Tuesday January 18^th, 2011

Today marked the beginning of our (Paty and my) commitment to regular exercise. Since Paty has to work at 9am, we went to the 7am-8am aerobics class. It turns out that Telma (friend from the hike with the big dog) goes to the same class every morning! Cusco seems big, but it’s not. The class today was pretty much just constant dancing. The instructor, Sandra, is a little bit crazy, but that makes it fun. And man oh man can she move her booty! No joke, it was like nothing I’ve seen before, and nothing that I could hope to imitate accurately.

The only other notable thing today was meeting with Miguel after class. He wants to improve his English and I had homework that I knew he could help me with, so it was a win-win situation. We talked in English a bit and he tried to tell me that I speak English faster than he speaks Spanish. Of course this simply isn’t true, it just that to the person learning the other language it seems like the native speaker talks super fast. It’s a nice change of situation to be the one slowing down my speech and over-exaggerating pronunciations so that someone else can understand me for once, instead of always being the other way around. I feel less idiotic, like I’m not the only person in Cusco who has to say ‘What? Can you say that more slowly?’ Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that empathy is a good thing. Now I understand better the effort they have to put in so that I can understand them and I think Miguel understands better why it’s so hard for me to understand conversations sometimes.

Oh, also notable today was my first time royally screwing up using the bus. Miguel was in a hurry to get to his house so we got on a full-size bus instead of waiting for a microbus (combi). I knew the route went past my stop, but on the big buses they don’t call out my stop. I tried my hardest to look out the window to know where to get off, but the bus was literally crammed with people and I was standing, so I couldn’t see well. I was way past my stop before I realized it and had to get off and catch a bus on the other side of the street. But hey! I was glad for the opportunity to see a part of the city I hadn’t visited before, even if it was dark out and a little sketchy… but all’s well that ends well!

Wednesday January 19^th, 2011

This morning Paty and I went to the spinning class instead of the aerobics class. This was definitely more intense, but I liked it. And if I can handle this exercise at this altitude, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be some sort of super-woman when I go back to lower altitude :D

Friday January 21^th, 2011

After class today Alberto came to Tinku so that we could go together to the theatre. On the way, we passed through the Plaza de Armas (the largest and most important of many plazas in the city) to see the cars. I’m not sure about the details here, but from what I understand there is some sort of international (between Brasil, Peru, and Chile maybe??) race going on to celebrate the completion of a highway that reaches both coasts of South America. As I understand, it goes directly from Brasil to Peru. This is obviously pretty cool, but more interesting to people who care more about cars (ie, not me).

The show, on the other hand, was awesome. There were several dances from different traditional Andean cultures. For each dance there were different outfits, and all of them so colorful! I promise I’ll post photos of it soon, although photos can never do justice to a dance.

Saturday January 22^nd, 2011

For lunch today we went to the house of some relatives. They were all quite nice and the food was good, despite the strong presence of meat. To be honest, meat is a big part of Peruvian cuisine and it can be challenging at times to find a vegetarian option. But I digress, it was quite a nice meal and I think at some later date we’ll go to the little town where one of the uncles owns a house (out in the countryside).

Since there’s little else to mention right now, I’ll share some photos you might find interesting.

This is the shower. There is no hot water heater (all sinks are cold water only) but there is always a hot shower, thanks to this apparatus! I’m not actually sure how it works, to be honest. All I know is that you turn on the water, flip the switch, and somehow electricity magically warms the water! It’s a very effective system and you never run out of hot water for your shower J

Here’s photo of inside Centro Tinku. Like many places, it’s an open-air design, which I find quite agreeable. The small classrooms open directly into this larger area.

I think I neglected to post pictures of my birthday, so here are a couple:

My cake—it was quite delicious :D Note the ellipsis after my name… yeah, I don’t know why either…

Preparing to blow out the candle.

Me and Paty

Me, Miguel, Jisela, and her husband (he was making even weirder faces in the other photos, believe it or not. When we asked him why he defended himself by saying “I’m not a model!”)