Wednesday came along faster than we imagined. Today we flew into Cuzco, Peru. So many people say that it is a magical place, but until I had a chance to see for myself, I really had no idea HOW magical it really is.
We arrived into Cuzco around 3:30pm on Wednesday afternoon. First stop was the hostel I had arranged since we had some VERY heavy luggage. We walked the few blocks it took to get to the hostel…did I mention that our bags were VERY heavy? Yeah, I thought so. We go to check in just to find out that they had just given our hotel to the punks that walked in right before us. And I was the one with the reservation! GRRR!!! So instead of offering a room there or at a place even CLOSE to there, we had to walk another six blocks with those VERY heavy bags to another hostel. Luckily for them, it was much nicer than the original. Once we got settled in, we headed out into town for some grub and sight-seeing.
As we walked through downtown Cuzco, we heard some deep drums pounding through the main streets near the Plaza de Armas. We walked a few blocks further to find the people of Sacred Valley in their native garb dancing down the main streets of Cuzco. What Adam and I didn’t realize is that we planned our trip to Sacred Valley during one of the most cultured and busiest times of the year. It was Inti Raymi- a native festival much like a reenactment of the civil war in the US- where the native tribes of Sacred Valley get together and celebrate their different tribes/cultures and reenact the battles once held back in ancient times.
Not sure what else there was to do during these great festivities, we walked through some side roads to find a little diner that served quick food for a good price. This is the restaurant where I tried alpaca (a smaller form of llamas) for the first time. It didn’t taste as wonderful as I would have expected. Kinda chewy. Since it was nearing 10:00pm, we figured the festivities would be going on for not much longer, so we grabbed a 6 pack of beers and popped a squat on a sidewalk near the main show, the Inti Raymi parade. It was wonderful! So many tribes in their native clothing throwing fire and dancing through the streets. The culture was rich that night!
After the end of the 6 pack, we headed inside where the weather was a little warmer. We stumbled upon an Irish Pub that was self-proclaimed ”the highest pub in the world,” which could be true. Considering the elevation of the town of Cuzco, the 2nd floor building in the Plaza de Armas square could rightfully be the highest in the world. But I’ll leave that up to Guinness to decide. The book, not the beer.
To take in all of the culture of the Inti Raymi, we stopped by one of the street vendors and grabbed some street meat, just to see how it tastes. We had tried so many different kinds of food in South America so far, we were fairly confident that we wouldn’t get sick…and took the risk. After the street meat, we bar hopped a little more and eventually made it back to hostel for the night. Good times for night one.
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The day after we got back from Mendoza and Chris departed back to the states, one of the biggest projects of Adam’s South American work responsibilities was upon him…Expomin- The South America Mining Expo. People come from all over the world to show their products and learn more about the mining industry. It only happens once every four years, so it’s a very large show, to say the least.
So part of this Expomin includes having “models” around the booth to help pass out the swag and promote products. Well, since Immersive South America had procrastinated or taken too long (not sure which) in choosing a model that would work around their booth, I volunteered my services as a “model” for the week. Afterall, I did have a little bit of modeling experience anyway (which included walking around in wedding dresses for the local bridal shop at the mall’s wedding expo extravaganza) and I could just jump right in…right? I didn’t know what exactly this would entail, but anything to get me out of the house and interacting with more than just Adam and office fold, I’m in!
Four days of dressing up and standing on my feet all day long reminded me of how I didn’t really miss working THAT much. 
But it was a great chance for me to learn even more about the company that had sent us across the world on this amazing adventure. Along with a few Chilean cultural dinners, a visit with the US Ambassadors in one of the swankiest parts of town and a few more late nights, I would say that Expomin was not only a total blast, but a great success. And I attribute all of that success to A-dam. He is the hero of this story…with all of the work that he did to make sure everything was up and running, I’m not sure it would have happened without him. Kudos Mr. Norris!
