Because really, what´s one more straw?

Greetings Campers.

Yes, yes, I know that I told you I wouldn´t be writing again until I was State-side, but I truly feel the need to share with you the newest straw that has been added to the back of this very pissed off camel (aka, yours truly).

I believe I mentioned at some point that Slater was originally to accompany me on this grand voyage, but that unexpected career opportunities required him to return to the States instead.  Well, apparently when he cancelled his flight home from Peru, the geniuses at STA Travel also deigned to cancel MY flight home as well!  Because really, that makes SO much sense!

So here I am at the Lima airport, nice and early for my 12:00 flight, only to be told that my reservation has been cancelled and the flight is now full.  I ask if there are any seats available in the other classes--willing to suck it up and pay so long as it gets me home--but apparently my student-rate ticket is not elligible for upgrade.  In the end, they found a seat for me on another flight, which leaves at 3:00pm (oh joy, 5 hours to kill in the Lima airport), and doesn´t get me back to the States until sometime around 3:00am.  Fucking JOY!!

And with that, my darlings, this camel is officially DONE with travel.  Someone just teleport my ass home already.

Also, at the moment when I am perhaps least prepared to deal with it, I get a long, apologetic email from CFL.  Seriously, what more could the universe possibly have in store for me??

Wait.  It's probably best that you don't answer that.

Some Final Thoughts on Travel

In the world of hosteling, a hot shower can totally make your day.

Wearing the same pair of pants nearly every day for 2 weeks sounds far worse than it actually is.

Same goes for wearing the same outfit three days in a row.  It beats uprooting your entire backpack for the sake of a different t-shirt (just keep the clean underwear close to the top), and remember: the only person who knows what you were wearing yesterday, is you.

I am a freaking packing genius.  TIP: plastic bags and a roll of masking tape work wonders toward fitting more in your luggage than you ever thought possible.  Particularly if, um, you can´t stop purchasing alpaca sweaters, hats, socks, etc.

Just because I am alone does not mean I am in search of company.  Sometimes, sure, it's nice to have someone to talk to, but other times I am simply basking in my complete and utter anonymity.

Which, of course, doesn't stop me from being utterly convinced that a guy I knew in college is sitting at the computer next to me in a net cafe in Aguas Calientes... yet I say nothing, instead emailing another friend to say "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know if So-And-So is in Peru... would you?"

(For the record, I'm now fairly certain that it wasn't him--when he stood up he looked too short. However, if there were any person in the world that I could randomly run into in Peru, it would be him.)

There is never enough time to do and see all that you want.  However, the knowledge that you've done and seen more than you had when you started is an awfully sweet consolation prize.

___________________
Heading back to the States tomorrow, and back online on Friday after the 'rents deliver my computer (which made it to their house from Ireland intact, hoorah!).  It's been a long and somewhat crazy ride, and it's going to take me some time to get my feet back on the ground... but my thoughts are already flying ahead of me, back to New York and all that awaits me there: the aftermath of CFL (did I mention that bitch somehow managed to TRIPLE my motherclucking electric bill??  At this point I'm almost prepared to just let karma have its way with her, because her come-uppance?  Is gonna be massive); my ginormous culminating project for grad school; the Spanish conversation group I signed up for after realizing how much I've forgotten; job auditions; prepping lesson plans for a job Í'm applying for in Japan; my 10 year HS reunion (which one of the cool kids has personally asked if I will be attending); a baby shower for Evil Ex Roommate... the list goes on.

Real life never waits... but every now and then we have to put her on hold for awhile and deal with the aftermath as it comes.

Happy Trails Friends!  See you State-side!

Magnetic Poetry Mondays

In honor of the last Magnetic Poetry Monday, it's a haiku!



Back in the States in two days! Thanks for sticking around kids!!

Fuzzy Brained and Fancy Free

My brain... is not working properly at all.  I blame the altitude (3400 meters above sea level is no joke!) and the travel cold that descended upon me while in Arequipa.  My sinuses are completely blocked and it does not feel good.  However, despite my dopey-headed condition, I am totally in love with Cusco.  I wish I had more time to spend here, 5 days is simply not enough--particularly when one of them will be spent getting to and exploring Macchu Pichu, and another exploring some of the surrounding towns.

