Planning: Part 1

This is certainly the largest trip for which I myself have been performing the planning. Well, even
that is not a totally fair statement as we are using a travel agency (that is based in Perú) for much
of the planning. Joe is helping me make decisions, but I am certainly doing the majority of the hard
work in planning the trip.

The travel agency we are using is called PeruTourism/Peru4Me/Viajes Pentagrama. They go by different
names depending (I think) on the nationality being served. Being American, I know them as
PeruTourism. Here is the website: http://www.perutourism.com/ I am nervous about
trusting a third party to act as middle-man. Though, I would probably be much more nervous if I were
doing all of the work making reservations, buying tickets, etc.--especially considering I could not
take care of some things until I am there in Perú. So far, they have been pleasant to work with and
not too overpriced. (If you know me, then you know I'm a real Fred Mertz. So I think everything is
overpriced.) I am sure to be reporting more about how well things turned out in regard to PeruTourism.

I did book our airline tickets to and from Perú myself. PeruTourism will book our travel within Perú.
I used Orbitz.com to book our tickets. I was planning on flying out
of Louisville, probably to Miami (through a connecting city), onward to Lima. That changed, however.
Because we are flying in July in August, prices are rather high--tourism season at its peak. I decided
to spend the time (and considerable effort) searching every feasible route to Perú for what was cheapest.
I even made a chart recording price variations for the best day of the week on which to purchase tickets
for that route. After several weeks of this pain (and it was that), I finally found something that
seemed as low-priced as I was likely to find before our departure date.

SO! We are flying out of Cincinnati airport (which is actually in Northern Kentucky). Joe is from
there, so his family are going to drive us to the airport and we will leave our car at their home.
See: I said I was cheap. I won't even pay for leaving my car at the airport. From there, we fly to
Charlotte via US Airways. In Charlotte, we fly again on US Airways to Miami. There, we switch to LAN
Airlines to fly to Lima. The return trip is exactly the same except, obviously, in reverse order.

Oddly, it was cheaper to buy the tickets from Orbitz.com rather than directly from the airlines' websites.
Usually, at least, the airline's website lists the same airfare for the same (and sometimes lower)
price than the travel aggregation websites. It turned out, though, that I saved a couple of hundred
dollars by using Orbitz.com. By flying out of Cincinnati rather than Louisville or any other nearby
port, we saved somewhere along the lines of $400.

Oh, and in case you're curious, I did indeed query the airlines' websites that do not submit to travel
aggregation websites (such as Southwest, etc.). This is one of the various reasons it was such a pain
to find the cheapest airfare.

In any event, I will be reporting more on the planning process as we progress toward July. ¡Viva el
Perú glorioso!

Change is in the Air

So, this blog was formerly titled "Cornell Bodell" to chronicle the time I spent in Ithaca, New York
last summer studying Chinese at Cornell University. As a quick review of those blog posts below will
show, that blog did not go so well mostly because of a lack of time for maintenance.

Now, though, I have rechristened the blog as "Bodell & Feist in Perú." I married my best friend this
past December with the plan to delay our honeymoon until this summer. I have always wanted to go to
Perú and am grateful to Joe for being so agreeable to my Wanderlust. So, we are currently planning
to depart for the land of the Incas on July 26th and spend about two weeks there. We will start in
Lima and wind our way through Cuzco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Pisac, Puno, Lake Titicaca and
the floating Uros islands, Juliaca, and back to Lima.

We are so excited and a little nervous. I am trying to brush up on my Spanish--though, considering
I was trained in castellano and spent time in Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Aragón, y Cataluña,
I am not sure all of that will necessarily get me through the Quechua and Aymara influenced linguistic
mix of Perú.

Anyway, we are going to use this blog to document our preparation for and experience in Perú.
Stay tuned!

I'm alive!