A few long days after the start of Expomin, I had the wonderful chance to travel out to the beach once again to Vina del Mar where the 2010 Immersive Technologies Sales Conference was being held. Of course, being the newest member of Immersive, I didn’t actually attend the conference….but Adam did. 
It was a beautiful hotel with an absolutely amazing view of the ocean. Considering this was one of my favorite places to hang out in Chile anyway, I was one happy camper.
But soon the weekend fun is over and it’s time to focus on the next task at hand….packing for Peru. It was only a few short days before we headed out what we didn’t even know would be a life changing vacation. At least for me.
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Just a few short hours after the Argentina game, we head out onto the bus for our winery,olive oil factory and candy/chocolate/liquor making factory tour. I’m STOKED!! Candy AND wine, JACKPOT!! The first wine tour was of a facility a few miles out of town in a modern, factory looking facility. They had barrels that date back more than 30 years. We got to test the wine and even brought a bottle home with us.
Next stop was the olive oil processing factory. Not my favorite place on Earth. Reason: olives are one of the ONLY foods that I will not eat. GROSS! Needless to say, this was interesting, but not my favorite tour. It was cool to see how they hand-pick each of the olives and process the entire fruit and recycle all pieces for compost and such, but it’s time for the next tour. The next stop was an old, antique and organic wine. Pretty impressive! It’s kind of amazing the kinds of things they have to do to protect their grapevines and store them in certain containers to be totally organic. Another taste test, and another bottle comes home with us. That was GOOD stuff!!
Last stop on the total tour was the chocolate factory and liquor making facility. I felt like a little kid in the…uh….candy store?! No but really, this place was AWESOME!!! They made their own chocolates and small candies, along with canned peppers and jellies and YUM! And they even let us taste some of the chocolately liquor goodness! It’s amazing that I made it out of there without maxing out my credit card. Honestly!
The ride back to the hostel was LOOOONG! And with the late night previous and the game and touring and wine and all day, it was DEFINITELY time for a nap. A few hours later, Adam and I were back on the town, searching for grub and a good time. Mendoza treated us well. Good times, good times.
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One rule/law/thing that some South American countries/airports have adopted is called a reciprocity fee. And from our travels in Argentina on our previous Buenos Aires experience, we’d already been subjects to those fees once before. To the tune of $270- just to get into their country. Ouch. Although when I realized the concept of ”reciprocity fee” was because that is what they are charged to come into my country, all I could be mad at those crazy rule making Americans. (GO USA!) ANYWAY…Adam and I were pretty confident that this trip and the tragedy was going to cost us another $270 to get into Argentina. That or forfeit the weekend and the cost of the plane tickets. So we went. And good news!- we didn’t have to pay the reciprocity in Mendoza! YAY!!! Our luck is getting better already!!
We arrived in Mendoza on a Friday night, and the town was BUMPIN’!! It turns out we were in Argentina the night before the world cup soccer (futbol) team was supposed to play in their first round World Cup game. WOO HOO!! The energy and amount of blue and white (team colors) in the streets was pretty amazing!! For anyone that has had the wonderful experience of being in another world country during the time of the World Cup, you may understand how serious this can be. Friday night was spent walking around town, taking in the energy and going on a search for food, trinkets and what our Saturday adventure might be. We considered white water rafting, biking, wine tours and all sorts of things. The boys were pretty stoked about white water rafting, but it was pretty chilly outside. I was not convinced it was the best idea ever. Luckily for me, and unluckily for the boys, all rafting trips were sold out. That’s what we get for waiting until the last second to book a tour. But they still had spots on the wine tour. Chris and I had never done winery tours before, so why not?
