back in town with tons of photos

Yes indeed, I am back in steamy NOLA, trying to organize all my stuff for the beginning of this semester. Bleah to both.

So since the original intent of this blog was just to keep people updated while I was on my trip, I'm not certain what I should do with it now. Granted, NOLA is rather strange and exotic in ways, but not ones I care to experience or write about. And I think the inevitable "worked on grant proposals today" entries are going to get boring. Any suggestions?

While I'm deliberating this, you can enjoy these pictures (my connection here is so fast in comparison! these pics were easy to put up, woo-hoo!):

Here's a pic from the course I was on--I'm pretending to the be intrepid archaeologist in the lower right--I was actually taking some soil samples. So thrilling, no?

These 2 are pics of some of the work I did--the first is a small part of the aerial-view plan where we marked the deteriorations in general for all the walls, the second is one of the drawings of the sides of the walls. Now imagine having to do a couple hundred of those.

Now on to the fun pics! I have way more than this, and some funnier party ones, but my mom reads this blog so I'm not sure if I should put them up or not. ;) If there's a request for them, maybe.

This first one is of Johnny and me. I have to admit, I'm not sure if that's how to spell his name, especially because we alwaysed used the spanish pronunciation. Anyhow, he's a rather crazy guy from Denmark who was at the hostel for a month taking a small break in the city during his travels. He even helped out at the hostel some, painting and repairing some walls; he even painted a decorative border in the kitchen. He's had a really interesting life and has an even more interesting perspective on it. I had a ton of fun with him and was really glad to have his company. The cds and this goofy photo are because he loves the music of Robbie Williams; he even gave me one as a going away present.

I know you won't believe it, but trust me, despite all the beer bottles on the table, the stuff in the glasses is a lovely fancy coffee drink that Johnny made. he's on the far right; the other guy next to me is Ricardo (brazilian guy). The guy on the far left is Miguel, the owner of the hostel. We're giving him saludos because his hostel is so great. And he deserves the praise--he's an incredibly hard-working guy who's really smart but still knows how to be friendly and sociable; I like and respect him a lot.

This is when a group of us were all going out to a discoteca; this was the first time I had actually gone out anywhere with them. The girl next to me is Jasmine, who was incredibly nice and a good friend of Miguel's. The other girls are friends of hers. Especially during the last 2 weeks I was there, it was usually Miguel, Johnny, and I hanging out, with either some of Miguel's friends or others from the hostel joining us. I had an awesome time with them.

This is Daniel (Swiss guy) and his Peruvian novia Liset. They are a cute couple. They weren't guests at the hostel--they're friends of Miguel's and live in Lima. We hung out with them--mostly Daniel--quite a bit. It was interesting to hear his experiences about trying to get established living in Lima; it's not that easy for a foreigner, but he's working on it.

Here's Johnny and I with this somewhat crazy girl from South Africa. She was nice to me, but that's probably because I helped her a lot with figuring out problems with her plane ticket and getting money. I was a bit confused--she's traveled quite a bit before, so I don't know why she was having such novice-level problems. And she didn't speak any spanish. I have no idea how she got around on her own successfully. She also wasn't particuarly nice to one of the girls working at the hostel, and she just had a weird demeanor in general. I guess that's why I think this pic is funny, is because Johnny and my expressions definietly reflect what we were thinking about her, heh. Oh well, it was always interesting to see the people who passed through the hostel. Miguel definitely puts up with a lot, I'm impressed.

In comparsion, some of the other guests were very cool. This pic is of myself, Johnny, and 2 people from Spain. I don't remember the girl's name, but the guy is Carlos. I love the Spain-spanish accent, for some reason I can understand it fairly easily compared to the Peruvian accent. Johnny loved the girl's very husky voice, hehe.

No, I'm not exactly sure why, but in this next pic Johnny is pretending to be a marionette. Yanett is holding the string up top, and Lucy is ignoring them both in the background. The two gals worked at the hostel. Lucy's knitting--she and the other gals were rather crafty (another does crochet) and were always interested in the projects I was making. Really nice people.

And speaking of, here's some crafty stuff:

The following 4 pics are some beaded necklaces I made to give to the gals working at the hostel--I picked the colors according to what I thought suited them best. Sorry for the lack of scale--neglecting my archae training, tsk tsk--but the diameters of these are about 7 inches.

This one's a crossstitch that I made while I was there--I gave it to Miguel as a thank you, I thought it'd be appropriate to put up in the hostel. I'll see if he still has it up when I go back next year. ;)