Peru: Day 7

Today has been a day of exceptions...or so Joanna has told me. I've had no pre-conceived notions about anything she wanted to do today, so I can honestly say that everything far surpassed my expectations! She wanted to take me to a few markets today...one of which was closed for cleaning. 1) Joanna's never seen it closed before in al the time she's been here and 2) for "cleaning" she took as a joke. The market we went to before the closed one consisted of fruit and meat. The meat being rows and rows of raw ribs, skinned cow heads, intestines, chicken feet, cow bellies, etc. The closed market was supposed to be so much better in the sense that it had more and it had a roof...which meant that the nasty heat induced smell would be amplified a great deal. I'm really feeling like I missed out on something grand so I'm trying to get over it! After the markets, we went back to Pallpanccay for home work time. Joanna said that there were very few kids there and there were only two regular teachers, her and Nolan. That too was irregular apparently. On our Way back from homework time, Joanna wanted to stop and observe the stars she's been telling me about since she first moved to Peru. I thought they were spectacular, especially since I had a different perspective being on the other side of the equator. But Joanna said that there were normally 3 times as many stars out. Alas, a lack. I knew no different. It was beautiful. After eating dinner at her house, Joanna wanted to take me to the place with the best chocolate cake in all Cusco. The bakery style for the place was like nothing I'd seen in Peru until then, but sure enough, when we asked about the chocolate cake...they were out. The substitute place--which didn't have chocolate cake or anything of the like--was open despite my jesting that it would be closed simply because we wanted to go there and everything else tended toward the exception today. It was there that we worked on my Spanish. Pretty fun stuff. I had written down on a piece of paper the words that I knew I knew, so we talked out some other words that I should know or have heard a good bit since I've been here and pieced some phrases together. I think I have enough to keep me busy for a while, Spanish wise! If I really study it, I should be able to pick up on a lot more than I currently know. I'm starting to wish I had a little more time to pick up on some more Spanish...but boy, has this been an incredible crash course.