That night we found ourselves a recommended “parillada” or “parilla”- steakhouse, with “tenedor libre” or “free fork”, which essentially is ALL YOU CAN EAT! I didn’t know they would actually feed you every part of the pig/cow/horse/questionable animal part when ordering the “mixed plate.” So the first griddle the waitress brings out, I’m willing to try everything. And that was a bad idea. One of the items that looked like a small intestine was filled with the most disgusting paste tasting YUCK that I HAVE EVER TASTED!!! Blaoeiqahoash…gross! I honestly could not even swallow it. And in a previous experience of tasting blood sausage for the first disgusting time a few months prior, I was not going to even attempt the large, extremely dark sausage looking piece. Luckily Argentina didn’t treat us wrong. There were a few pieces of steak and sausage on that griddle that were pretty much to die for! Just like you hear about the Argentina beef….
The next morning, the entire town was going CRAZY with excitement about the upcoming 11:00am game. Considering we didn’t arrive back at the hostel until VERY late the night before, I was no so thrilled to be hearing those vuvuzela horns and screaming. But I rolled out of bed right before the game started. And just as the game was aired, the whole town went dead. There was not a TV screen around that wasn’t playing that super important game. And the team spirit of EVERYONE involved was truly amazing to watch. It’s like the Superbowl on crack…without the stupid commercials. ARGENTINA WINS!!! They move off to the 2nd round!! And to find out later, the USA ties England…MAJOR upset for those Brits- thinkin’ they could wipe the floor with us. HA!
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The robbery
Shortly after Adam’s brother, Chris, arrived in Santiago, we took him to the coast to show him some of our favorite views of our trip here in Chile. After a night out in Valpo, a drive up the beach took a terrible wrong turn and ended up in some pretty disastrous problems for us. Here’s the story.
Sunday after the party in Valpo at “El Huevo” we decided to take a short drive up the coast to show Chris a little bit of the Pacific side we’ve explored. We got some empanadas and other food at one of our favorite sea-side places and continued our drive. Shortly up the road near Concon beach there was several large rocks that were formed as a kind of lookout to explore the water. Let’s go take a look! We parked and wanted to take a look. So I put my personal belongings (including my purse and most of our valuables) inside the trunk thinking that would be better than leaving it in the back seat. We took a few minutes playing on the rocks and the boys decided to go out further. I thought this was a pretty stellar photo opp, so I headed back to the car to grab the camera. What I didn’t know is that the car hadn’t been locked, which in many places (at least in the states) as long as there were no valuables able to be seen, shouldn’t have been a big deal. I opened the door to pop the drunk. I took one big peak and realized that a few things were missing…a few BIG things!!! Chris’ suitcase with ALL of his belongings as well as my purse were no longer in the trunk. At first glance, I wondered if someone had put them back into the car and I didn’t notice. Or if someone around us was pulling some practical joke. So I tried to stay calm as I was frantically looking in an around all of the cars in that area trying to spot our stuff. From the quick glance, I couldn’t find ANYTHING. Ok, THIS IS FREAK OUT TIME!!
My stomach flipped and my heart was racing. The guys were still out playing on the rocks, so I was determined to solve this crime before they got back. I went up to the man selling the water bottles and tried asking him if they saw anyone break into the car. Of course, he claimed he saw nothing. LIAR!! So I asked another guy selling candy, “nothing” again. DOUBLE LIAR!! Soon enough, a travel guide who speaks a little bit of English saw the panic in my face and came up to me asking if I needed something. With the calmest voice I could conjure up, I asked him if he could help me look for our things, as they had been taken from our vehicle. Luckily this nice man obliged.
With our very broken Spanish and trying to speak to our half-English speaking tour guide “friend” we called the cops. An hour and a half later they showed up. Good news! They spoke NO English. AWESOME!!* And yes, that was sarcasm. This provided us with the hardest language challenge since arriving in Chile. Not only did the cops not speak English, but the office personnel didn’t either. Trying to describe what happened and what was stolen with such small vocabulary was interesting. And by interesting, I mean incredibly terrible!! They seemed extremely non-helpful and not really caring about our “petty crime.” It’s probably a conspiracy. In any case, we filed our report (which took another 3 hours!) and headed into town to find an internet cafe to go cancel our credit cards and try to locate Chris’ cell phone with his tracking device inside his phone. No luck.
