I am in quite a good mood.

I attached my photos from the beach and a video below. Please check them out. (If your are reading this on facebook then I think you have to go to my actual blog to view the videos http://isaiastorres.blogspot.com/

I am in a really good place right now. Tom Jones' song Sexbomb just came on on my iTunes and that is enough to make anyone happy, but I found something better to do than just go on the internet all day (except right now). I joined the Men's Volleyball team here! I have only been to two practices but it seems like a lot of fun. And by fun I mean that it is a lot of work but I am actually able to do it. My first practice was yesterday night at 8. We didn't actually do anything for a good fifteen minutes (Peruvian Time= Scheduled time +15 to 20 minutes), but then we started stretching and doing some leg training. We did this thing to work the Quads and then the experienced players set up these pyramid things to work on jumping. The pyramids came up to about my hips and I really didn't think that I could jump on top of them, but I tried and I could! So there were two set up so that you do the second one immediately after doing the first and I could jumpt on top of both without having a problem at all! We did those for awhile and then we went on to jumping and clearing each pyramid, which I could not bring myself to try. So I just kept doing the jumping on top thing while they were jumping over. After that we went to the volleyball court outside (the one inside wasn't up because there was a basketball game or something) and started warming up our arms and then bump, setting, and hitting (which has a way cooler name here- matar or "to kill" which is what we call it in the states, but it just seems cooler in spanish) to each other. I completely sucked! I haven't played in awhile and I get really nervous with playing with new people for the first time, so all my sets were bad and I have never been a good hitter so that didn't go well either, but my partner was nice about it. Afterwards, we had hitting practice where there are three lines and one setter and the setter sets one line for awhile on the left side of the net and then the middle and then the right side. Again, I completely sucked. But here is the good part, we played a six on six game and I played well, and I didn't have any service errors and all my serves were actually really good! So that got out at 10:30 at night and then I had to go to the store before going home because the next day (today) we were going to make chocolate chip cookies and I didn't think there would be chocolate chips at the grocery store near my house. I barely had enough money to pay for the bus ride home and I could only afford it because I had my university ID which saved me 20 centimos (about 10 cents) so it cost 80 centimos for the ride and I had 90. I could hardly sleep when I got home because my body was so awake from being active that late.

I had volleyball practice again this morning at 10, so I went to the campus and I was the only one there to practice. The coach told me to run around the soccer field for 15 minutes, then I did the quad workout thing, then crunches, then the jumping thing (30 times!), then the jumping over thing (15 times- we lowered the height of the pyramids), and then push-ups, and that was all. I was there for about an hour after the fifteen minutes of running, so I wasn't moving very quickly, but it was really tough. Right next to me there were these girls practicing the correography toN*Sync's Bye, Bye, Bye. But I only heard the first forty five seconds because they were only practicing that part- so imagine listening to that for an entire hour (roughly 80 times)! I didn't even get to play volleyball after that because neither of the courts were set up so I just went home and had lunch. I was so tired of having fish everyday so I went to the store this morning with the Empleada (Maid) and got stuff for a salad. So, I am not sure how many people have been around me after exercising, but I get in a pretty pissy mood. Like I feel great mentally, but I am extremely irritable. It is a shame and I wish it wouldn't happen, but it does and I got so irritated at the empleada during lunch. She is just so annoying! I don't want to go into details of what she does that annoys me, but just take my word for it. I ate lunch and I reaked from working out so I jumped in the shower quickly before going to a meeting with my group about our trip to Nazca tomorrow. The meeting was informative, but long and I really wanted to get home so that I could make the chocolate chip cookies that I have been planning for a week. I gotr home around 3 and Maruja- the empleada- and I started making the cookies. I went through the recipe and she was helpful, but was still getting on my nerves. Like she didn't understand that I didn't want her sticking her finger in the mix after she had just stuck that finger in her mouth. Anyway, the cookies turned out really well and I think I am going to make something every Thursday (it is my day off from school- the beginnig of my weekend). Despite being irritable, I am in a really good mood (I don't know if that is an oxymoron).

My Birthday

I am feeling better after the pity party I threw for myself in my last post. And I know that the biggest question on everyone's mind is "What can I get for Isaias for his birthay while he over in another continent?" Don't worry, my birthday isn't for another two weeks which would give you time to send me something! Actually, I am not sure how long it takes for postage to get here, but I don't think it would take more than three weeks.
Here are some ideas:
- I am craving American desserts, especially chocolate chip cookies and funfetti cake w/ funfetti frosting
- Arizona Tea Brand Sweet Tea
- Garden Burgers (I am not sure how one would send a frozen food here though)
- Mental Floss magazine
- Buy a plane ticket to come and visit

I guess that some of those aren't logistically possible. Maybe you can send me the ingredients for the cookies and I could make them here though.

