Oh Australia - how I *think* I love you...

Day 11 of my 30 days of randomocity was yesterday...I know. I am a day behind.  I do however have a good excuse.  As all of you know (and one of you felt inclined to point out to me...fair enough since I pointed out Duke last time) KU lost at home against Texas.  They have a record of 69 straight wins at home though and that is something incredible! It had to happen eventually and I'm just glad it wasn't against someone like K-State :-) Plus, now maybe they won't lose to NORTHERN IOWA during March Madness because they are getting losses out during regular season :P haha. Anyway....


I really want to visit Australia.  I think the Australian accent is one of the cutest accents in the world and I haven't met an Australian that I don't like. (I am sure they exist...but to this day I haven't met him or her). For example - my friend Hamish from college is from Australia. I would go anywhere just to hang out with him again. I miss him. Flights to Australia are expensive though and I don't have enough vacation to make a decent trip over there.  Maybe I can do something like that in between jobs if I ever change jobs. Just take some time off. Anyway, here is a picture of my lovely friend Hamish stolen from Facebook:

Also, aside from amazing friends and the accents...Australia has kangaroos and koalas and is very pretty. Who wouldn't want to visit there?

Best place ever!

Day 6 - A place I've traveled to. 

I'm going to go with Peru. I've traveled to a lot of different places, but this has been the ultimate trip for me.  I think that pictures speak more than any words can so here it goes.

Beach in Lima, Peru.

Hot springs in the mountains of Peru - doesn't look that great but felt very refreshing anyway heh.

Helping out some local small businesses...here we were visiting a bee keepers who sold their honey.

We hiked a mountain up to a waterfall - I got altitude sickness after this.  Mate de coca is very helpful for altitude sickness. I snuck some back into the states in my suit case too ;) 

Got to see llamas on our way out to a small village in the Andes!!! I LOVE llamas.

A Peruvian delicacy.  Yes...I ate what I could...I couldn't eat a head though. I felt like such a bad guest, but my first "real" death in my life was my pet guinea pig Jitters...and this was a bit much.  Tastes like bland chicken.

I called these stoves "poop stoves". We went to a secluded village far into the mountains and helped teach them how to build the stoves and provided them the resources to build them.  The mud was literally mud and poo mixed together. Yuck - but very rewarding...they didn't ever build chimney's with their stoves so many of the women and children were getting sick from smoke inhalation in the home.

Machu Picchu! By far the most glorious thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't even know how to adequately describe how awesome it was.

Machu Picchu

And ....more Machu Picchu!

Best trip I've ever taken and I would LOVE to go back and live with a Peruvian family this time (I was staying with the group I went with so I wasn't immersed in the culture like I would have liked).