Here’s the inventory. Feel free to cringe along with me as I re-hash the total amount of valuables included in this robbery:
camera, my COACH purse, 1 cell phone, newly purchased sunglasses, 2 cell phone chargers, BOTH Adam’s and My Passports, a few random trinkets, Droid phone and our trust in the Chilean people and police force.
Grand Estimated Total: Around $2000. Ouch!
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During our stay here in Santiago, we had only one person promise and actually commit to coming to visit us here- Adam’s bro. Welcome to Santiago, Chris!!
Shortly after his arrival from the airport, we came back home and cooked some breakfast/lunch and packed our bags. We had gotten a car and wanted to show him a different place that we enjoyed in Chile, besides Santiago. So we drove towards the coast once again and stopped in Valparaiso- one of our favorite places. We checked into the hostel and headed out to sight see. One thing Adam and I had never tried in our trips to Valpo were the famous funiculares. These are essentially street elevators that lift you from the lower street to a higher neighborhood built above. Since Valpo is set on a very steep hill, these funiculares are very essential (sometimes required) to get to and from the higher housed neighborhoods on the hills. We walked around for quite a while observing the views of the ocean, big tanker ships on the water, the colorful buildings and the street markets of the weekend. After all of that, we decided to sit down for an “adult beverage” as Chris would call it, and chill out.
We stopped at this hole in the wall place where I accidentally ordered “liter” beers for the three of us, thinking that was similar to what a pint may be. Yep, not even close. I think I need to go back to elementary school and re-learn the metric system. So it took a little longer than just a few minutes in this shady bar to finish our practical pitcher beers, but we did it. Right after that it’s back to the hostel for a nap, time to get ready and head out to the club. We went to a club that Adam and I had checked out a few weeks prior, called “el Huevo.” Yep. For those of you that know a little bit of Spanish, the club was called, “the Egg.” Interesting. But very fun.
The next day, we took a drive up the coast to one of our favorite lunch time spots. After a few empanadas, we drove on. Just a few minutes later we were parked near the ocean side climbing out on some large rocks placed along the ocean. What a beautiful view!! What we didn’t know was that a whole afternoon of terrible surprises would be ahead of us…
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Traveling is always an adventure, no matter where you go. But when the adventure is all alone, it adds a new element of excitement.
After arriving in Santiago and spending a weekend getting back into the swing of things, I booked an overnight long bus ride back to the South of Chile. This time to Pucon, a tourist attraction city near great volcanoes and wonderful lakes. I had heard great things about it so I really needed to check it out on my own.
The bus ride was long, but I had booked the “cama” seat, which means “bed” in Spanish, and it practically was one. There was a snorer just a few rows behind me and I was NOT happy. But it turns out that with enough reading and passing hours, I can fall asleep still. I got to my hostel around 9:00am the next morning, not quite fully rested. When I arrived at my booked hostel, the people inside welcomed me and helped me set up my tour for the next day. They really were wonderful and oh so helpful!! Still a little out of it, I laid down for some much-needed Zzz’s.
In the afternoon around 1:00pm, I headed out to try to see the waterfall outside of town that I had been recommended to see. On my way out the door, one of the girls at the hostel said they’d been planning on hiking the same way, so I asked if I could tag along. Turns out the whole crew from the hostel ended up joining us, which made things so much more enjoyable, I think. We got to a fork in the path and didn’t know exactly which way was correct. We ended up following the path too far and took a steep, slippery and kinda dangerous tree alley towards the river. At that point we’d realized we were too far down the river and needed to back track. At this point, I was SO tired and SO wet and SO ready to be done, but didn’t know exactly how I’d get back on my own. So I trekked on. We eventually found the not-so-clearly-marked original path and made it down the short run towards the waterfall. I really wish that I could say that the view of this waterfall was worth it…but I’ve seen better. Anywho, so we made it back to the road where we started our hike and realized that since we’d taken a cab close to the start of the path, this may be a LONG walk home. With enough luck, a out-spoken American guy (imagine that) hiking with us flagged down a truck that had an empty cab. With his broken, gringo Spanish he asked if the guy would give us a ride to town. I figured it was kinda dangerous, but willing to take the chance. The guy dropped us off just a block from our hostel even. Thank you Mr. Nice Chilean Guy!!