What an awful weekend (and it is only Saturday)

The newness of Lima has been quickly wearing off and replaced by an increasing bout of homesickness so having a four day weekend and literally having already spent Thursday in my room, I decided that I had to go out with some people from the group to a beach that is about an hour away. I woke up Friday morning at six a.m. and my stomach was really bothering me. By nine a.m. I felt better and I didn't want to feel like I was giving up my weekend so I decided to still go to the beach. Everything was fine, I felt healthy enough and was running around on the beach chasing gulls and climbing mountains and I was really hungry so I ate some of the fruit that I brought with me (mango, banana, and an apple) and then had a plate of shrimpt fried rice. By the time we left the beach around six, I was still feeling fine. We went to someone's friend's house to drop off all of our bags so that we wouldn't have to carry all our stuff around when we went out that night. We drop everything off and headed over to the main street of Asia (the beach city) to walk around and kill time before going to the clubs around eleven. After walking around for a little bit, I start to feel increasingly more sick and feeling like my stomach had swelled to twice its side. So I found a restroom, spent some time in there, left the restroom to talk to the people I was with, went back to the restroom, did some more business, vomitted, talked to friends, went to the restroom, talk to friends, and went to the restroom. Finally, we found Brenda (the assistant director for the study abroad program here, who is peruvian and who is with here friends in Asia because one of them has a house there). She asked how I was and then told me that I should go to the clinic which is about two blocks outside of the mall place that we were and wait there whiel everyone went out to clubs. I was fine with going there and just sitting while everyone has fun because no one likes a party pooper, but a friend of mine who had already done a lot to make sure that I was able to get the medicine I needed, insisted on coming with me. So she and another girl accompanied me to the clinic. We walked out of the mall and started walking down the street the way that Brenda told us to go only to see that there was nothing there and then we asked some locals where the clinic was and they said that it was right by Wong (a supermarket) in the mall that we were just in. So we go back through the mall and actually find the clinic. I didn't bring my insurance card or my credit card so the friend who had been helping me so much already (Levy), put it on her credit card. The clinic was empty so a doctor saw me right away and gave my an injection of some type of electrolyte solution. Then they told me to drink this other electrolyte stuff, but nothing was staying down so I requested an IV and they hooked me up. I was able to fall asleep and woke up a couple of times to see that Lief and Kristin were coming to see how I was. I was out of it and still really dehydrated so I was going in and out of sleep while they were there. They left but Levy and my other friend who came to the clinic with me (Ilina) still stayed there with me waiting in the lobby. I managed to sleep for awhile longer and everytime I woke up I had to use the restroom. A weird phenomena that I still don't understand is that many peruvians do not have seats on their toilets. At one point there was clearly a seat because the hinges still remain but no seat. So the restroom at the toilet didn't a seat so you could imagine how uncomfortable that was. We all wanted to just get back to Lima, but everyone at the hospital told us that we should wait until sun rise because it was too dangerous and that the girls would be robbed and raped so we waited until sun rise. Around six a.m. I was awoken by the sounds of many more people in the clinic- a woman crying out to the doctor "Socorranlo!" (Help him!)- him being her son who I later heard had been punched in the eye and probably had some skull damage. There were a lot of people waiting in the lobby when I got up to use the bathroom for the thirtieth time. The IV helped a lot but I still felt so thirsty and that weird drink that they were giving me wasn't helping but I followed their directions to take sip by sip. We finally left the clinic around seven and got on a bus going back to Lima right away. We weren't able to go back to the friend's house to get our stuff and we weren't even sure if the people were at the house so we decided to leave all of our belongings hoping that someone would pick it up for us. I made it through the ride without any problems and got to my house around 8:30. The cleaning lady was there and was questioning me about why I didn't call and all this other stuff, and the entire time I was thinking, "I don't care, stop bothering me." I went up to my room and laid down asleep. A little while later the cleaning lady wakes me up and I thought that she just was going to tidy up my room a little, but she tells me that my host family's aunt (who I have met before and is really nice so it wasn't that distant of a person to come talk to me) wanted to talk to me. I gave them this look that said, "Are you kidding me! Let me sleep. What are you going to do to help me?" So they talked to me for awhile saying that I should have called them to tell them where I was, I told them I was sorry and I would next time. They left and I got to sleep some more. Them my host mom knocked on my door and told me that Kristina was on the phone and she needed to talk to me. So I talked to Kristina and she asked me to call Michele (the Program director) here because she really needed to talk to her about some things and tell her that she was pissed off at Brenda (which seemed pretty ubiquitous among our group over this past night). So as I was talking to Kristina I see that my actual mom sent me an email titled: Grandpa. I knew that the news was going to be bad so I got off the phone as quickly as possible with Kristina and called Michele to ask her to call Kristina.

