Saturday morning we woke up ridiculously early. I don't know why all the other 18ers get up so early, but I felt terrible from lack of sleep. We all messed around on our computers for a while until the 16ers called us up and asked if we wanted to go get brunch at another really amazing restaurant we had not yet discovered.
It was raining, again. We walked across the Plaza de Armas and ended up in this amazing restaurant that makes food that resembles American food and plays English music. We were all ridiculously excited about the menu, which had more options than we were used to and almost all of them sounded delicious. I got a "Chiken BBQ" sandwich, which I wasn't sure how to order in Spanish. BBQ is apparently more like teriyaki in Perú, which was fine but not quite as exciting as I had hoped. The real thrill, was that they had COLD WATER. Not only that, but they brought out ICE!! I haven't seen ice since I got to Perú, and being able to have a cold glass of water with ice in it was so exciting. It felt so luxurious. We stayed in the restaurant for a while, and Diamond, Kate and I made a trip to the bank, which had closed. Around 1:45 pm, we headed back to the hostel for our monthly regional meeting with José Tafur, our regional coordinator. We didn't do much in the meeting, and the 18ers had to talk about their sites and experiences while a bunch of Cajamarca volunteers with more experience and better Spanish listened. It was a touch uncomfortable.
The meeting eventually dissolved. I helped a 15er make a bracket for the revelry we had planned for the evening. Then I headed out with Chelsea, Nate, Kelsey, and Laura to their hostel, and then we headed back to the mall. Chelsea and I wanted to get our hair cut. I had decided at brunch that morning that as much as I loved my last haircut, it had been almost a year ago and my hair was gross. We went to a place in the mall that was pretty nice, and it was glorious having my hair washed by someone else, even though it was clean from my shower in the hostel. I had heard horror stories about how they cut off way more than you want, but I decided that wouldn't be such a bad thing, considering that bucket bathing has been getting really difficult, because my hair is so long it touches the ground when I bend over.
I told her I wanted layers, and that I wanted her to take off like 3 or 4 inches. By the end of it, she'd cut off about 7 or 8 inches. I blanched a little when she made the first cut, but then told myself I didn't care, and repeated "bucket bathing" in my head a couple times until I chilled out and just enjoyed the thought that my hair was going to be way more manageable.
We went grocery shopping in metro, a real grocery store, and I bought my apples and cinnamon quaker oatmeal, which I can only find in that metro, but which I like to eat for breakfast every morning. We all headed back to the hostel after our grocery shopping, I got a chance to skype with my friend, Sam, for a little while before I was called to duty. We had all picked countries and had a pong and flip-cup tournament on the roof of the hostel. Ellie and I were representing Djibouti (her choice). We won our first pong match against Puerto Rico, then lost against India. It was fun hanging out, playing music, taking a couple trips out to the open rooftop to enjoy the lights of the city. It felt a bit like college again.
Part of the contest was costumes, and some people were amazing. Tibet bought red and yellow fabric and made monk's robes. India had some turbans going on and Ireland was decked out in green with penny whistles. Djibouti didn't do anything, but we had a little booty shake - hip bump we'd whip out when it was time for team spirit. When it came time for flip-cup, Ellie and I made it all the way to the final and won by 5 cups (out of 10)! We felt we represented our Perú class pretty well.
We went back to our room, drank a lot of water, laughed at Kate who had been drinking wine instead of beer and was a little worse for the wear, and then we all went to bed.
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