By the time we reached our hostel again around 6:00pm, we were all totally drenched, hungry and could use a drink. We decided together that this might be a good night to take a tour to the hot springs in the local area. The guys in the group put together a menu for the evening, cooked and even cleaned up before the tour. Not too bad if you ask me. Around 8:00pm we headed out on our tour of the hot springs with two bottles of wine and 3 chocolate bars to split between the 6 of us. Shortly before midnight, all of the sudden the lights went out throughout the whole hot springs area. GREAT! We slowly made our way back to the bathrooms and had to change and hike up the hill back to the car- all in the dark. My night vision is terrible to begin with, so I was NOT happy about that one.
The next morning I was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8:00am for my horse-back riding tour. I had never been horse-back riding before and I have always had a fascination to try. I feel like I was the only one in the world that had never been on a horse, so why not book a tour when I’m traveling alone down south? So I did. They picked me up and we rode about 1.5 hours out-of-town to the house of the man who owns the horse ranch. It seemed a little weird to me at the time because as their only guest I just walked in behind them and they served me tea and refreshments like I was a long-lost friend. After they arranged all of the food for the day, we headed to the barn.
I didn’t really get to meet my horse before they saddled him up and put me on. Oh, and they didn’t exactly give me instructions ahead of time on how to ride them either. I climbed up onto a tree stump and they told me to get on like how you get on a bike. Ok, I’ve done that before. Well…they didn’t tell me that if you nudge the horse too much in the belly/side that he would take off. Oops!! My horse starts riding away on the trail with me on it. So not knowing what I was supposed to be doing, I yanked the reins back and forth, at which point the horse starts doing circles to the left, then to back the right. I have no idea how to make him stop and I’m starting to panicked at this point. Turns out they are really sensitive to the reins and how you direct the rope. Would have been good to know!
It took me a while to really get a good grip on the reign and on how to command the horse to do what I wanted him to do. After about an hour and trying to leash my horse to another, I finally felt like I was doing the directing myself. The rest of the riding day was cake. And the views of this valley area were absolutely to die for!!! I wish I could show in pictures what I mean, but our camera was stolen the weekend after (story to follow). The fall colors were sprinkled all around the rolling hills and there was a certain cloudy mist that shaded in the blank space. Imagine your favorite fall day that has just a little bit of moisture….then add a horse, some hot spring pools, rolling hills into larger mountain valleys and a sense of new independence and new adventure….that’s how it felt.
We stopped for lunch shortly after 1:00pm when it started to down pour on us and the horses. Great timing, huh? There was a small cabin heated by a log stove and fire where we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon. We had sandwiches, fresh homemade bread, chocolate, red wine and I even tried Mate for the first time. Mate is a drink that is fairly popular in the southern regions of South America- especially Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Chile. It’s a form of tea where they put in the herb without the tea bags, add water and drink out of a slated straw that keeps the herbs inside the glass. The taste is really bitter and not very delicious- but it helps to keep you warm and something I’ve wanted to try since I’ve seen people drinking it here in South America.
When the rain slowed by a little around 3:30, we headed back to the barn and back on the horses. I was a little nervous to get back on the horse and ride all by myself again…but shortly after I was “back on the saddle” it was like 2nd nature. I felt in tune with the horse, in tune with the natural surroundings and I was really whole-heartedly enjoying my time. Back down the trail and back to the barn we went, a little faster than the pace we went up. The horses didn’t like the rain/cold just as much as us.
Around 6:00pm I finally returned to the hostel, again totally soaked and cold. I talked with some of the friends that I met there from the night before about dinner plans and decided to tag along with the noodle dinner idea and wine once again. We talked and exchanged travel stories all night, and I got to share with them my experiences of my first time on a horse and how that felt.
