el primer día completo/the first full day

¡Buenos dias a todos! Good morning everyone! After spending my first full day and night here in Cusco I am ready for some breakfast and as you can see from above you may wonder why not because this is the view from the hostel dining room that you see above. It is a wonderful season here despite being winter and the temperature is very very agreeable especially after one day. The morning is now brisk and cool but with a bit more "optimism" than you would get with a fall morning as the day will only warm up nicely. Around 1 or 2 in the afternoon the temperature and the sun rise high up and it gets to be a very agreeable 65 to 70 and very sunny. The evening cooled down slower than I expected and even grocery shopping around 9:30 was perfectly comfortable with jeans and a long sleeve shirt.

So, a summary of my day yesterday...

We arrived at the Cusco airport around noon and then we were bussed off to our respective hostels. One group is staying in the hostel Alfonso, while my group of 15 is here in the hostel San Juan de Dios. They aren´t too far from each other but we are trying to work out how we get into contact because we haven´t been able to do too much as an entire group. After arriving at HSJD (the short name for my hostel from here out) we upacked our things and we got settled in with a shower and then we headed off to the Plaza de las Armas, a central location in Cusco where many things end up going on. We took a 10 minute taxi ride and with four people in the cab it came out to about 33 cents per person each way, which is not too bad at all if you ask me! We walked around a bit checking out the shops and changing money and then we went to a bar/restaurant called Mythology to watch the rest of the third place game of the FIFA World Cup. Uruguay vs. Germany ended with a 3-2 German victory only after Diego Forlán´s(Uruguay) free kick from the top of the box missed by about two inches and pinged off the crossbar of the net. This was his reaction:


We got some pretty good food and got to sample the local fare for a very cheap price(10 soles = $3.33 for a full cheeseburger meal) and we enjoyed the local color as we watched the game with the locals in the establishment as well.

Afterwards we came back to the hostel and I finished unpacking and organizing and got to take a beautiful nap for two and a half hours until it was time to go out and grab some more food. We stopped at a restaurant called "Chifa Pekin"



which is basically the same as Peking Chinese Restaurant at home and we got some very cheap chinese food which ended up being veeery good before we went down the Avenida de la Cultura to seek out some groceries for lunches throughout the week. I ended up buying four rolls (big surprise), strawberry jelly, margarine, cheese, a tupperware,an apple, and an orange for about five dollars US. I was very happy wtith this and I think it will be a better option than eating at a restaurant eeeevery day.

We got back to the hostel feeling accomplished and independent and sat around talking and drinking tea until about 11PM here time (midnight at home) and then settled into bed.

Today I got up, ate breakfast of bread, jam, butter, and fried eggs and I´m about to get going because we are going to go to mass at a cathedral in the Plaza de Armas and then immediately after we will make our way into the eateries to watch the World Cup Championship Game between Spain and the Netherlands. My heart says Spain is going to take it all but I have a gut feeling it´s going to end with a 2-1 Dutch victory.

Thanks for listening all and I hope you enjoy the pictures! I´ll be back tomorrow letting you know how today went!