Last of November (guests, riding the bus, Balcon de Diablo again)

 So this was an exciting Sunday, because we actually did an unusual thing and had guests over--and we did it twice over! First of all, we went to church, and we had a combined meeting for second hour, where they were talking about money management. So they gave us all a paper and we were supposed to write down our basic needs in one column, and Hazel wrote, "una novia" on Jethro's list, and Hazel and I had a good laugh for that one. Mostly church is fairly boring since, you know, we don't speak Spanish, and most people don't speak any English. However, most weeks we went there were at least a couple tourists there. And there was this week too. We talked to this young guy, and he was from Utah, and actually goes to USU. He was with a USU group actually, but then everyone went home except for him because he was still doing some touring, so I invited him to dinner with us. His name was Tate and he was funny. I said, "Unless you have other plans..." and he said, "Just with my ramen." ha.

It was quite fun having someone to converse who spoke English and who was a new person (not just ourselves, haha). He was nice and said he liked our food and stayed and chatted for quite a while. It was nice to feel a bit social and friendly again.

I made some hot fudge pudding (never turned out quite right, and I'm not sure why, maybe the sugar is different or something, or the oven doesn't cook quite the same since it is a gas oven?) anyway, it also spilled over and so there was smoke filling our house for a while.

So then our guests arrived. It was Pamela and her husband Neper, and their two kids, Thomas and Emma (5 and 4 years old). So Pamela is super nice and one of the very few people who speak English enough that I can really communicate with her (most other people speak none). Pamela's mom is Natalia, the one who works closely with Doug and helps arrange the trips to the remote schools and runs the Music School. Pamela was in the primary presidency so she would help our kids with a little bit of English, which was great. And also, at the very very beginning, she took our laundry and took it to a laundry place and then brought it back to us, until I realized that that's all you had to do--take it and drop it off and pick it up--so then she didn't do it anymore (I wish she would have just explained to me how to do it, but she was so kind to take it for us). 

Anyway, so her son is so funny. He came is and was zooming around, looking in all the rooms and talking a mile a minute (which was cool, because I felt like for some reason I could understand more of his speech than most people). He went up in Wyatt and Orrin's room and saw their nicely lined up matchbox cars on the windowsill, and was like--I have some too! and ran down and jabbered to Pamela, and she pulled out his cars from her purse. :) Then they played with them for a while. International language of play. It's actually pretty amazing to watch this.

Then we started a beanbag tic-tac-toe game, which was way harder than I expected. I made my own beanbags out of socks filled with beans. So they were pretty sphere-ish, so they rolled easily. Maybe that's what we can blame on it being really difficult. (I picked out all these games as ones that don't need much language. Neper understands quite a lot of English, I think, but he has a harder time speaking much. He's really cool- I like him. And now we're friends on Facebook. haha)

So after tic-tac-toe we played the name game where you draw a name out of a hat, and then call people to the empty seat on the couch, and try to get your team all lined up. It's not my favorite game but it worked.  Then we did the drawing game where you draw one portion of a body, fold it over and pass it to the next person to draw the next portion of the body, and so on.

After that we had the hot fudge pudding which turned out yummy despite all the struggles. And then we ended by playing a game where there are all different candy bars, enough for one each, except one is not a candy bar, it's actually just a potato. And you take turns rolling a dice, and if you get a 7 or 11 you get to pick one of the candy bars. Once everyone got a candy bar, then if you roll a 7 or 11 you get to switch anyone for the candy bar they have. Which means that some people are going to end up with a potato. I was fairly nervous about adding the potato element to the game, because I thought if one of the kids ended up with it, they would get upset, but actually it was a HIGHLIGHT of the night that whenever anyone got the potato, Thomas would laugh his head off. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world and we all just laughed at his enjoyment. :) Navy did whine when she ended up with one she didn't particularly want, but that's the game! It was fun. 

Here we are the next morning, Orrin and Wyatt and Navy heading to the park. They totally knew how to get there and could navigate the streets on their own and really wouldn't have needed me (although they always went with an adult or older sibling). 

