i’m in the lima airport right now, waiting for our flight to cusco & using their free internet for the next 19 minutes until my laptop runs out of battery. 

yesterday was the busiest day we’ve had so far in peru. we woke up early & david picked us up to go to universidad nacional mayor de san marcos. he went to school there & taught psychology there until they started having a lot of problems with the shining path in the 80s & 90s. he had a threat on his classroom at one point, says mom, & students suspected of being terrorists were pulled out of class & disappeared constantly. it’s crazy that david lived through that time there.

anyway, he took us around the university, showed us all of the different faculty buildings, bought me a UNMSM pin & shirt (i wanted a size medium, he told me repeatedly that i’m a large, “nooo, no i think you’re a large. yes, i am sure you are large. large, i think you should get that. large is better, no?” NO.)

after that, he dropped us off in downtown lima so that we could go see the iglesia de san francisco & the museum of the inquisition. before he left us, he told my mom to take off her necklace & watch, had us zip up our purses, told us to hold onto our wallets & not to take out our cameras at any point. so reassuring, that david…

the church was gorgeous. GORGEOUS! frescas everywhere, carved wood walls, mosaic tiled floors… it dates back to the 1500s & apparently, there are 70,000 people buried there. we got to walk through the catacombs (which reminds me of the one summer that i watched days of our lives, when stephano had marlena trapped in a cage in the catacombs of paris, remember that? no? whatever.) lots of bones & skulls. everywhere. one giant hole was filled 15 meters high with skulls..

okay, time to board the plane. not sure if there’ll be internet in cusco, but i’m crossing my fingers…