Conclusion...?

Hi everyone,

I realized I sort of left anyone who was reading my blog hanging when I got back to the U.S. (safely!). I have been busy busy busy, and I'm loving it. Here's a little summary of what I've been up to since my last post:

After hiking the Inca Trail we arrived at Machu Picchu (!!!!!) and it was just as amazing as I had expected and more. In the morning (6/6:30 am) we had to race across the ruins to get tickets so that we could climb Wayna Picchu, the mountain that you see in the background of any postcard picture of Machu Picchu. They only let 400 people in each day, and we got number 345 and 346! So we had an amazing time there, and then got on a train back to Cuzco, but only after waiting for a few hours, wondering if the train would actually come because of a strike on the railroad. That was scaryy because we didn't know if we would make it to our International flight home from Lima in time, because the strike was also affecting the roads around Cuzco, so we couldnt get out on a bus from Cuzco to Lima!

But it ended up working out fine, our bus just left a little late because the strike was only going on during the day the next day, so we went on another 24 hour bus ride to get back to Lima. We flew out on May 29th, and had to RUN to our planes in Miami (Sam was going straight to Chicago, I had to go to St. Louis and then to Chicago), but we made it.

So just 2 days after I got back, on Monday June 1st, I started my summer internship at ACCION Chicago. It's a micro-lending Non-profit organization, and we give out small business loans to clients in the Chicagoland area. About 25% of our clients are Spanish-speaking, so I've been able to use my Spanish a decent amount (I would say 2-3 times/week), especially recently. I do lots of things and keep very busy at my job, uploading documents, making phone calls, drafting letters, visiting client business locations, as well as promoting ACCION at many different events. One of my favorite events so far was one for Latina Style magazine, which was held at the Macy's on State Street. We had a booth there to give information to women who had their own business or were starting one, and either the vast majority of them or all of them were Spanish-speaking.

Well, I'm having lots of fun at my job, but that also means I don't have too much time to update the blog, and 'Carolina en Ecuador' doesn't really apply anymore... So I'm planning on starting a new blog in the Fall when I'm done working at ACCION and I start my senior year at U of I. I'll be volunteering (don't know where yet... so many options!) and working at the Study Abroad Office as a Peer Advisor (Yay!!! just found out I got the job) as well as the normal college "going to classes" thing.

Thanks for reading and I'll be back later!