Friday morning I woke up with enough time to get my final things packed and out the door by 9:20. My bus left around 9:45am. What I didn’t realize about the bus ride that I had booked for my return trip to Santiago was that unlike my trip from Stgo to Pucon, it was NOT direct. GRRRR! What I thought was supposed to be a 9 hour bus ride ended up turning into 13!!! I had planned on arriving back home in Santiago at 6:00pm, and I didn’t get home until after 10:00pm!! I was LIVID!! But when you’re at the mercy of a bus company to get you home, not much to do about it. So I slept it off.
Even with that slight hiccup, overall the trip was AMAZING!! Totally liberating, exciting, a little scary and just plain old fun!!
the 13 hour bus ride back home. BUMMER!!
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Visiting the cuz
This blog leads up to the Sunday after the wedding. Wow, how fun was that?!?!
Mom took me over to Rochester so that I could hang out with my favorite cuz for the night. It was nice that she had the next day off, ’cause she was able to put together some friends of hers to go out for some drinks and relax on a Sunday night. I got a chance to see Kari’s new house, which like I would expect from Kari, was beautiful! Unlike me, she has this real good sense of decoration and putting things together that look good. And she has the talent to pull it off. Not me. I tried to landscape Adam’s back”yard” (it’s a 10X20 patio and somehow ended up killing the plants I put in before the season was over. Oh well.
I realized coming into town that I haven’t been to a Baker’s Square in like 23049273427 years, so I decided that we needed to head there for dinner. Not sure this was the best idea ever ’cause it took FOREVER for them to do a carry-out order and they even screwed up Mom’s dinner. Next time we sit down.
After Mom headed back to Austin, Kari and I met up with her friends downtown Rochester. Her friends are super hilarious and just the kind of people I would imagine hanging out with back home. Super nice, super smart ass and lots of fun! The bar they met at was pretty stellar and I’d love to spend more time there if/when I’m back in Roch next. But not that night. Afterall, it was Sunday so we headed home and off to bed. Monday Kari wanted to get up and go car shopping.
Driving in the cities is always kind of a challenge, but getting there and navigating around is a whole different challenge too. We spent most of the afternoon looking for cars and weighing the options. I love being in the cities though. There’s something about the freeways and the busy streets that reminds me of my time in Minneapolis, that sometimes I miss a lot. The humidity of that day is never to be missed though….ewww! Kari did end up finding a car though, and Ben and I even got to help her negociate. Pretty fun!
Kari dropped me off at the airport and before I knew it, I was back in SLC. Just for one night we gathered with friends and had some beers. Being a Monday night in SLC, there’s not much to see or do, but it was certainly nice to be around the company of good friends though. And it’s nice to know we have that to come back to.
The next day we headed back to ATL for one last visit with Mom Joanne and shortly we were on another 9 hour flight back to SCL. This time for only another month. The last. Our South American adventure is coming to a close. But not yet.
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Amanda’s Wedding back in A-town
Sometimes I forget how much I really do miss my good friends and how much fun it is to reminisce about the old times. The weekend of May 22nd made it all come back to me.
I met up with the girls first after picking up Annette. We figured it was the first time that we’ve seen in each other in over 5 years or so. Man, time flies! But it seemed like old times. Lots have changed in our lives separately, but recollecting our old home town was just the same. We headed to Main street for some lunch at El Mariachi. YUM! I seriously love that place!! And the shortage of good Mexican food here in South America (believe it or not) has made me crave it even more. Seeing the girls for the first time brings it all back. So many fun times and shared memories- and I didn’t even really hang out when we were younger that much. I guess dance kinda does that to ya. Anyway…I was also super stoked to be able to possibly practice my little Spanish skills with the wait staff. The came for my order and I go “Quiero numero 6, por favor.” (I want a #6, please.) Angie was not impressed. So I told the waiter in my very broken Spanish, “Intento practicar, pero mi espanol is muy malo. Estoy muy gringa.” Which means, I try to practice but my Spanish is really bad and I am pretty gringa. The waiter just gave me a “ok, whatever” nod and walked away. At least I tried.
