kids are super cute and so well behaved compared to my jovenes at Maximo (and even some of my adults). I even went out for my first Korean beers with some teachers after work. Success!

Random Things

I was told my apartment was the closest to work. This excited me as it's FREEZING here right now. When I   was told a "3 minute walk", this was a gross over-exaggeration. I literally walk out the door of my building and am outside for all of 45 seconds before I enter the building that my school is in. Lazy? Perhaps. But when it's 15 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside, I'm going to love this. Also, the grocery store, bakery, Daiso market (kind of like a dollar store, but better), 7-11, and everything else are within 3-5 minutes of me.

Let's talk about Daiso. My coworkers had mentioned it a few times, so once I moved into my apartment and knew I needed quite a few things I asked where it was. I made the long trek there...all of 5 steps outside of my school building, and spent about 40 minutes in complete awe. They have everything you could ever need, ever, except for food, and it's all like $5 or less. In 2 days, I've made 4 trips there to get everything from a dust pan to storage boxes to power converters to prunes (yes, I eat and like prunes).

Even more amazing than Daiso....there is a store called E-Mart in the next "city" over, about a 10 minute walk. It's similar to Wal-Mart, but a bit more classy, and fabulous, and ridiculous. First, there are lockers for your dog at the front door. Second, there are moving ramps instead of escalators to go to the different levels (all FOUR of them) so you can take your shopping cart with you. Third, you can buy anything and everything at this place. It's wonderful and absurd. Unlike my struggle to eat good food in Peru, I've already stocked my apartment with my personal necessities: fruit, veggies, GREEK yogurt, brown rice, nuts, eggs, spices, peanut butter. Oh, and I bought a blanket so I don't freeze to death at night and a kettle so I can drink water.

Stay tuned for a tour of my little apartment and some pictures/videos of my kiddos later this week (if I can still steal internet from my apartment, that is)

Bob's not your uncle, he's a monkey

NO MORE MAXIMO! This is a bittersweet exclamation because I will genuinely miss my coworkers and students, but I will not miss that split schedule one bit! Free, free at last! The despedida was a blast. A good amount of my students did come and I was pretty flattered. Telling my students that I wouldn't be their teacher in May was actually kind of weird. I was flattered and a little bummed out by how upset some of them got. I definitely had a good thing going with most of my classes and would have loved to have seen them progress even more than they already have since I started in January. That being said, I was ecstatic to not have to wake up at 6am and work until 9. The few days that I had to putz around Cusco and do what I wanted to do were phenomenal. I ate at my favorite places, visited some Incan ruins and salt flats, and went to the Machu Picchu museum (may have been a waste of time, but at least I did something educational), and best of all I SLEPT. 

The best part about my post-maximo week in Cusco was the trip to Puerto Maldonado, an awesome jungle town east of Cusco. Actually, I'll go ahead and say that aside from Machu Picchu, it was my favorite part of my experience in Peru. 

UPDATED POST: After going through my blog, I re-read quite a few of my posts from Peru and was rather disappointed in myself for glorifying all the drinking and partying I did. Especially in the post about the jungle, I feel like the details I included took away from what I really wanted to get across in my blog: that South America is an amazing, awe-inspiring place that has something to offer around every corner. Sure, there's fun to be had. It's easy to fall into the lifestyle of drinking and staying out until daylight. And while that certainly played a part in my time in South America, that is NOT what I took away from the experience as a whole. My best memories are those in which I stepped outside my comfort zone and did or saw something new and amazing.

The post about the jungle portrayed those 5 spectacular days as a  drink-fest. And while we did indulge a bit, that is not how I want to remember that trip, nor is it how I want others to see it. I want to inspire people to travel and see the things I've seen! Those days truly were some of the best I had in South America, and not in the least because we partied. We played with baby monkeys that had been rescued from poachers, ate Thai food cooked by a sweet Thai woman who owned the "resort", kayaked the Amazon river, fished tarantulas out of their holes in broad daylight, went zip-lining through the Amazon rain forest, had a mud/clay bath on an island only inhabited by monkeys, climbed trees and swung from branches like Tarzan. It was an adventure. It was once-in-a-lifetime (though I have vowed to go back again). It was honestly mind-blowing and I loved every second of it, including the 9 hour bus rides there and back because many a memory is made on a long bus ride with two of your closest friends.