With all that out of the way, I was willing to read what I was sure to be bad news. My grandpa was diagnosed with colon cancer and just had his surgery yesterday. My mom explained that the doctors found that the cancer was way larger and affected a lot more areas. They did the surgery and weren't able to repair his colon completely. According to the letter, my grandpa looked good after surgery but that he would have to do chemotherapy when he was strong enough. My grandpa is nearly eighty years old so his time is coming soon, which is something that we all expect but the thing that he can't accept the most. I hope I am able to see him before that time though.

My brother also leaves for Afghanistan in a few days so that is going to be pretty hard too. I guess when it rains it pours. I pray for both of their health and safety. Emotional breakdown status: impending.

Views on Global Warming in Peru

Global warming is being discussed here in Peru just as much as it is in the states. The biggest difference that I have noticed is that there aren't people bickering about whether it does exist or if it doesn't. People here are just like, holy crap, global warming is screwing up a lot of things already what are we going to do about it/ we are going to need water to drink and if global warming keeps up we are going to be in serious trouble. Here is the deal, Peru has these glaciers that used to be big and beautiful but they have been melting quickly in the past few decades. They are at the point were people can't go skiing or ice climbing in those mountains any more and it doesn't look like it is getting any better. The glaciers are also the source for fresh water.

What has surprised me is that I haven't heard anyone here saying that global warming is a liberal myth and I don't think the catholic church here isn't issuing press releases saying that global warming is just a diversion from more important issues.

I know that I was being naive, but I guess I never realized the actual impact this kind of stuff has on the entire world (despite that global warming even contains the word "global"). But you know what I mean? I am not going to start preaching on partisanship and all that but it is sad to say that so little is being done about this issue. Just think about how much was done and how much money was spent for Y2k and we had even less evidence of its existence than we do of global warming's.

I am not one to think that the US is completely to blame, but we seriously need to pull our heads out of our butts on this one

Machu Picchu

I just got back from Machu Picchu (MP) and I am in a train going from Aguas Calientes to Cusco. MP was amazing. You have to go there at some point in your life. It is so gorgeous. The day started off pretty bad. My roommate and I got up forty minutes late so we had to rush to get ready and sip breakfast so that we could get on the bus. We caught the bus that left right after our group´s. It only took twenty minutes or so to get up MP so the bus ride wasn´t bad. We got there and our entire group was waiting- but apparently they hadn´t been waiting very long- and we all entered the park together. The weather was miserable. It was cold, wingy, raining, andt here was so much fog that we could hardly see anything. So I was pretty pissed. I really don´t like taking tours either- my brain just shuts off when too much information is thrown at me- that or I just don{t care much about the subject matter. So the tour lasted like two hours and I hated nearly every minute of it (moreso because of the standing in the cold rain than what was actually being said). I bought a used SLR camera before coming and I used up the last of the roll once I got to MP, so I went in some enclosure to change the film, but something was wrong when I tried to roll up the film. As I turned the knob, the pressure against me got harder and stupidly I pressed harder and broke the handle. So I was freaking out. I manage to put the knob back in but it kept coming off. So I put it away and decided to wait until I find someone who knows what they are doing ot help me (which I did find in a person that is sitting right in front of me in the train). I had my digital camera too, so I still got to take some nice photos.
The day cleared up soon after the tour so it made up a lot for the morning and I quickly shook off my frustration. After taking some photos around MP, we all went and hiked up Waynapicchu. The hike was pretty difficult so we had to take it slowly. After about an hour or an hour and a half, we reached the top where there were more ruins. The place was so beautiful and had a great view of the surrounding mountains and MP below. I split off from the group and went a different route. I really wanted so photos so I to set the timer and put the camera on the tripod and run back and forth for my photos. Then I met the rest of the group at the very top and took some cool photos on the rocks. When I got back down it was nearly time to take the bus back down to Aguas Calientes.

Here are the photos from Machu Picchu:

Back from Machu Picchu

I JUST SPENT THE PAST TWO HOURS UPLOADING PHOTOS ON FLICKR SO PLEASE VISIT THE SITE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaiastorres/

Oh and if you click on the photo you will be able to see it in the actual size so you won't see the awkwardly cropped blogger photo size.

Here are the first set of photos that are from the first two days (before we went to Cusco). We went to some other ruins and a Llama rescue place.
First Set of Ruins:



Advanced Irrigation System





Cusco: (I don't remember it seeming quite so gloomy)




Our Hotel

Other Ruins (Next to a city, whose name escapes me)






Llama Rescue:



Kinda cute in that ugly baby way.