A few hours later, I arrived with Annette to the pedicure appointments WAY late. It’s probably a good thing that we got in good with Mike Leather’s mom, ’cause she pulled some strings and I was still able to get the full (and much-needed!) pedi and chat with the girls. Pedicures/manicures before the wedding is probably one of my favorite rituals that girls have before the wedding day. It normally means that the final day is very near, there’s nervousness in the air and the excitement is at an all time high. AHHH….SOOOO FUN!!
At St. Olaf’s shortly after pedicures, rehearsal starts. I had to show the guys how it was done a little bit, but overall super smooth rehearsal. This means the big day is all set. A celebration/preparation dinner for the big day was held at the pavilion at the bottom of Skinner’s Hill. I think it has a name, but Skinner’s Hill is how I prefer it. Dinner was a great chance to sit down and talk with these girls that I haven’t seen is SO many months or years. I met Christina and took sarcasm lessons from Sarah. These girls are hilarious!! I really am still working on my fluency in sarcasm. Spanish first though.
After dinner with a few hours until bed time, I got a chance to meet up with one of my best friends in life, Miss Sarah J. It’s always so nice to see her and her family. They have always been so welcoming to me and that’s something I can never forget. Everytime I meet up with Sarah, it’s like we picked up where we left off from the last. Conversation is wonderful and I really feel at home. Probably sometimes too much, ’cause I ended up losing track of time and staying up until 2:30am…haha…oops! But worth it. I can sleep when the weekend is over!
Meeting up for breakfast, hair appointments and a few Mimosas are probably another favorite of mine in step of the wedding day process. It’s all a rush from here, so enjoying some last-minute girl time is so fun!! Heading from the salon, we start the getting ready process at the church. Another highlight of my day. The time spent in the room before the big event is priceless to me. You put on makeup, take pictures, and enjoy each other’s company until the whirlwind wedding day begins. At St. Olaf, I was able to continue my lessons in sarcasm, help Ang fix some curls, help with necessary bathroom breaks and be a right-hand-man during picture time. And what a talented photographer!! I really never thought that my stinky hometown could turn into such great photos!! Candid photos and piano shots, she really had a great eye for spotting something great. She even took them to what I thought was just a demolished building site and turned it into one of my favorite wedding photos.
This leads us up to the service and the final preparations. This is the time we’ve all been waiting for! Just before the wedding, Amanda seemed much more quiet and a little bit more nervous than she’d been throughout the day so far. I can see her face getting more pale and I started to worry a little bit. She really hadn’t eaten much that day and that can be dangerous. But she pulled through like a trooper. I sat down just before the wedding service and took as many photos as I could. What a beautiful wedding! The music was AMAZING!! Erin and Michael are so talented!! The music is always the part that gets me. Vows exchanged, the first kiss and introduction and just like that…MARRIED!
Right after the wedding picked up our things and headed out to the limo (which was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!) to begin the celebration. After a few minutes of waiting, Amanda and Kyler joined us with huge smiles on their faces. You could just see the happiness in them and the nerves were gone. Time to party!
Our first stop was the liquor store ’cause apparently the wedding party drank too much of the booze on the way there, so they needed to stop for supplemental booze. Fine by me. We headed to the new B&J Bar in downtown A-town….not too shabby!! I had actually never been inside that place, and I must say it’s pretty excellent inside. Definitely rivaling Torge’s for the best bar in A-town reputation. We took some pictures and had a drink (thanks for the Vodka Cran, Kyle!!) – unless you were Sarah, in which the drink was a bottle of champagne and a straw. Awesome! And she shared with me too! Back in the limo and off to the reception where the real fun is to be had.
