House and Everyday...

View of where house is from Cristo (The Christ statue):

Here is the family minus me...Abuelita, Andrés, Carolina, Estrella, Maritza, and Lucho

The front patio: Going up the house:
The living room/dining room:
But we ate out here in the main hall. As you enter the house, the main hall is technically still open to the outside, with a roof over it. Then all the rooms are off of the hall.The kitchen:
My room: I had tons of sweet posters of BackStreet Boys, Shakira, Ricky Martin... The window looks out onto that main hallway.

The store:

Me doing laundry... don't put too much stock in this photo. I only did this once, the rest of the times I took my clothes to a laundrymat, which means leave them there and come back for them the next day.Mke:

Chilaver:




Luqui: (or Lucky?)

A micro, the type of bus I took everywhere:

Playing Andres' favorite game "Puerto Rico" with cousin Bismark:

Soccer and Entrada de Urkupiña

On Sunday the 12th I went to the ¨clásico¨ soccer game between the two teams of Cochabamba: Wilstermann and Aurora. Ian sided with Andrés and Aurora (the underdogs) and it was decided that I would side with Lucho and Wilstermann since I had a red T-shirt:)

The game was less boring than I expected it to be:) Our team won 2-0 and when a goal was made they would send up red smoke and make A LOT of noise. After the game I almost got drenched when someone from above dropped water (or something) down onto some girls wearing Aurora gear (luckily I was with the winning team:) )

The entrada de Unrkupiña is basically the opening celebration for the festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña which took place from the 14th to the 16th. I went to the parade which was really interesting. There were lots of really pretty and interesting costumes along with different kinds of traditional dance.

Traditionally on the second night of the festival many people walk 15 km to the site if the virgin where they chisle off a piece of rock, get it blessed, and pray for something they need. Then, if during the next year the thing that they prayed for comes true, they should walk back and returm the rock. Another tradition involves buying a miniture represting the thing you are praying for. So you might buy a mini house or car or office (good luck in work) etc. I went to part of this festival with Carolina, the mother of a girl f rom our Dept. at OSU, and she got me a mini suitcase filled with money, passport, credit cards, plane tickets, for a safe journey. Then we had it blessed at the chuch you see below.

La Paz/ Lake Titicaca/ etc

So this past weekend was our trip to La Paz and Lake Titicaca. I wasn´t feeling well for the majority of the trip but it was still awesome.

We left Friday morning and got into La Paz around 10am. We had Friday free to do what we wanted in La Paz so we did some more walking around and a little shopping. We also went to the Coca Museum.

That night we went to a nice restaurant called Mongo´s which I think I really would have enjoyed had I been able to eat more than the bread off my sandwich:) I did eat some Quinoa puree, which was kind of like oatmeal.

We stayed at the same hotel that Bee and I stayed at when we came into La Paz. So that was nice. The shower was awesome! (My shower experiences here have been somewhat varied...)

The next day we took the bus to the Tiahuanaco ruins. They were the tribe that existed for 2700 years before the Inca. The Inca actually started with a group that was exhiled from the Tiahuanaco. I´m not sure how the lunch was here because while everyone else was eating I laid in the back of the bus with a delicious mug of coca tea :P

From there we went on to Copacabana, a city on Lake Titicaca. We were there during the festival of the Virgin of Lake Titicaca so there were just TONS of people there! The hotel wasn´t as nice but it had an awesome view. We got there kind of late so I went straight to bed (everyone else went to dinner).

(view from hotel room)

The next day we got onto a boat to on the lake and over to La isla del sol (the island of the sun). The boat ride was great and so beautiful! The lake is bigger than you would have ever imagined! By the way, Titicaca mean ¨rock of the puma.¨ Once at the island we visited the ruins of a palace and then hiked up to the pueblito. From the top you can see Peru. We had lunch (I ate this time:) ) at a restaurant with an awesome view of the lake. On the hike up and down we also saw lots of llama and donkies.

(view from restaurant) (Bee near the top of the island)

After lunch we got back on the boat to go back to Copacabana. Once there we literally ran to the bus because we were running really late. We got back into the airport right before 7 and our flight was to leave at 7:15. Luckily the flight was late and we made it! Also thanks to our tour guides who had been calling the airline. But once again I got to run through an airport:)

Monday was the Independence Day parade. We went with our family since all of the kids were in the parade. Carola marched with her school in military uniform and Estrella and Andres marched with their school band. That part was nice, and there were a lot of interestng groups passing, but below you will see what it´s like to sit at a parade for nearly 7 hours! At least we had bought seats in the shade.

(Cholitas- women in traditional dress)

(Andres)

(me, Ian, Carola, amd abuelita- I´m not sure how well she was holding up at the parade!)
(several hours into it...)

Yesterday I went to some hot springs with a girl fom my class. Let´s just say they weren´t what I had pictured...it was all right, but the water was pretty dirty and there were a lot of little kids there splashing around. But Stacie and I did go get pedicure after! I´d never had one but it was great, and ticklish:) Plus it was less than 4 bucks.

Today was the last day of class so that´s great. I still have to work though gathering data for a paper I have to write. Our professor Terrell Morgan came over to our house for lunch, so that was nice.

Well, I think that´s all the news, miss you!