Altitude.

Thankfully, I haven't had much trouble with altitude sickness.  The only problem I've had is a headache, and, come on, that's nothing new.  One of the girls with me is having a lot of trouble though.  We're hoping she gets better tomorrow.  We all slept a ridiculous amount today.  I slept almost the entire plane ride. Then I slept for a good five hours when we got to the house. After that, we all went out for a little tour of the neighborhood and some lunch. Came back, slept another five hours. Haha and I think I'm going to go right back to sleep tonight! 


I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.  I should probably explain a little bit about my surroundings. Well, my first thought when I walked out of the airport was that it was not nearly as cold as I thought it was going to be.  Apparently, the really frigid temperatures are in the middle of the night.  It was going on six thirty by the time we left the airport, so it was warming up some.  Its almost seven thirty at night now, and its chilly, but not freezing.  The taxi driver said it gets colder as you get into June and July, though.  I hope so, or I brought some really heavy clothes for nothing haha.  So, the airport is at the top of the mountain, so we drove down it as the sun was coming up.  I can't do the view justice, but I'll try to explain.  La Paz is situated in a canyon, and the town stretches up the sides of the mountains.  People's homes are literally cut into the side of a mountain.  As we got further down, you could really see the mixture of old and new.  Our house is fairly close to the only flat part in town.  We can walk down a few blocks and get to the plaza.  Behind it is an archway that leads to a different neighborhood on the other side of the canyon.  We walked up the hill today to get lunch.  There's several small cafes and bakeries that have wifi and yummy food.  One place I want to explore further is this giant park.  It looks like a good place to go read or something in the day, and I think it attracts a lot of students.  On that note, there will be six Bolivian students in our class!  Yay! New friends.


I feel really safe so far.  I'm itching to go explore the neighborhood some more, but I really have no clue where I am.  And I also have no bolivianos or a cell phone at the moment.  Those are our tasks for tomorrow, along with a little grocery shopping.  Also, I've been known to accredit more safety than is due at sometimes haha.  I think Emily wants to explore too, though, so maybe we'll go tomorrow afternoon. The house is very quaint.  We have three rooms, two are in the main area with the kitchen and the little sitting room and the other has its own entrance.  My room has a connected bathroom, but it doesn't have a closet.  They told us we could ask for another set of drawers though.  I just don't know where to put my shoes. The only other weird thing is that all the water faucets are backwards.  Hot is cold and cold is hot. Its been very comfortable so far.  We have a maid.  She comes in and brings us food every morning.  Apparently we can even make requests.  She also does dishes and laundry. Pretty sweet.  The Centellases, or as I like to call them, the Centellai, told us today that they already purchased our plane tickets for Sucre! We're going to leave on a Friday and come back the next Monday.  Its a forty minute flight (can't wait to see that plane) and then from Sucre its about a two and a half hour bus ride to Lake Titicaca. 


Oh funny story.  Universal adapters suck. Anastasia and I both brought one with us, and they are easy enough to change to fit the plugs here, but impossible to plug anything into.  And the directions give no instruction on how to do this.  So on the way to lunch today, Dr. Mr. Centellas bought three adapters from a little kiosk on the street for like five bolivianos apiece. That's less than a dollar. FAIL. Also, my alarm clock broke in transit. I was trying to be all prepared...oh well. There will be an alarm on my phone when I get one.  


Everything is set so far.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get some touristy pictures I can share.  I think I'm about to go drink another cup of coca tea. Talk to you all soon.