My semester abroad is officially overª (And I´m officially using an English keyboard that´s programmed with Spanish keys, so that "ª" is supposed to be an exclamation mark. Tricky.) IHP finished up on the night of the 11th. All 24 of us gave a final presentation, which actually went exceedly well. We decided to plan a mock city and hold a town hall meeting instead of a traditional power point or slideshow format; I think we did a really excellent job incorporating what we´ve learned and experienced this semester. After our two hour presentation (it was quite long) we had a cocktail party to say farewell to our faculty and coordinators. It was sad, but not too sad. I´m sure I´ll see many of my fellow students again and hopefully some of the faculty. Most of us went out afterwards to a bar and then a club. It was a good last night and I will certainly never forget this semester, but I think that goes without saying.
There´s so much I could say about the end of IHP, but I don´t even know where I would begin. Which makes me a pretty poor blogger. If I were to write about it, I´d have to actually begin processing it and I´m not sure if I´m ready to do that yet. I really just want to relax for the next week before I return home and face all of the inevitable questioning: How was your trip? What was your favorite country? What was the coolest thing you did? What did you see? What did you do? Those are all going to be really difficult questions to answer. I´m not even sure if I have many answers (just lots of questions about what I´ve seen and done and what on earth I´m supposed to do now). I have two fears: The first is that I´m going to get home to the states and feel alientated from my peers because I won´t be able to relate to them. I´m nervous that I´m going to be unable to communicate what I´ve experienced I´ll feel isolated and unsure. My second fear is that I won´t, that I´ll get home and everything will be just like it was, that I won´t have had some great transformative life changing epiphany. I think I´d prefer the former to the latter, in the long run. But I´m not even going to think about it right now. I´m on vacation! (Ah, there we go, I found the exclamation mark.)
Kate and I spent the 12th and 13th in Punta del Este in Uruguay. It was a great way to spend two days; we laid on the beach, ate two delicious dinners, and shopped a bit. I only wish that I hadn´t gotten so sunburned. Traveling was a little rough because it hurts to sit down, but I survived. Yesterday we left Punta del Este at about 8am, took a 2 hour bus to Montevideo, a 2.5 hour bus to Colonia, a 1 hour ferry to Buenos Aires, a 1 hour taxi ride to the airport, a 5 hour flight to Lima, and then a 1 hour flight to Cusco. About 22 hours of traveling including our waitng/layover times. After a bit of a luggage mixup, we met my friend Rachel at the Lima airport and now the three of us are relaxing at our hostel for a couple of hours before we head out to explore this cute little city of 15,000 inhabitants. Cusco apparently has a lot to offer, including some must see ruins and lots of historic buildings, so I can´t wait to stroll around. And on Wednesday we head out to Machu Picchuªªª I AM SO EXCITEDªªª I´ve seriously been waiting for this all semester.
Well, there´s only one computer in our hostel so I´m going to sign off and let Kate have a turn. Hopefully I´ll have a chance to blog again before I leave for the trek, but if not I certainly will afterwards. Until then, hasta luegoª
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