This day we decided to go back to the Devil's Balcony since not everyone had made it all the way last time. But we decided to take the bus so that we wouldn't have to walk the entire way. I promise I did my homework on how to navigate the buses, and I downloaded the app, and looked up which bus to take... and yet we still had struggles, ha. It is a little nerve-wracking trying to get on in the first place, because they don't automatically stop at every stop--you have to wave to them to stop, and then they barely stop for a moment before heading off again, so we felt rushed. And then we got on and went for a drive around the city, but as I was following the route on my phone, it started going off the route that I was seeing, and someone leaned over and started asking me where I was going, and then I had them talk to Jethro and a few different people sitting all around us helped us figure out that we needed to get off, and where, and which bus to get back on. It was fun because pretty much no other gringos go on the buses, so it was a challenge! 

We finally got there and it was still awesome. The kids climbed the ladder and went through the cave a couple times.

Then we took the same "trail" back, by following the river--doing a few downclimbs and jumping from rock to rock, etc. So fun.

Orrin and Wyatt went way faster than us, and then they didn't wait, they just found their way home through all of Cusco without us.  😬 But they made it fine. (Shh, don't tell my mom. But honestly, I was not worried about them getting from where we were, through the highly touristy area, to our apartment. Very safe.)

The rest of us went to San Blas for lunch and it was delicious and I want some of this Lomo Saltado for lunch once a week for the rest of my life!

I adore this picture!!

So, on one of my walks around town I had seen a sign for Legos being sold and so I had wandered in and seen the selection. They are NOT cheaper - at all - than in America, but at this point we were wearing thin on books and toys to interest the kids, so for Orrin's early birthday present I took him to the store and let him pick out a set. Here we are on the way-- whenever there's a good pom-pom garlanded doorway I must take pictures of people by it!

hahahaha!

Here are Orrin and Wyatt asleep in their room. That open window opens to a big old elevator (I think?) shaft of weirdness.

Here is Brett's and my bed and Navy on her camping air-mattress bed beside us.

Here's a street I like that I've already posted pictures of before.

And here's a lady with a cute alpaca, but also this is our doorway. The little gate in front of the yellow and orange sign that says Imprentas (or whatever it says) is where we go in our apartment. And actually-- you can see Wyatt's head out the window in our front room if you look closely.

And here, Navy and I are following the alpaca lady until we will turn right in the yellow doorway which is one of the grocery stores we always went to (because, as I have mentioned, it was three steps from our house). Very convenient. They had a tiny little bakery counter to the right of the door, and after a while, we realized how great the little rolls were, and we would buy them by the 30's. Sometimes I would get as many as 60 at a time. When I first would say "Treinta, por favor," the lady would look disbelieving at me, and say, "Trece?" and I'd insist, and she would double check again, or remind me of the price, and I would ASSURE her that I really wanted 30 (or 40, or 50, or whatever) of the rolls. Because they were delicious, and we would eat like 3 for breakfast every day with cream cheese and strawberry jam. Or for lunch or whenever. We didn't have a lot of snacky food just ready to go, so these were it. And as I said, delicious. 

I loved sending Talmage to go buy them for me. He would often go for a few ingredients that we might need right before dinner, but the bakery one was best because you actually have to speak with the person and tell them how many you wanted. I think he found a workaround, and would just give as much money as he wanted to spend, but still, it was a good time making him try communicating with his one or two words of Spanish. :) 

Also, p.s. I can't remember if I already mentioned this, but the craziest thing about being there is that I would speak GERMAN all the time!!  And I don't even speak German!  But somehow, my brain, that knows a tiny bit of Spanish, just reverted back to the other foreign language that it knows a tiny bit of, and all the time I would say, "Haben Sie..." instead of "tienen..." or "Tschuess" instead of "adios" or "danke" instead of "gracias" and things like that. It was crazy.

I wrote it for an instagram post like this: 1.  I will never refer to the animal as an alpaca before saying llama and then having to correct myself

2. I will never start trying to talk to someone in Spanish, before saying something in German. 🙄 (And it's not as if I know a lot, or even a little, of German)
3. I will never pass the traditionally dressed alpaca/llama/baby lamb ladies (or a good pom-pom garlanded doorway) without wanting to take a picture with them. Luckily, Navy is of the same mind.