I like this one's hair

Cusco

Tomorrow I am going to Cusco and Machu Picchuand I won't take my laptop so I am not going to be able to update until I came back on sunday. But you can expect some killer photos.

First day of classes

Well classes started today so I will probably not be able to take as many photos anymore. I could whip my camera out on campus but I would rather be a little more inconspicuous. Somethings to note about the University: young Peruvians are significantly better looking than those who I have met so far, I am above average height here- not by much but it still feels good to not seem so short, and there is a gym on campus- it isn't too bad either, I think it is pretty comparable to Autry. I had two of my classes today. First was Biblical Anthropology at 11 and then Sociology at 3. I went to the wrong room for my Anth class and got up abruptly and left the room when I realized that I was in the wrong room. So I found the right room and sat down and was handed a Syllabus. The professor spoke pretty slowly so I could actually understand almost everything. Then I had my long break and I went home ot get lunch. Then I went back to campus and decided to find my other classes for tomorrow's classes so that I won't get lost again. My other class was boring. The teacher seemed nice and I thought it was a good thing that he used a microphone, but I couldn't audibly understand him. He didn't speak quickly but I think his voice was muffled. So I basically didn't get anything out of the entire hour of the class. So I am not sure if I am going to stick with it. I think I will go again and maybe sit in the front row so that I won't be disrupted by the microphone. Tomorrow I have a history of art class in the morning and Anatomical Art in the afternoon. I think those will be more fun, but we will have to see. I attached the one photo that I took today. It is inside a Micro (one of the forms of public transportation).

I am watching Star Wars Episode 1 on TV and I noticed that the Spanish subtitles don't use backward sentences like they do in English and I can't imagine who they try to translate Jar Jar Bink's character. Also I only realized now how horrible the acting is.



Look at the teddy bears!

Las Ruinas de Pachacamac

I went to these ruins that are a little outside of the city. The ara is called Pachacamac and I think it is still being excavated because there was only one big house/palace that was open. The ruins are reconstructed so you can see where the old walls ended and where the new ones began. It is interesting to see how the houses were when they were first constructed but I think the new walls lack authenticity. Well I attached some photos.
Also, the students from the Multi-Country program showed up today. There are about fifteen. They are all really nice but they only talked in English. Most of them speak some Spanish but they are more accustomed to speaking to each other in English, so the entire day (we went on a long tour of the city) was conducted in English. Oh but we did go to the catacombs under the cathedral. The catacombs were so cool, but photography wasn't allowed so I can't share them with you. I found some photos online here and here

Here are my photos:


The gigantic corn I wrote about earlier


The entire world was tilted- not my camera.


That room

With this view






Small Walkways


For some reason I doubt that the cross was there when the Incas lived in that village.

Best Tour ever!

I was supposed to go to the beach today but those plans fell through. So I went to the complete opposite side of the city to a place called La Punta in Callao (I think it is even a different city. Maybe it is a subdivision). I didn't know exactly what to expect or where to get off so I got off once we got through a very bleak city. I saw this fort looking thing called El Museo del Ejercito (and like an idiot I first thought it was a museum about exercise and was confused by the amount of military personnel outside and then I remembered that ejercito meant army). So I walked past that and went to the dock and saw this submarine. It looked kinda crappy but I decided to go ahead and buy a ticket to go down inside of it. And I am so glad I did! That was the best tour ever! First it started with a video about the Peruvian Navy (they were the first in South America to have a submarine). I didn't want to watch it and was annoyed that they forced me to, but I sat through it trying to avoid the English subtitles until I realized that they were hilarious. So I started just reading those and then I was laughing because it was like a bad Babblefish translation. I was in a room full of Peruvians who weren't laughing so I am sure they were confused by what I thought was so funny about a very dry history of Peru's navy. I started snapping photos but I missed the best lines. Well I attached the ones that I caught anyway. And the actual tour was almost as good too. We went down into the cabin? hull? and the tour guide started by describing the torpedoes. I don't think I listened at all. What I liked about the tour was that they had maniquines set up where the people would be in an actual submarine (cooking, typing, andI think one was on the toilet). So I took a lot of photos of everything. Then the final room of the submarine. I am glad this was a surprise. The guide explained that they would then show a simulator of what an actual attack would be like. So he turned off the lights and started the simulator. I uploaded it on YouTube and added it below. You can't view it on facebook so you have to click on View Original Post or go to http://isaiastorres.blogspot.com/ Oh and I realize now that I gave the wrong flickr address. It is http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaiastorres
Hope you enjoy the video. Oh and I returned to that Exercise Museum for a little bit.




And his strange metallic creature enters in to the deeps of the ocean






Parascopic View

Nuns are funny when they do non-nun things