I won't be going back and changing any of my other posts, but as this one was the last one from Peru I just couldn't leave it be. Obviously I've matured and grown a bit even since returning from South America, which to me is a testament to how much travelling can change a person. I cherish every memory I made in South America. The friendships I made will last a lifetime, regardless of where any of us end up in the world. Drinking and dancing the night away may have been fun, but only because of the people I was with. I much prefer the days we spent together hiking to Cristo Blanco or Temple of the Moon or having "family dinner" and cooking a feast together. 

Viva El Peru <3 South America, see you soon!

Greeted by monkeys right when we walked in

Bob, the love of my life.

We even brought him into the room.

A little boat ride to start our jungle tour

Fishing tarantulas out of their holes! NBD

Zip-lining :)

Playing in the clay on Isla de los Monos

Wake-up call from Lucho!

Marzo y Abril

I can't believe I haven't even looked at this thing since March 13th. My bad! I think I tried to write after St. Patrick's Day, but the Internet in Cuzco was being a bitch. 

Saint Patty's day was a whirlwind, as it always is. It was no Starboard opening weekend, but that's probably a good thing for me. The day started at 10:00am at our place and didn't end until probably 4:00am. Unnecessary, but at least I didn't end up with a shamrock tattooed on my ass like SOME people I know... :)

Yay for day drinking!

Sweet jerseys...

Drinking the day away at Wild Rover

Somehow managed to last long enough for Inka Team at night...

The rest of March flew by in anticipation of Ben & Kelly coming to visit. All I had to do was get through a short 3 day week thanks to Holy week. They got here on Friday the 6th, stayed for a very interesting 8 days. In true Ben fashion, he didn't want to waste time acclimating, and who was I to stand in his way when we only had a week in Peru together. So, we went out with the few friends that weren't traveling on our days off. I got to show them a pretty typical Friday night. Saturday was more low key and we even made it to one of my favorite spots in Cusco, Cristo Blanco. By Sunday, Peru had gotten the best of Ben and he was pretty sick. We hoped that spending the day in bed would give him enough time to recover for our trek that was scheduled to begin on Monday morning, but no such luck. But, by Tuesday we were able to hop on the train and do part of the hike to Machu Picchu anyway. It was a really amazing experience to share with the two of them, and the weather was way better than my first time there so I was a happy camper. Next it was off to Lima for the beach, some REAL FOOD (helloooo sushi), and to see my friend Taylor. Minus pulling an Armstrong and busting my elbow falling down some stairs, I absolutely loved Lima and would gladly return any day. Spending a day on the beach made me miss home even more than I already do, so it's a good thing I'll be home in time for the beach. I had some bad luck and missed my flight back to Cusco and had to pay for a new one, but I made it back in time for my final TEFL party at work AND to see our friend Henry who was here back in November & December, but had left to travel. It was overall a pretty awesome vacation, but it made coming back to work pretty rough. The good news was that I only had a week until my birthday!

Llama pictures!

The infamous 12 angled stone

Hiking to MP!

We made it!

