Holidays in the Southern Hemisphere

So, how'd you spend your Christmas Eve?

David and I spent it in the sky, en route to see his parents. I meant to watch out the windows of the airplane for Santa, but I fell asleep and must have missed him.

David's parents are mission president in Piura, Peru, so we took a trip down so spend some QT with them (and some of David's sibs) - and really, it's one of the first times I've gotten to hang out with them at all! It was delightful. I had a grand time with everyone, from the moment they picked us up on Christmas morning. Much of the time we spent traipsing from place to place in their mission, just seeing the incredibly diverse landscapes and meeting the people they get to associate with all the time.

We spent some incredibly relaxing time at Punta Sal - a perfect way to unwind after the insanity of working in financial services at the end of the year. It also offered the best food I ate in Peru. Besides Yolanda's.



A few of the sights from our excursions...


There were at least a dozen churches like this between Piura and Chiclayo. Each has its own individual flair.

We actually got kicked off this playground in Chiclayo shortly after we captured this moment...


We spent New Years in Piura. A word about some interesting New Years Peruano traditions. Of course, there are the fireworks all over town - which we watched from the roof of the casa del Presidente.

But they also run up and down the streets with their suitcases. It's for luck in travels over the next year! So, of course, we did it too.

And here's my favorite. Observe: the muñecos.

Here's the deal. You get yourself a muñeco (they're sold everywhere). You think of something you want to put in your past. It could be a person you don't like, or a class you failed, or a bad experience...or, as we saw, it could be Michael Jackson, or a politician. You write this person or thing on the muñeco. Then, at midnight on New Years, you light it on fire in the street.

You may be asking yourself, do they ever explode? As a matter of fact, they do - when people put fireworks inside them! Which is probably what led to the practice becoming illegal. As you can see, that doesn't seem to stop anybody. I was itching to burn my own New Years Peruano muñeco effigy (not necessarily because I had anything to put in my past...I just really wanted to light a muñeco on fire!), but I abstained. Since it's illegal and all. Figured I could do smarter things than break the law on my vacation with the Presidente.

Part 2 of the vacation: the mountainous south. Words will not do justice to the majestic beauty I saw of the Andes and the Sacred Valley. So I'll just share a few stories and let the pics and vids do the rest of the talking.

We learned on our drive from Cusco to Ollantaytambo that every town was swearing in their mayor that day, which meant every town was having a big fiesta in their Plaza de Armas - the center of town. It basically meant that we got to see everyone in their traditional garb and watch the celebrations.

From Ollantaytambo, we took a train to Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu. Unbeknownst to us, our train ride came fully equipped with entertainment. We got some crazy dancing creature, and they even modeled some alpaca sweaters for us.

We had been concerned that our hotel in Aguas Calientes was too close to the train station and would wake us up at odd hours. Turns out, we needn't worry:

And finally, the moment we've all been waiting for (I know I certainly had) - hiking up to see the wonder that is Machu Picchu - in particular, the world-renowned view of the Inka ruins in the shadow of towering Huayna Picchu. Behold, our amazing first view:

Wait...where is it?

Well, maybe if we hike around for a bit and go on a little tour, it will get better. And so we did. And it did.


Please move, little clouds...


Thank you. :)


I waited a long time to see that. Now that I've gone with David, I'm glad I waited.

We capped off our trip by using our 7-hour layover in Lima to do a session at the temple - in Spanish! Right before we met up with Emily again at the airport. I can't think of a better finale.

Christmastime in the East

So I'm playing catch-up, just not all the way. ("Christmastime in the Southern Hemisphere" deserves its own post, which I'll get around to writing sometime soon. Maybe.) I've gotten to see a few different angles of Christmas in the east this year, namely of the DC and NYC variety.

For starters, we have largely missed the insane snowstorms that have been pummeling the east coast. There has been lots of snow in North Carolina and lots in New York...just not much around here. Instead, we just get a whole lot of freezing wind. That said, I did take advantage the first time we DID get a little snow...

I really couldn't help myself. Snow brings out the kid in me. But even without much snow, DC can be a magical place at Christmas.


We went to a show at the DC temple visitors center with some friends and got to see an impressive set of Nativity scenes from around the world that would have made Mom light up like a Christmas tree.

Despite the fact that it was bitter cold, we managed to take some pretty cool shots while David taught us all the concept of Bokeh.

See all the blurriness behind us? Voila. Bokeh.


As for the New York Christmas variety, we paid homage to the Chinatown bus yet again for David's birthday. The Chinatown choir was out and about, helping everyone to get into the Christmas spirit.


We got some tix at the very last second (read: steep, steep discount) for Lion King, which I've always wanted to see. The show is an audiovisual assault. In a very good way. It also made me nostalgic for the sights and sounds of Africa, and I kept leaning over to point out unimportant Africa/Swahili trivia to David, like that "mufasa" means mirage and "rafiki" means friend and that the concept of an elephant graveyard is actually pretty accurate because elephants will push all the bones to the same place and mourn their dead. He humored me though, because he's nice like that.

We also battled the crowd to get a glimpse of the Christmas tree in front of the Rockefeller Center.

We'd been considering the possibility of going ice skating there, but one glance at the line for ice skating told us that we should find another form of entertainment. So we decided to check out the city from the Top of the Rock. I recommend this. The view is spectacular, especially if you time it right...



And then there was that one time when I took David to see Gin Blossoms playing in the streets of New York for his birthday...

We stumbled upon this gem of a show while wandering the streets one night. Turns out, they were filming their show for New Years. On December 18. (And just like that, I'm suddenly skeptical of the timing of every Times Square New Years performance I've ever seen.) So even though I wasn't in New York for New Years, FOX has documentation to prove that I was. Guess I can check that experience off my list.