Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Less Than A Week Until Peru

Fight On Trojans! The gangsta trojan grandma on the right always cracks me up.
It's been a while since we updated but we've been in a frenzy learning Spanish (me), doing research on Peru (him), and cheering on the USC Trojans in football (both of us). With October being in the thick of the football season, it was hard for us (mostly him :P) to think about anything else. Game days are almost fully dedicated to the Trojans (with tailgating on campus or finding a cool place to catch the game, watching the 3.5 hour game, being drunk, celebrating when they win, mourning when they lose) and since we only see each other on the weekends, Peru progress has been slow.

Mind Snacks was THE best iPhone app that helped me
with basic vocabulary and verbs.
On the other hand, I've been really proud of my progress with Spanish! I went to the library and checked out several books to help me learn, including fun children's' activity books! I also downloaded Spanish audiobooks for my car and my shower/workout playlists. I spent several nights playing every Spanish iPhone app until I fell asleep with my phone in my face. Livemocha has been really fun too. It's a website that allows you to converse with other language learners around the world, in addition to having traditional lessons. Native Spanish speakers who were learning English were the best to chat with since we would help each other and many that I chatted with were from South America. I think I know enough for our trip but Ignas always points out my horrendous Spanish accent (or rather, the complete lack of).



The red section is the size of Costa Rica - tiny compared to all of Peru. Taken from a nifty website: www.ifitweremyhome.com
Planning Peru has honestly been overwhelming because its gigantic compared to Costa Rica and Hawaii, where Ignas and I took our previous major trips. We knew that visiting Machu Picchu was a must but other than that, the possibilities were endless. Peru is extremely varied and has almost every type of climate. There's the desert coastline, the Amazon jungle, the Andes, culture, history, ruins, museums, beaches, wildlife, food... and we would see it all if we could but we don't want to spend too much time traveling from place to place. The first way we narrowed our options was by choosing to stick to Southern Peru.

I put up a makeshift calendar on my bedroom wall when Ignas visited last weekend. As of today, this is still what it looks like. Needless to say, it'll be a very interesting and surprising trip.
With Southern Peru in mind, we are considering Lima, Cusco, Arequipa, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, and the Colca Canyon. How and when are we going to do all of this? We still don't know. We want to get enough in to embrace the best of what the country has to offer but we also want enough time to explore and trek off the beaten path.

My new 24" suitcase vs. my standard carry on. 
With less than a week before we depart, we are in the process of finalizing our itinerary and figuring out what to pack. I decided to buy a new suitcase since I anticipate to pack bulkier clothing. The low's in Cusco and Arequipa have been in the 40s (F) and the high's at 70F. Brr! I spent forever looking for the perfect one and I finally found this cute black/purple one that was very functional and had a lot of compartments. I knew Ignas wouldn't like it though. In fact, this is what he had to say when I sent him this picture: "That looks terrible. You'll probably be stopped from leaving Peru because they'll think you killed some exotic endangered purple leopard and made luggage out of it." That's my boyfriend <3

At this time next week, we'll be taking off from our layover in Costa Rica! :D Oh and check out the new Instagram gallery in the sidebar! I'm hoping to upload a few pictures on the trip and Instagram is so much easier to work with than the Blogger app on my phone. Follow us! :)


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