two proposals and the last week in Peru

So I'm trying to remember the last time I wrote, the last few days has been a blur trying to get all my work wrapped up. The night of the amazing race I needed some alone time, so I grabbed by books and walked to an Italian place around the corner from my hotel. It was wonderful, I ate some pasta, drank some juice, listened to my Ipod and relaxed. I'm not one that normally needs alone time, but being in a large group gets exhausting and overwhelming at times. It's amazing how just a couple hours alone can rejuvenate your spirits. The next day (May 22nd), I missed out on the morning activities to go to the hospital with one of my professors. They wanted me to go home with my lab workups from when I had dysentery so that if something happens back home I'll have documents of what happened here in Peru. Turns out Justin didn't take me to the public hospital, rather a private one... Which was probably a good thing considering the private hospital still had dirty sheets and mosquitoes everywhere. I couldn't imagine what the condition of the public hospital looks like. Once getting all the documents for the doctors and insurance we had lectures and then a few of us decided to see a movie after dinner. We went to see Angels and Demons! It was English with Spanish sub titles, except the parts that were in Italian when they just had the Spanish subtitles so we got a little lost in parts. There were mixed reviews about the movie from the group, but i thought that it was really good. I had read the book so that added to my appreciation for the movie.. but also I had taken a class about the evolution of western civilization's thoughts and culture at the university this year and it was amazing how applicable this movie was to the course. SO i found it really fascinating from an academic perspective as well.

Saturday (may 23) we had off, and was it ever needed. I slept in and enjoyed laying in my bed reading my recreation book (outlander series still!) But I was eventually forced out of bed by the heat. It was the hottest yet and we found an outdoor pool at a five star hotel named El Dorado... So 5 of us packed up our books and went with Chui Ling (one of our professors) to the pool all day. Of course no one ended up opening a book the entire day, unless it was one for recreational purposes. It was a much needed day of rest. We swam, talked, tried to get rid of our awesome tan lines, and just relaxed. We polished off the afternoon with an ice cream which turned into a race to eat the ice cream before it ended up a puddle on the ground. That evening to continue with the day of rest we had a girls night. A few of us girls drank some wine and watched "ten things I hate about you," the chick flick from our preteen days, when everyone had a crush on Heath Ledger. That day was the one and only day that I did not even open a book or do any homework in the past 26 days, and it was awesome.

Sunday morning they had a morning activity planned of going to church. Of course that caused problems within the group. With 20 students from Canada there are obviously have many different religions and opinions on the catholic church. The plan quickly changed, and instead we walked to the square where there was an army parade. It was really cool, even tho I had no idea what was going on. But it reminded me of my Grandpa. He used to be in the Army band, and although I had never seen his army band play, I imagine it was something quite similar to this. They all wore white uniforms and they had the trombones, trumpets, drums and tuba and they were marching around the square playing songs that seemed pretty familiar, songs i think my grandpa sings during the campfires. After classes that afternoon we had a private caporara (spelling?) dance lesson. It was awesome! and it felt so good to get some exercise in. Caporara is a Brazilian dance that was created by slaves who weren't allowed to practice martial arts, so they came up with this form of dance to practice fighting. So it is a controlled dance or different martial arts moves but without contact. It takes incredible strength, and I definitely got a good workout. It was really fun and hard! There is caporara dance classes in calgary and I think it would be awesome cross training for me and ben when i get home. So after working up a sweat we went for pizza and I slept incredibly well that night.

Yesterday was one of the more stressful days thus far. Everyone realized that there was only 4 days left of the course and crunch time was in our midst. We have a big conference on friday which we haven't even started preparing for, but also we have alot of mini projects to finish up as well. Feeling the pressure I had a little melt down, but talking to ben that night definitely helped. I'm not sure how he does it but even from another country he always manages to say the right thing to calm me down. He is the best and I have missed him so much, there is so many cool things that he would have loved here. Anyways, that night I stayed up pretty late finishing up a bunch of work, but woke up feeling alot better about things today.

Today the professors switched things up and made class in the morning, and we went to the butterfly farm in the afternoon. Which was incredible! but it was quite the journey to get there. We had to find a boat to take us to another town. Three of us got separated from the group and had to find a boat for ourselves. Well we learned an important lesson; the cheapest isn't always the best way to go. We got offered a boat ride for 2 solas per person (that's not even 1$) by two men, and we took it. Well the engine kept dying on us on the way and our captain was pretty sketchy. I am so glad that at least one of the two other people with me was a man or else i'm not entirely sure what would have happened. In a nutshell the captain (who reassured me was 32, single and had a job) proposed to me. Even after I told him I had a boyfriend. So to finally deter him I had to tell him that I was already getting married to get him to stop harassing me. Dara was with me (my roommate) and had to pretend that the boy on our boat was her fiancee to. I mean the driver was hitting on her even after she pretended that he was her boyfriend. Relentless these Peruvian man are. After the rejection i think he was pretty disappointed because he then turned off the motor half way to the farm and told us that he increased he fee. Apparently it's only 2 solas if you'll marry him. Well, after a 45 minute boat ride that should have taken 20 minutes, and two proposals (one for me and one for Dara) and the boat driver trying to scam us for 5x as much as the price we agreed on we made it safe and sound to the butterfly farm. It was amazing! It was more or less a reserve, so there were monkeys everywhere! you had to take out your earrings and secure all your personal items to make sure that the monkey's don't steal them. We saw a manatee and a caimen (something i didn't even see in the jungle). Then we went in to the butterfly farm part which was pretty awesome! Such gorgeous creatures. It's hard to believe that they only live 2-3 weeks. Then we went to see a Jaguar and a pig/elephant looking thing that we got to go in and pet... Except it stepped on my toe! and it was over 300 pounds! luckily i wasn't wearing flip flops like most people or else i would have lost a couple of toes. They got a pretty good picture of my expression during the incident. Then we hung out with the monkeys for half an hour. It was amazing, some of them would come right up to you and take hold of your hand. The wolly monkeys and the howler monkeys kept their distance tho and were a little more aggressive. I have some good pictures, it was amazing. I'll post them soon, when the internet connection is better.

So we are down to the final 3 days of classes and 2 days of traveling. The work has been challenging but it's more rewarding than blindly receiving straight a's at the university. Like the boat there has been good moments and moments of frustration. It has flown by so fast, but I will always remember this trip. I have learned so much and grown so much. Can't believe i'm home in 5 days!