Better Off Dead. Naw, not really!

Tonight a bunch of us all gathered together to watch one of the finest cinematic achievements of the past 100 years. Casablanca? Rio Bravo? No, of course not, Better Off Dead. Oh genius. We had fronch bread, fronch fries, and to drink, Peru! Seriously, we did. I think half the room (there were about 20 of us) hadn't seen it before. Travesty children! It's an essential component of any esoteric 1980's pop culture movie conversation. Where else would you learn such important ski lessons such as "Go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way, turn." It's kept me safe so far. Or the importance of keeping your newspaper bills paid, not boiling bacon, or lighting matches after drinking primer? The best thing is that I'm close to matching Charles Dumar and saying, "I've been in this school seven years Lane, I'm no dummy." Here's Emily with the fronch fries.

101 Dalmations! I mean, 101 Losses!

Sorry, but 101 cute little puppies with black spots sounded nicer than losses. Despite having a $100 million+ payroll (second highest in the league?), those little M's can't put a single game together and tonight was no exception. Tonight I went with Kurt to watch the M's hang in there against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Greater Orange County with a Particular Emphasis on Southern California. We were tied in the top of the ninth but J.J. gave up a two-run homer. Anyway, not important. The important things were that Kurt's tickets were on the sixth row along the first baseline! If only we hadn't traded Sexie to the Yankees. But fortunately, Texas/Atlanta gave the Angels Texie who was actually better. Yes sir, Mark Teixeira shakes his rump while guarding first base. It's ridiculous! What is he doing? Also, we had a fun time trying to decipher what the crazy man six rows back was yelling. Great game. Peanuts, cracker jack, red vine, hot dogs . . . we celebrated the 101st loss of the season in style.

Holla back Phantom, I'm right here.

Tonight I went with my back door neighbors to the Phantom of the Opera at the Paramount. Now despite the fact that I've been able to play many of the songs due to my one year of piano lessons (I didn't say I played well), the only time I've seen it is the movie version. And what a show! Nothing like a good old romance where one of the men is a horribly disfigured musical genius from the sewer . . . and shoots wussy red sparks out of a cane. Still not sure what that was supposed to do but apparently Raoul didn't know either because he pretty much just grabbed Christine and wandered offstage unconcerned. I thought the chandelier could have really plummeted onto the stage with explosions and legitimate diving for dear life. But, it's definitely worth seeing on stage, it's just fun. The funniest part was that there were two mesmerized Christine's when the Phantom started singing. Nice! But, keep the mask on Phantom-man, you're icky under there. Thanks Jeanette for getting us all tickets and to Sarah for picking them up.

And the speed of the Internet!

So I got the email of the picture from Drew this morning. In my defense, I wasn't expecting a picture and so I was in the middle of choking down a very, very dry "beef burger". If I end up moving there, my major plan will be to re-introduce Worcestershire sauce to its native land. C'mon people . . . moist, delicious. You shouldn't have to choke down meat. There's sauce for that stuff. The only sauce they provided was "mint sauce" which was runny and green. I don't think my mom would approve. Anyway, Pete of "Pete at the White Horse Pub" fame is sitting across from me. His brother Drew is sitting behind him, Bro. Whitcomb is in the back, Sis. Whitcomb is next, then the little brother who just returned from his mission to England and I don't know the name of because he was at the other end (and younger and not Pete), and sitting next to me is Drew's wife Andrea. There you are, the wonderfully random members I met in an English pub in Oxford.

Ahh, the miracle of Google.

So . . . whenever it is a Saturday night and I'm at the lab (which is probably more often than is healthy), I refuse to work on science (read papers, write a thesis, etc.) while I'm there doing the science I have to (pipetting, tissue culture, transformation, gels, etc.). So the things I have done to pass the time are as follows: darts (yes we have them), watch episodes of Love Boat online (it's a bit more questionable than I recall), read books about sailing (reminds me that things could get much worse in life), check my email ad nauseum (and realize that I'm probably the only one not having fun). In short, part sad and part boring. But whatever. This is how research gets done . . . so when you feel like they should have cured cancer already, please be patient. Anyway, tonight I was looking through pictures of my past month and was reminding myself that I've already taken enough time off and so it is perfectly natural to be sitting here until 10 PM. Then I decided to see if I could track down the family I met at the pub in Oxford. They took a picture of all of us and I'd like a copy. Enter Google. Thirty seconds later, I'm emailing Drew (one of the sons . . . Peter was the British one) for a copy of that very picture. Thanks Google! I'll make sure to post the picture if this late night boredom actually worked.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