My birthday fell on a Monday this year, so we went out Friday night and I met yet another one of my birthday twins. One of my students works at a bar that we go to a lot and she hooked me up with some free shots that I didn't need. I slept until 1:00pm on Saturday which i haven't done in forever, but it felt good. I think I still needed to catch up from the slept I missed while Ben was here. I actually didn't leave my house from Friday night until Sunday morning for a sweet birthday breakfast at Jack's (i will miss those bean & cheese tortillas). On Sunday night we had our final family dinner at our apartment because we move out this weekend and people start leaving (WAHHH!). We had penne vodka, risotto, garlic bread, & birthday brownies. No complaints. If I didn't have to work, I would have gone out Sunday night, butttt I had to teach. That being said, it was probably one of the sweetest birthdays I've had in a while. I guess they take birthdays pretty seriously here, because a lot of my students went all out. I got breakfast pastries in my 7:00am class and hugs all around. I share a birthday with a student, and after I gave her her cake & sang to her, she handed me a beautiful scarf. Then, my jovenes (teenagers) stole the show for the day. Keep in mind that they're all 12-14 years old...one girl Aneth came into the room and dragged me to the cafe to make coffee. When I got back to the room, she knocked on the door and I was greeted with a shower of confetti and 11 jovenes running around the room yelling "happy birthday" and throwing balloons at me. It was adorable. As if that wasn't enough, one girl, Ruth, ran up to me with a cake she had bought, Carolina handed me a bouquet of flowers made of ribbon, and 2 others, Dara and Vivian, handed me little wrapped boxes (one was a necklace, one was earrings). I was absolutely blown away. Needless to say, I didn't make them do any work. They sang to me and made me take a bite of my cake & we took a few pictures. It was the best hour of my day, by far. In my later classes, I got a cupcake, a teddy bear, and a cute little decorative box type of thing, and of course heard the birthday song 3 more times. It definitely made me sad to be leaving all of these guys in the near future. SUCH good people. On top of that, my friends/coworkers were awesome all day too. Mags gave me gummy bears on break, Maddy brought me this cheese pastry thing she's been telling me about, Clameron gave me mac & cheese, skittles, & reese's, and then Mags & Mom (carolina) combined forces to have Pad Thai & wine waiting for dinner when I got home. 

My "jovenes" (aka teenagers) on Birthday Party day!

This week is exam week, my favorite time of the month. I didn't really teach so much as review, and Thursday & Friday are spent watching movies on my laptop while students take their exams. We went out Wednesday night for one coworker's last night, so Thursday was spent hungover, but well worth it. I had the funniest night with a drunk Maggie and a creepy, but hilarious student of Clameron. Telling my students that I'm leaving wasn't fun, but was pretty sweet because they all got pretty upset and one class even bought me a going away present. Our "despedida" (farewell party) is on Friday night and I think a bunch of my students are going to come. There are 6 of us leaving, so it should be a pretty good party. 

I finally bought a big backpack to travel with since I sent one suitcase home and gave the other to a roommate. I'm officially equipped to travel the world and I'm pretty pumped about it. Plans are coming together for my trip through Bolivia to Argentina, and then finally BACK HOME! I'm hoping to be home by Memorial Day and I can NOT wait. I have a laundry list of things I want to do when I get back, which mostly consists of things I want to EAT. If anyone wants to join me and gain 10 lbs in 5 days, let me know! On the list (since you were obviously wondering) is obviously Wawa, CHEESE, Mac & Cheese, a hoagie, good pizza, sushi, BFG fish tacos, an egg sandwich from Surf Bagel, Arena's, cottage cheese pancakes, Lori's chicken salad, Agave....and about a million other things. Oh, and GOOD BEER! 

On the home stretch here! I'll throw some pictures on here eventually. Can't wait to see everyone!!

