President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev in Red Square during the Moscow Summit. 5/31/88.
More Photos - Summits with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev
(Source: freakkwise)
Today was an absolutely glorious day!!! Ok so to start the day off, we went to Cervezeria Cusqueña, the local brewing company. After some videos of corporate propaganda (is there really any better way to put it?), we put on some ridiculous helmets with earphones and then took a tour! Apparently today was the anniversary of a horrific earthquake 40 years ago, so at 10 there was some sort of emergency drill at the factory. We toured the rest of the factory and then had a test test :) It was kind of bad. After that, we had a terrifying quiz/ presentation combination. It was kind of awful. Then, after lunch, we had a Peruvian cooking lesson. I was in charge of frying trout and salmon. It was really delicious, and there were four courses! Afterwards, we got back, took our laundry to the lavandería and then went to Mega, a supermarket. I bought a pack of cookies, a huge thing of water, powerade, a bottle of champagne, and peach nectar (for Bellinis) for 22 soles or around 8 dollars! I’m a bit worried about the quality of the champagne, but it should be fine mixed with the peach nectar and orange juice that Abbie got. Here’s the real story of the day. Walking back home from Mega, we saw our host father, Hugo, walking one of their dogs, Ricky. I tried to explain to him that we cooked and ate trout today. The spanish word for trout is trucha, but he misheard me and thought I said chucha, which is spanish slang for lady parts. I’m still laughing now and this happened thirty minutes ago. I looked chucha up later, and it also means opossum. Go figure (this one is directed at you Katy). Anyways, I’m going out tonight and then tomorrow I leave for the Amazon rainforest for the weekend. Internet connection is dubious, so we’ll see what happens! Ciao.
I didn’t blog yesterday because the family turned the internet off around 8:30. So here’s what happened I guess. After class, we went back and taught the kids some more English. My little guy was there again, but he didn’t pull any moves this time other than wrapping his arm around me. We came back to the house and watched Estado de Miedo, a documentary of the political violence that occurred in Perú from 1980-2000. Decided not to write the essay for it, and instead we watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Favorite movie ever. It is too perfect.
Today, we had an excursion to see more ruins in Valle Sur. We went to Raqchi, Andahuaylillas, Tipon, and Huaro. Andahuaylillas and Huaro were towns with colonial churches. The murals on the walls of the churches are highly famous representations of La Escuela Cusqueña, a style of art that I mentioned in a previous post. It was a long day, and at the end, our teacher decided not to make our essay on Estado de Miedo due tomorrow. Yay! But the road to the top of Tipon was shut for construction, so we had a lovely thirty minute hike up steep stairs to the top. I was dying. With the air being so thin here, it is incredibly hard to breathe. My body didn’t hurt at all from the stairs, I was just so out of breath it was painful. I tried chewing coca leaves to help, but they just tasted foul so I gave up and took sporadic breaks. Tipon was really cool though; it was the temple for the Incan water deity so there were little streams and canals of water running through it. Raqchi was the temple for the only real Incan god, Wiracocha. The Incans were actually monotheistic. Fun fact there. It was okay I guess for being the most important temple for the Incans. It just didn’t seem that incredible to me. Anyway, tomorrow we go to a cervezeria (brewery) at 8:45 AM (day drinking, yeah!) for a class tour, and then we have a quiz (hahahaha). After that, we have a cooking lesson! Should be an interesting day! Friday, we don’t have class so half of us decided to go to the rainforest. I’m super pumped!
(Source: ourcaps)