So after four days in Seattle, I decided that I just missed the airport too too much. So I woke up at 3 AM to catch a 5 AM flight to Washington D.C. The NIH put us up in a plush hotel and then ran us through two quick days of a conference designed to recruit graduate students to the NIH for postdoctoral work. I met with three PIs while here in Bethesda and got three offers for flybacks if I wanted it. I don't know. I just have no clue. Anyway, my cousin Julia and her family live in the area and so I spent today with them. We drove out to Antietam where it happened to be their anniversary weekend since the Civil War Battle of Antietam was on September 17, 1862. They had living history reenactors demonstrate cannons, muskets, and salted pork. Here's a picture of Brian, Julia's husband, giving their daughter Hannah a closer look at the business end of some heavy artillery. It was fascinating. These guys spend their own money, make their own clothes, and take time off of work to volunteer their time showing us tourists how things were. Did you know that hard tack was disgusting or that Van de Kamps was making pork and beans . . . in tin cans . . . clear back in the 1830s? Talk about shelf life of a company. Here's a picture of the spread that soldiers would carry in their packs. What I found so surprising is that most men in the war (if they survived) typically only fought 1-3 days out of the entire year. They spent most of their time conducting drills and reading "A Tale of Two Cities." After the cannon fire, we went into the visitor's center to watch an extensive movie on the Battle of Antietam . . . bloodiest single day in the Civil War. Unreal. Men killing each other across a lane, other men being mowed down by the hundreds, lines of men picked off like a shooting gallery, left for dead in corn fields, rivers, and roads. And September 18th, they called a truce for the day and sat around and talked about what happened with "the other side". Then they had a musket demonstration. It took 9 steps to load those things. How terrifying it must have been to be standing there in the middle of a smoky battle, desperately trying to reload your weapon! After Antietam, we went to Harper's Ferry which sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. BEAUTIFUL!!! It's here that John Brown raided the artillery house and partly incited the beginning of the Civil War. As I read Stephen Vincent Benet's epic poem on the matter in Mrs. Morris' AP English Lit class at Orem High School, I found it all particularly interesting. And I paid for the most expensive lunch in history. No kidding. I can't even write the number. Believe me folks, those West Virginians are not hurting for cash. And although I was done, and I think the three kids under three were done, Julia was not and so even though it was getting dark, we went to Manassas National Battlefield. I probably need to read up on what happened, but here's a big statue of Stonewall Jackson. And a beautiful moon. And okay, I just thought these guys looked so cool, so here's one last picture. What a great day. Thanks guys! And . . . now it's midnight and I'm waiting two hours for the shuttle to come get me to take me out to BWI. Oh airport, what will I do without you until Thanksgiving???

Thirty-two hours of travel to get to Seattle.

This was our last day in Peru and I won't bore you with the airport details. Only that since we were in the middle of the Amazon rainforest on the opposite side of the country from the international airport, and since there are no direct flights to Seattle, it took a while to get home. Fun things today: The Puerto Maldonado airport was PACKED since a couple flights were late. I was convinced they'd just shove us all on one plane with people standing and sitting wherever they could find room. After the bus, it wouldn't have been a shock. When the flight finally got there, we flew to Cusco and then on to Lima. In Lima, Steve's cousin Julio picked us up and we went out to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Dinner was fantastic and I ordered Ahi de Gallinas. A sketchy-looking gamish of chicken and peppers . . . with the obligatory hard boiled egg on top.
And for dessert, picarones, which are delightful little donuts.
For dinner, we met up with a friend of ours, Alex Quistberg who is down here in Lima for a summer research project. He brought his girlfriend Lourdes (sp?) and we had a great time. The restroom in this restaurant was hilarious. In the women's room, there were pictures of shirtless men flexing in their frames on the wall. Men, that doesn't happen very often. Maybe at Buca di Beppos where it seems like anything goes. When I got back to the table, I asked if there were some interesting pictures of women on the wall in the men's room. Jonny, surprised, asked, "are there some pictures in the women's room?" I think one of the best things about this trip was meeting all of the locals, our guides, Steve's cousins, everyone. What a friendly and open people they are. I loved it. I would not have had the experience as just a normal tourist so from the bottom of my heart, muchas gracias Abuelo!!!

Basically, don't touch anything!

This morning we got up at about 5:30 for an early morning trip on the lake. This is when the animals are most active. The night before, we watch dozens of blue and yellow macaws travel across the lake to sleep and this morning we watched a lot of them come back in groups of three. We paddled (they paddled us) around the lake and saw toucans, ultra rare herons, vultures, more watsons (stinky heavy birds), a green ibis (super cool!, a vermillion something or other (beautiful brilliant red bird), and more caiman (up to 15 feet long this morning!). Then we went back for some breakfast of pancakes and juice and had a morning siesta. A much needed rest for my legs. They felt fine over the weekend but the heat of the jungle made the skin VERY ANGRY. Oh, it was horrid! Oh well. You're only here once. After the siesta, we went for a morning hike to look at plants, heard a super cool bird that sounds like falling water, saw butterflies, and tasted quinine. It's foul. It's really foul. And water makes it worse. Don't eat that stuff. I might suscribe to the siesta idea because it was bliss to relax in the room for a couple of hours until it cooled down again. That night, we went for another boat ride and saw dozens of capuchins and hundreds of squirrel monkeys migrating home for the night. Okay, here's the funny story of the day. As we were watching the squirrel monkeys jump through the treetops, Jonny asked Jesus if they ever fall. "No, never. These monkeys are specialists. They're engineered to climb trees and jump through the branches." NOT MORE than 20 seconds later, we watched a squirrel monkey fall all the way down into the water. He quickly grabbed a low branch, soaking wet, and went back into the jungle. It was hilarious. What a beautiful and amazing place this rainforest is! But here's what I learned: Don't touch anything. Don't touch the plants, don't touch the dirt, don't touch the water, don't even think about getting close to anything that can actually move (that includes some plants here!), and basically breathing might be dangerous too. The entire ecosystem is to outcompete you (read: kill you so you stop sapping nutrients). Since I got nasty bites in Machu Picchu, I wasn't about to wear anything but long pants and long shirts, despite the heat.