The night was filled with wonderful conversation, seeing familiar faces for the first time in years, dance memories, high school stuff and even a little college roommate reunion (Amanda’s, not mine). I met some new friends and danced so much my legs literally hurt for three days after. I would not have expected anything less from this party. I can’t believe how much fun I had and how wonderful it was to see all of these people again. It was sure worth coming back from South America to be a part of…good times had by all! Love you Amanda!!
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The flight to meet my family in SD is about 2.5 hours. 2.5 hours is approximately the amount of time that the kid three rows behind me insisted on screaming and crying while his mother just sat there and told him to “stop.” Seriously and honestly, I have flown more this year than probably ever before, and I take lots of trips and this was the WORST FLIGHT IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! I have never been so close to strangling a child before in my whole life!! Ok, that last part is not true ’cause I don’t believe in child abuse, but SERIOUSLY!!! OK….moving on.
I arrived into Rapid City, SD to meet my parents who were standing at the arrival door hanging American flags and had the biggest smiles on their faces. Oh man, it’s nice to be “home!” Mom said that one of the people at the airport asked her if she had a child serving in the war overseas and she was like “Well, No…” and had to explain. I found that pretty entertaining. The first night in Rapid City we headed to the hotel room where I got to share with them a few things I picked up while during my travels in Chile and South America. We stayed up a bit talking and just goofing around…but pretty soon the jet lag kicked in and it was bed time for us!
Our first full day in Rapid City we drove to the neighboring town, Keystone, and shopped until we dropped. Kinda. We walked through town enjoying the trinkets and black hills gold. After we had picked out enough souvenirs to fill a suitcase, we attempted the drive out to Mount Rushmore. As we got closer the fog thickened and it was near impossible to see. We drove into the gates, but it was useless ’cause you couldn’t see more than 20 feet ahead of you.
We decided to head back to the hotel to relax and spend some quality time. Jackie and I spent some time shopping and tanning while Mom had her online class and then it was off to Godfather’s. I love love love their pizza!!! I crave it here even. After dinner we took advantage of the remaining hours of pool time.
When Jackie and I were younger, we used to spend a lot of time in hotel pools. With all of the trips to the cities, dance competitions and even the Florida trip, some of the best memories were created in the pool decks of several hotels. Jackie and I have always been a fan of the water, and from the days of arm floaties to just a few months ago, it was hard to get us to finally get out of the pool and back to the room for bed. The SD hotel pool was no different. Well, kinda. This pool was fully equipped with a tossy, twirly slide that was actually pretty exciting to ride. None of us were really sure if we wanted to venture onto this hotel slide…but soon enough Dad gets out of the water and starts climbing the ladder like it’s some kind of challenge. And of course we can’t let him try this slide on his own, so Jackie and I followed close behind. WOW! I really can’t believe how fun this slide was!! We started competing to see who could make the biggest splash at the end and even the little kids were starting to get mad ’cause we kept taking all the time on the slide. haha! Overall, a great night! It was just like old times again.
The next day we ventured out to Mt. Rushmore again, this time having much more success than the first. The sights were beautiful! It’s hard to believe that someone could carve these meticulous structures out of that big rock! After about a 1,000 pictures, we took the long walk around the monument and enjoyed the weather. We had a long drive home and still had to check off the Badlands in SD off our list, so we headed out in the opposite direction towards Sturgis. Makes sense, right? Nah, we wanted to be able to check that one off the list too, so we stopped for some souvenirs and back on the road. Farther down I-90, we stopped at Wall Drug (anyone driving on I-90 may have seen the signs) for lunch. We explored the small town that revolves around the giant drug store and collected some more souvenirs. I got a Black Hills gold ring that was SO pretty, I haven’t taken it off since.
Next stop was the Badlands National Park. This park was so much more satisfying than I really thought it may be. The sights were beautiful and I really didn’t realize how many rock formations and mountains SD really had. Most people give the midwest a hard time for being flat and boring…but this was really a sight to see! The Badlands NP took us through most of the afternoon. A 7 hour drive still ahead put us back in A-town around 2:00am. Thank you Mountain Dew!
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