My hostal--recommended to me by a couple of Austrian cyclists I met in Lima--is lovely, albeit the water in the shower is a bit on the chilly side.  And for the past few days I´ve been the only English speaker in the entire place, so my Spanish skills have certainly been put to the test (and, I must admit, found to be a bit lacking).  This morning as I was having breakfast a British man showed up, and it actually felt weird to be speaking English to somebody.  Granted, there are a ton of tourists in Cusco, and many of them are English-speaking, but hearing it and actually speaking it are two different things entirely.  Does that make sense?  Please, forgive my congestion-addled brain. 

However, the Brit did suggest a medication to alleviate altitude issues, so I went and picked some up in a pharmacy this morning.  Sitting here in the net cafe hoping it kicks in before I head up to Sacsayhuaman, which is even higher than where I am now.  I plan to take a taxi to the top and then walk back down--being that I´ve been getting winded on very short up-hill climbs within the city, I figured that attemping a steep 2km climb to the fortress probably wasn´t the best idea.  Also, my guidebook says there are horseback tours around Sacsayhuaman and the surrounding sites, so hopefully I´ll be able to find one when I get up there.  If not, I´ll do my best with walking.

That´s about it for now.  Headed up to Macchu Pichu tomorrow, so I have to get my arse up quite early to make it to Ollantaytambo to catch my train (there were no trains available from Cusco, even booking a month in advance!).  I´ll be spending the night in Ollantaytambo and then the next day exploring that town, and also the town of Pisac, which is supposed to have any amazing market.  Not sure yet how I´m getting from one to the other, but I´ll figure it out.

Right, off to use the scary restroom here at the net cafe one more time, then find a taxi up to the fortress.

Oh, and the two guys sitting across from me have been checking me out constantly since they came in.  Honestly, it´s a bit distracting.  Flattering though, considering I haven´t been wearing make-up at all while I´ve been here.  Ah well, eye of the beholder and all that.

Peace!

Magnetic Poetry Mondays

Bright Sides and Space Men

I heard from the landlord today and apparently CFL and her friends (yes, plural, apparently bitch had an entire posse crashing in my fucking house) have vacated the premises.  She says that she thinks they cleaned up, as they put out some trash bags, but I've asked my darling A to please let me know if the place is completely trashed when she goes to check on the cat, so that I can mentally prepare myself before returning home.  Bet your ass I will be calling on some of my hippie friends to perform a cleansing ceremony in that apartment when I get back.

And if anything is damaged or missing, bitch is being taken to Small Claims Court.  Damn Skippy.

On the bright side, my landlord has accepted my multitudinous and profuse apologies, so hopefully this means I will not be getting evicted upon my return.  Knock wood.

So, in cheerier news, Greetings from Nasca!  I arrived this morning after a very early departure from the desert oasis of Huacachina, with two Canadian girls I met while sharing a taxi from the bus station and have been bumming around with.  We got to the Nasca airport around 10:30, and even though we had made a reservation, we still waited around for 4 hours before finally boarding a plane to see the Nasca lines.

First let me say that this ride is definitely not for anyone who gets motion sick.  The plane was tiny--seating six people, including the pilot--and there is lots of swerving and turning and flying at angles so as to get the best views of the lines.

That being said, the view itself?  Was AWESOME!  They route the flight in such a way that the lines you fly over first are the ones that are much harder to see and less impressive, but by the end they are freaking amazing.  I definitely think that the Spider is my favourite, and so I bought a pendant in the shape of it from one of the outrageously overpriced vendors at the airport who refuse to haggle.  Granted, "outrageously overpriced" in Peru is still fairly cheap by American standards, but being ripped off is still annoying, cheaply or otherwise.  However, I've decided that I must purchase something, no matter how small, in every town I visit... so overpriced Spider necklace it was.

The real question is: just how many alpaca sweaters will be in my posession by the time I leave Peru?  I already bought one on the first day in Lima, and there's still Arequipa (for which I am boarding an overnight bus in approximately 2 hours) and Cusco to go!

And then there's also alpaca hats, and gloves, and scarves, and dolls, and...

(Hey, if I can't bring an actual llama home with me, I'm going for the next best thing!)

In conclusion, for anyone considering a trip to Peru, I've got two hostel recommendations thus far:

Lima - Lex Luthor's House (Miraflores).  I was originally drawn in by the silly name, but the hostel itself is nice, has an extremely friendly cat (btw-Peruvian cats freakin love me... I've been using them to send vicarious love to my poor, neglected kitty), and a very helpful owner.  When I told him where I was headed, he gave me fliers for cheap hostels in nearly every town.  I'll be checking out his Arequipa recommendation tomorrow.  Either way, a friendly and inexpensive hostel that gives you free water!  Who could argue with that?