El Infierno Verde!

This morning, we grabbed a taxi to Cusco so we could catch our flight to Puerto Maldonado. Puerto Maldonado is over on the Bolivian border in the deep Amazonian rainforest. When we landed, it was a balmy 90 degrees. Oh, did I say balmy? I meant warm and uncomfortable. The heat wasn't oppressive, but it was headed in that direction. When you go to Peru, go to Puerto Maldonado and book two nights at the Lake Sandoval Lodge through InkaNatura. It was incredible. Good work Steve. They take care of everything. They picked us up at the airport and took us back to their office where we stashed the essentials in an overnight bag. Then, it was off to the boat where we puttered down the Tambopata River to the Madre de Dios River. We had a lunch of fried rice in a giant leaf and then hiked two miles through the jungle to get to the canoe. They then paddled us across the beautiful Lake Sandoval to the Lodge. Absolutely stunning. On the walk, we saw parasitic trees, the largest leaves I've ever seen, leaf-cutter ants in a long row, and a family of about six red howler monkeys! On the canoe, we went through a smelly swamp with neon blue algae clumps (seriously) out onto Lake Sandoval. Stunning. Here is a slideshow of the first part of the day. When we got to the dock, we climbed the stairs to the lodge (still sore from Machu Picchu) and had an hour to relax before we went out on the catamaran for an evening of looking for black caiman. You find them by shining your flashlight and their red eyes reflect that light. Fun things that night were the beautiful sunset, the stars later on, a bird that Jesus saved and then left on shore by some caiman . . . so probably didn't save after all, and a whole bunch of caiman. Oh, and a fellow American tourist that said "I guess the north star isn't out this time of year". Actually, the north star isn't out. And . . . doesn't change based on season. We were dying. And hope Jesus didn't hear. When we got back to the lodge, we had dinner and then relaxed and chatted. Back in the room, they already let our mosquito nets down and I pretty much had the best night's sleep of the entire trip as I fell asleep to the sounds of the Amazon rainforest.

Labor Day at 16,000 feet!

This morning we got up and got into a taxi that drove us two hours to Lares where there are some hot thermal springs. I had no intention of getting in for multiple reasons, the most reasonable being that of my poor little legs. Anyway, we piled into a taxi and drove up, up, up into the high Andes. Here are some lovely llamas we saw along the way. They're so cute!

And at the summit of the pass, the elevation was 16,000 feet. Mmm . . . breathe that crisp, clean blue air. Delish. Here is a picture of the scenery.

Before we left, Steve had bought some bread and fruit to give out to the kids that live up in the mountains so here we are stopping so that Steve could do that. These kids are on their way to school. The surprising thing to me was that every kid wears a uniform, no matter how poor they are. It was incredible, and of course I thought they were so cute.

After two hours of twisting mountain roads, we made it to the thermal baths. I relaxed in the warm Andean sun while the others dove into the clear blue wat . . . oh wait. No. The water was various shades of thick green and murky brown. Yum! But the baths were beautiful, I was not expecting this. They had muy caliente pools ranging all the way down to frio.

Here's a picture of the changing rooms for the thermal baths.

After about an hour and a half, we had our fill and drove the two hours back over the mountains to Lamay. It was fantastic. The taxi only cost us $35. Incredible, no? We wanted to go into Cusco that night so I paid for a taxi to take us all to Sacsayhuaman. When we got there, we found out that to go in, it was going to be $12. We were tired of paying for ruins by this point, so this is what we thought of it.

And here's what I thought of it with empty pockets.

Of course, we weren't in the complex, but we could get close enough to take a picture of Tom and I with our favorite state in the United. Yay for home!

Right next to Sacsayhuaman on the hill overlooking Cusco is the statue Christo Blanco. It is illuminated every night to a blinding white so we hiked up the hill (a short walk) to take pictures.

Here is the hillside overlooking Cusco. What a beautiful city. There are half a million people in Cusco, and there is no "downtown" and no tall buildings. It's a little different that way.

Afterwards, we waited at the suit shop for the tailor to show up and then we caught a taxi back to Lamay. First of all, props to Jonny and Tom for getting us back to Lamay, I had no clue where we were. Second, on the way back, the taxi driver talked the entire time about how much he disliked (read: despised) Chileans. I got the gist, you'd need to talk to Tom and Jonny for the full story. What I got was hilarious.