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!!