Huacachina - Desert Nights.  First of all, regardless of where you stay, just go to Huacachina.  It is awesome.  That being said, this is also a friendly and extremely cheap hostel.  Most of the staff speak Spanish but the owner is American and very helpful.  The hostel is also an adventure center and through them we booked a cheap trip in a dune buggy out in the desert to go sandboarding, as well as a trip to some of the local bodegas (wineries specializing in sweet wines and Pisco, a type of liquor).  She also booked our flight over the Nasca lines.  Plus the hostel is in the middle of an oasis, right by the lagoon, and has an inexpensive restaurant that is quite busy in the evenings.

Okay that's it for travel recommendations.  I'm sure there will be more to come.

And so, while I prepare for an overnight bus journey with visions of space men carved into the sides of mountains dancing in my head, I ask you: what is your most memorable travel experience?

Clusterf*ck Extraordinaire

So originally this was going to be a post all about how much I love Peru, and to make you all drool with jealousy as I wax poetic about sandboarding in the Peruvian desert... but instead, I feel the need to share with you life's inexplicable drive to temper every amazing experience with a little bit of dog shit.

You see, it seems that, despite all appearances, my subletter has turned out to be batshit crazy.

Oh, and an alocholic and a drug addict to boot.

I received this mind-blowing news around midnight of my last night in Brazil--when I was slightly drunk from our last-night-out festivities--and proceeded to have a complete and total mental breakdown to which Slater was witness and caretaker.  I am doing better with it now, but there is still a little part of me that is in shock.

Today I finally received a response to my two highly-apologetic emails to my landlord, first saying that she felt I intentionally mislead them about subletting (I didn't!!) and second detailing just some of the lunacy that has unfolded over the past several weeks, including:

• Crazy Fucking Subletter (CFL) wandering around the street barefoot and without underwear, completely disoriented and unaware of her surroundings, so that one of the landlords had to collect her and return her to the apartment, subsequently missing a day of work.  At this point he noticed that the apartment was filthy and my poor kitty apparently not well-cared-for.
• CFL and friends on the roof, and CFL later being out on the fire escape knocking on windows of other apartments, discombobulated, while her friends were still in my apartment.
• Perhaps as a result of the above, or perhaps due to some other incident, the neighbors have called the police on CFL, so the cops have been in the building taking her of her.

CFL has now been removed from my apartment by the landlords, and for the next week and a half of my absense my lovely friends will be stopping by to look after my poor neglected kitty so that hopefully she doesn't hate me when I get back.

I am somewhat terrified as to what, exactly, I am going to return to.  Are my landlords going to kick me out for this?  Has my apartment been completely trashed?  Are things missing, broken, or stolen?  Is my cat malnourished and miserable?  These are all of the thoughts cycling in the back of my head as I am off on this great adventure.  I am sitting here in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but part of my brain is back in New York, wondering what sort of shit storm awaits me when I get back, and wondering why it is that whenever something in my life is going so wonderfully, something else has to go straight down the shitter alongside it?

Clusterf*ck Extraordinaire

So originally this was going to be a post all about how much I love Peru, and to make you all drool with jealousy as I wax poetic about sandboarding in the Peruvian desert... but instead, I feel the need to share with you life's inexplicable drive to temper every amazing experience with a little bit of dog shit.

You see, it seems that, despite all appearances, my subletter has turned out to be batshit crazy.

Oh, and an alocholic and a drug addict to boot.

I received this mind-blowing news around midnight of my last night in Brazil--when I was slightly drunk from our last-night-out festivities--and proceeded to have a complete and total mental breakdown to which Slater was witness and caretaker.  I am doing better with it now, but there is still a little part of me that is in shock.

Today I finally received a response to my two highly-apologetic emails to my landlord, first saying that she felt I intentionally mislead them about subletting (I didn't!!) and second detailing just some of the lunacy that has unfolded over the past several weeks, including:

• Crazy Fucking Subletter (CFL) wandering around the street barefoot and without underwear, completely disoriented and unaware of her surroundings, so that one of the landlords had to collect her and return her to the apartment, subsequently missing a day of work.  At this point he noticed that the apartment was filthy and my poor kitty apparently not well-cared-for.
• CFL and friends on the roof, and CFL later being out on the fire escape knocking on windows of other apartments, discombobulated, while her friends were still in my apartment.
• Perhaps as a result of the above, or perhaps due to some other incident, the neighbors have called the police on CFL, so the cops have been in the building taking her of her.

