Today marked the very end of our journey in Cuzco. I woke up too early at first and grabbed the continental breakfast downstairs at 8am. I ended up going back to sleep a bit before finishing up the tiny bit of packing I had left, then it was time to walk to Amauta School to take our final grammar test at 11. The tests were given according to our levels, and while there were a few completely random questions (such as some vocab that we had clearly never learned), overall I felt pretty comfortable with it. After the exam, other people who had wanted to go out to eat lunch had already finished their exams and left; the remaining people wanted to go shopping, so I decided to find a restaurant on my own.
I ended up back at the place where I'd tried alpaca one of my first afternoons in Cuzco. For 9 soles, I got lemonade, yummy vegetable soup and a Mexican omelette with onions, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes.
I didn't do too much for the rest of the day, but took some time to get almost all of my belongings and pack. I also got ready to go out, but didn't dress up too much since I decided to wear what was easiest.
We had an amazing final dinner here tonight. I was told to meet at the hotel to go out by 7:30 to Hotel Monasterio. I knew it was a fancy restaurant but I guess that didn't hype up my expectations quite enough... when we got there, I was blown away by the elegance and charm of the entire place. It's a five-star hotel built in the 17th century on a refurbished Baroque monastery and is simply breathtaking. I didn't bring my camera with me since I knew we'd go out afterwards, but it had an amazing courtyard and mirror-filled walls inside. It was no surprise that the food was exquisite as well.
I sat at a table with Vinny, Tyler and Andres. We enjoyed ourselves from the minute the bread came out. There was a fixed menu with several choices for our appetizer, entree and dessert. I ordered some sort of "tabouli" with quinoa, parsley, oranges and more. For my main dish, I got chicken with brie cheese and spinach with quinoa and mushrooms. It was incredible, but when I tried Andres's salmon with mango and banana, I couldn't believe that I was tasting the best salmon of my life. He, Tyler and I decided to split a fantastic bottle of red wine for our meal (Andres picked it out since I'm no expert at all... he did a great job), and while the whole place was expensive (fortunately, we only had to pay for our drinks), the bottle was $39 USD. For about $13 a person on a fantastic night out, it was definitely worth it. We shared tons of laughs and great food, and for dessert I had a baked apple with some sugar that had the consistency of cotton candy (though it was very crunchy and hurt my tongue a bit).
Afterwards, Andres and a few others presented some really touching speeches (ok, Yianni and Klevis's speech was inarticulate, to say the least, but hilarious nonetheless). Diana and Rosana had coordinated with everybody to have us all pitch in for a gift for Monica, so they presented her a beautiful pair of earrings and necklace.
We all had a longer-than-necessary photo shoot on the grass afterwards, then figured out plans for the rest of the night. Some people wanted to go straight to the discoteca, while others wanted to go salsa dancing. I joined the latter group, but since I don't know how to dance salsa and didn't have a partner, I stood awkwardly until I realized I could walk to Indigo to meet up with others.
Indigo is a bar/restaurant/hookah bar near the Plaza that lots of people have already been to and like. They played great music, had cheap drinks and, most importantly, offered a nice spot to socialize with my friends. One of the highlights for me was watching Scott sing some of the songs from the Dayman episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (how I love that show... and I'm SO glad Cara got all of Scott's shenanigans on video). It. Was. Hilarious.
So we all stayed there until maybe 1am, and at that point, I really did not want the night to end, but I was tired and knew I should sleep. Most of the people ended up heading to Norton's afterwards... in retrospect, maybe I should've gone with them since they only stayed for 20-30 minutes, but I had a great night either way. Back to the hotel I went, and I slept for a handful of hours before another day of traveling.
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