Ladies of the 80's

Every month at Maximo, there's a party for the graduates of the TEFL course. This was all good fun back in December when my class graduated, but this party has taken on new meaning now that I'm in my 3rd month of teaching (aka, my 4th TEFL party). It just so happens to fall right before payday, meaning everyone is broke as a joke. Conveniently, the party comes equipped with free food and an open bar. For the teachers, this is a jackpot. We don't have to worry about dinner or drinks for a night! Since it's a monthly event, it kind of loses its luster after the first or second one. The group of teachers we have right now (which changes almost monthly) is a really solid, awesome, fun group of people and my friend Maddy decided to spice things up a bit and suggested that we go with a theme for the party. We took a vote, and 80's/Rock won. Keep in mind, this party is for the entire staff of Maximo Nivel (teachers, security, all 3-4 offices, etc) as well as volunteers, some students, and the TEFL graduates. At the very least, 100-150 people show up. Who knew about this theme? No more than 15-20 of us teachers. Nonetheless, we went big. I was able to scrounge up an outfit by pairing my jean shorts & tights with a leather jacket and boots. Luckily, Maddy had a tank top to go perfectly, and although I tried to go with the big hair that was in style in that decade, I ended up wearing a shiny pink fedora by the time we walked out the door. 80's or not, it looked hilarious. As we got ready at the other girls' house, everyone was looking more and more fabulous. Maddy in her pink tutu-like skirt and denim jacket, Shoshana with her afro, other girls with leggings and side ponytails. What no one was ready for was the transformation that was happening next door, where the 3 boys had gone with our friend Kathleen to invade her wardrobe. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could prepare anybody to walk into a house and see this:

Or this....

And especially not this...

Needless to say, we had some good laughs. Actually, I'm pretty sure I cried a little bit. My friends from college can throw a mean theme party, but this was just....I honestly have no words. I'm still laughing as I look at those pictures right now. The guy in the floral pants and green blazer? That's my roommate.

Arriving to the party where no one else was in theme was entertaining to say the least. Our bosses (and some of our students) got a kick out of it. In true fashion of anyone I've ever been friends with, we left the second we got word that the booze had run out, and made our way to the clubs. I don't think I stopped laughing the entire night. Sunday was spend extremely exhausted, but happy as a clam and still laughing from the night before...especially when everyone showed up for family dinner at our place with stories and pictures.

Here are some pictures of the girls and the whole group, although they really don't compare to the boys.

Please note the tutu

Fab hair

The whole crew

Lucre, Ducktown

So I'm too tired and time-pressed to actually write a post, but I'm putting some pictures up from our day trip to Lucre last weekend. It's a cute little town outside of the city where there's a lagoon, really good bakeries, and everyone eats duck. (Yes, including me!)

Our paddle-boating adventure

First time my feet have touched fresh water in months!

The Lagoon

Captain Shosh

Copa, Copacabana

I wish that I could say Copacabana, Bolivia was exactly how you would imagine somewhere called Copacabana would be....but this is definitely not the case! While there was a solid 2 hours of sitting in the sun with fruity rum drinks, that's about as good as it got. The rest of the weekend was filled with smelly buses, freezing cold, and less than friendly Bolivians.

The overnight bus ride there was nothing to complain about. I popped a sleeping pill and slept most of the way there. The 2 hour layover in Puno was cold and annoying, but the 3 hour ride to Copa was filled with more sleep and pretty views of moutains, Lake Titicaca, and sunshine (something I have not seen much of in a month)! Minus the hassle at the border, it was a pretty nice ride. Once we got to Copa we found an extremely cheap hostel which was a little cold, lacked hot water, and was owned by a rather unfriendly family....CHEAP obviously being the selling point for us. Afterwards, we went down to the "beach" got some soup, fresh trout, and beer. The sun warmed us up so afterwards we put on our bathing suits and sat at a little beach-front restaurant and poured Bacardi in our fresh juices. I read the magazine that Mom sent me...it was a delightful 2 hours. When the sun went away it got cold. We napped at the hostel for a while, then ventured out for dinner. Dinner may have been the 2nd highlight of the trip. We found a restaurant with a little fire-pit inside and sat right next to it. I ate some delicious, but expensive, tacos. A sweet little Argentinian named Hugo asked to join us at our table because he hated eating alone. It was another one of those things that made me laugh, because in America if someone does this, most people are freaked out and move away or do something of the sort. We, of course, welcomed him and he was good company. I had a great time talking to him about his accent from Buenos Aires and different places to visit in his country. He was very sweet and very grateful for us letting him eat with us. We were actually on the same bus to Puno the next day, so we exchanged e-mails to meet up in Cusco if he has the chance.