CFL has now been removed from my apartment by the landlords, and for the next week and a half of my absense my lovely friends will be stopping by to look after my poor neglected kitty so that hopefully she doesn't hate me when I get back.

I am somewhat terrified as to what, exactly, I am going to return to.  Are my landlords going to kick me out for this?  Has my apartment been completely trashed?  Are things missing, broken, or stolen?  Is my cat malnourished and miserable?  These are all of the thoughts cycling in the back of my head as I am off on this great adventure.  I am sitting here in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but part of my brain is back in New York, wondering what sort of shit storm awaits me when I get back, and wondering why it is that whenever something in my life is going so wonderfully, something else has to go straight down the shitter alongside it?

Magnetic Poetry Mondays

Her name was Lola...

It's our weekend off in Rio and it freaking won't stop raining!  Yesterday we abandoned plans to take the Sugarloaf cable car (what's the point in challenging my gut-wrenching fear of heights when the entire city is shrouded in fog?) in favor of a hike through the rainforest in Tijuca National Park...which was positively lovely, but I still resent the foiling of my plans to spend the morning roasting on the beach. 

I had intended to rectify yesterday's thwarting by spending this morning sprawled on the Copacabana beach in my itty-bitty Brazilian Bikini (which will never see the light of day in any country other than this one), before heading to the hippy market in Ipanema this afternoon, but alas the weather had other ideas.  Hopefully the sun will make an appearance later today and we'll be able to get a few hours of beach time in before sunset.  My super-pasty-self needs a TAN!!

Also we drove past the Ipanema beach yesterday on our way back from the rainforest, and the men there were significantly hotter than in Copacabana.

Icky weekend weather aside, I absolutely love Rio.  The sprawl is intense--flying over on the way in I could hardly fathom the vastness of this place.  Wedged between enormous green, rocky mountains, every inch of flat land is positively covered.  In some places the sprawl continues up the sides of the mountains until the cliff faces become too sheer and the buildings appear as if they could simply slide off.  Even the favelas mimic the mountainous landscape, teetering asymetrically on top of one another in colourfully haphazard clusters.

I wish that our professors hadn't begun this experince by instilling us with a far-from-healthy level of paranoia about crime.  Thus far I have never felt threatened or unsafe, and I resent being made to feel that I must leave my  camera in the hotel or else... The result is that I have very few photos of this experience, and thus am doing my best to keep a mental record of what I love about Rio.

I especially love the beaches, which are beautiful, and the women, who come in all shapes and sizes, and who all wear the tiniest of bikinis, cellulite and stretch-marks be-damned.  Never in my life (or at least since puberty) have I felt less self-conscious on the beach--hence the purchasing of a nearly-non-existent bikini which now may never see the light of day.

I wish I had more time here--or more time outside the classroom. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that this will not be my last visit.

Magnetic Poetry Mondays

Seemed appropriate for the first full day in Rio.

Ah, Paris!

(title to be pronounced in uber-snooty French accent)

Greetings from Paris!

Well, from the airport and the surrounding area at any rate.  Slater and I are en route to Brazil and are here awaiting our flight, having spent the evening in a fairly wretched Comfort Inn, eating stale junk food for dinner as the vending machine was the only option by the time we reached the hotel... excellent!  Not exactly the Paris holiday of a Hollywood blockbuster, but at least we were able to sleep in a real bed as opposed to a bank of chairs at the airport.

Though there are some uber-modern chairs down the way that actually look pretty comfy... and the departure lounge smells much better than the hotel.  But I digress...

The wrap-up of Dublin was lovely.  Went out with some of the girls for "a drink" and proceeded to get schnackered and make friends with a bunch of Irish & English boys... the cutest of which is now my Facebook friend!  Woohoo!!

Really, that's about it.  I've got 2 minutes of overpriced internet left and our flight boards in 8 minutes, so... Farewell until Brazil!

Also, Round 2 of Postcards went out shortly before I left Dublin, so keep your eyes peeled!!

xoxo
-FP-

Endings and Beginnings

Well Campers, the Dublin leg of The Big Adventure is nearly complete... and I have WAY TOO MUCH TO DO this afternoon!  EEP!

I wanted to write something poignant, but I've realized that a.) I'm a little too hungover, and b.) I really just don't have time.  So, that being said, Ireland has been lovely and while I'm ready to head off on the next phase of my adventure, I'm definitely going to miss this place.

I bought a Clauddagh ring from a lovely man on Grafton Street this morning, and he told me that if you're wearing one when you leave Ireland, it means you'll come back.

You can bet this baby's not leaving my finger until somewhere over the Atlantic.