Hello all. Do not worry. I am alive. I am making a brief post to let everyone know I haven't dropped
off the face of the earth. To prove it, I did manage to make it up to Niagara Falls a little while
ago. Here's some photographic evidence:

Anyway, there have been a few major developments that I don't have time to really go into right now.
I will write more about that when I can. I'm fine, though, so don't worry. For now, zaijian (meet
later). Take care!

Quick weekend update

So this is my second weekend here and my first full one. I have gotten so down over the course of the
first week that Joe thankfully came up to keep me company over the weekend. That definitely cheered
me up (but I'm still a little low). I'll be fine, but I must admit I am not a fan of the structure
of this program. It's not set up for my brain to grab on easily (or even with effort). I have heard
several others in the program say things to this end, as well, so it's not just me. Also, there are
several people in the program who have had Chinese before and they skew the way things go in
Chinese-only class. I am glad they already know everything we're doing, and as someone else pointed
out it gives us a carrot to chase, but if I am completely lost because they're racing ahead and the
teacher follows them then it doesn't help me if I can never catch on.

Anyway, next weekend my friend Katie will be here on her way back to Louisville from a New England
road trip. I think that should be nice, I hope she enjoys her trip. Well, I need to get back to homework
because I have so much of it (as usual). I'll be back with more when I can. To all, take care!

In the lab, again

Hello all. I thought since I had a brief second that I could update you all on something. Remember
how I waxed poetic about "foreign names" when learning another language and finally assumed I would
remain Sarah Jane? Well, I was wrong! The first thing I was handed on the first day was a name plate
with my new name Bo Xianli. Bo is 2nd tone, Xian is 2nd tone, and li is 4th tone. That might not make
sense, but I think you can probably google "Chinese tones" and it will help in pronouncing Bo Xianli
because it's not really said how it looks. Anyway, just thought I'd give that quick update. Love to
you all! Take care.

Too busy and stressed!

Well, right now I'm in the language lab and really should be working on homework. I've been goofing
off for the past half-hour though to try to take a mental break. It is really stressful, the structure
of this program that is. I think if I were learning Chinese more slowly or in a different format (maybe)
it would not be such a stressful thing. But as one of my first cousins pointed out, "We Bodells tend
to make things more stressful than they really are." So, maybe no one else is stressed out. I don't
think that's true, though.

Anyway, excepting weekends, I'm not really sure when I'll have enough time to post about much of
anything. I'm sorry to leave any faithful readers in a lurch (haha), but I'll try to update when I can.
For now, I'm getting as fit as a horse hiking through the ridiculous hills in Ithaca and slightly wishing
I weren't here. I will make it through, though, and might be better for it. More
bitter, certainly. Haha. Well, enough of spewing my negativity on the unsuspecting. I hope you all
are enjoying a fine June wherever you may be. :) Take care.

Sarahs

I went to campus today to pick up a syllabus and the other stuff that "registration" entails. On the
way to get my Cornell student ID I saw a girl carrying the same syllabus also looking to have a student
ID made. We struck up a conversation. She's in the Chinese FALCON program (call me Sherlock) and
her name is . . .

SARAH JEAN!

Haha, that cracks me up. Anyway, she just goes by Sarah and she said the people in the program office
told her that there are four Sarahs in the program this summer. That's fantastic and awful all at
once. I'm glad all those years ago there were five Sarahs in my class (including Saras)--that's why
I began going by Sarah Jane full time. Anyway, I've yet to ascertain if we will choose a "native"
name to go by in the program. In most of my other language classes, especially in high school, we
picked a name that we went by during the class. I had a different one in each of my four Spanish classes
in high school. I was just plain Sarah Jane in college Spanish and was Sarah (pronounced Zah-rah)
in college German. French was online, so no new name. Let's see if I can remember my Spanish names:
Beatriz, Adela, Carlota, Sarajuana. Hah. I doubt, though, that we'll get Chinese names for the class.
So, Sarah Jane I suppose it will be.

Class is bright and early tomorrow. I hope to take a few more photos tomorrow. I discovered some
real sights on the East Campus. Well that's all for now. Take care!