After dinner, we passed out in our cold, smelly room and woke up early the next morning to buy bus tickets. Early to buy bus tickets? We must have forgot we were in South America. All tour companies were closed. Luckily, we found one that was open and booked a cheap ticket back to Puno, where we would buy tickets to Cusco. Grabbed some breakfast at an adorable cafe, where our waiter could not have been older than 14. He was sweet and the food was decent so no complaints there. Afterwards, I took some pictures by the water to prove that I had indeed come to Bolivia and we set off to do a little shopping. Most of the stuff found in the little shops is the same as you find in Cusco, but some stuff was cheaper. I bought a phenomenal hat, some post cards (keeping up with Gramma's advice!), a change purse, and some bracelets. I'm collecting bracelets from every place I go to. So far, the 2 I'm wearing from Cusco and Tequilla haven't fallen off! Shopping is where things got a little interesting. The little kids who worked at the shops with their parents were, i hate to say, the rudest little children I've ever encountered. One little boy yelled at us not to touch his stuff and chased us away. Another little girl tried to scam me when her father had told me the gloves I wanted were 15 Bolivianos. She snatched my 20 and said she didn't have change. Luckily, I snatched it back and told her father I wanted my change or I wasn't buying the gloves. The little girl gave me a nasty huff and went inside to get my change, and basically threw it at me when she returned. I usually love kids, especially the ones I've come across in Peru, but I wanted to smack that little girl so bad. Later, when we walked past a store we had bought things from earlier, the little woman who owned it pulled us back in and immediately started attacking Maggie yelling that she had robbed her and grabbing at her pockets and purse. I was trying my best to tell the woman in Spanish that Maggie didn't have anything and to pull her off, but it failed. Mags was able to get away eventually and we walked up the street as fast as we could. It was the most bizarre thing in the world. Needless to say, I was not a fan of the locals I came across and was more than ready to return to Cusco. Little did I know that the bus ride home would be the worst to come. We opted for the earlier, cheaper bus...and we definitely got what we paid for. Copacabana to Puno wasn't bad and I got a lot of beautiful pictures. The bus to Cusco was unlike anything I've ever experienced. It smelled like a combination of vomit, urine, and other nasty human smells. They had a Bruce Lee movie playing on full blast over crappy speakers. We stopped at least 10 times to pick up random people in different towns...or just one the side of the road. There was a dog on the bus...a dog. It was the most uncomfortable, longest ride of my life. We finally made it back to Cusco at 12:30ish and never have I been so happy!

Our "beachfront" chairs

Titicaca & snow-capped mountains behind us

The arch we walked through to cross the border

Pretty sights on the busride

So as not to end on a whiney  note, I will say that we made a few deposits in our karma banks on this trip. While waiting for the bus back to Puno, a nice little guy came up and asked to shine our shoes. This happens all the time in Cusco, so we're used to it, but were surprised to see someone doing it in Copacabana. Realizing that we were friendly and spoke Spanish, this guy told us his story. He's from Peru, and lives in the country with his 6 younger siblings. Their mother passed away. Like most of rural Peru, they're poor and can't afford enough clothes, food, etc. So being the oldest, he left home in search of work. Someone lied to him and told him he'd find plenty of work shining shoes in Copacabana. Untrue, because most tourists are wearing hiking books or sandals...nothing he can shine. In 3 weeks he hadn't found any work, and we were the very first people to sit and actually talk to him. We gave him about 5 soles, which isn't much, but is all we could contribute. More importantly, we gave him a granola bar, Oreos, and peanut butter...the little food we had on us. You could tell that he greatly appreciated it. He had never had peanut butter before, and he was too shy to try it in front of us, but I'm sure he'll love it. And that half a jar will get him very far in the next week or so. My heart goes out to that little guy and I hope he makes it back to his family soon!