• My photo set has lots of pictures I took on our trip
• Shipra's photo set has a few more, mostly silly ones of me

Other than that... it's been cold and snowy here.

So it started out pretty normal... I handed my voter registration card to a lady who looked up my name and had me sign a card. The next lady tore off the side of the card and handed half to me. A third lady directed me to a huge machine and then pushed a button that made the curtains close behind me with a sharp snap. I stood there for a few seconds in utter amazement, pondering what must have been hundreds of little levers and the one big red button at the bottom.

To cast your vote there is a little lever above the candidate's name that you push down, which reveals a red X. The candidates are ordered by party, so you can also pull one of the big levers on the side of the machine to move all the little levers down for a party.

I pushed the little levers down for the people I wanted to vote for, then pushed the big red button to cast my vote. When I pushed it there was a very final-sounding mechanical clunk and the curtains flew open. I turned away from the machine in a bit of a daze, not completely sure what had just happened. Hopefully I had voted.

The picture on the right is similar to the machines we used, but instead of the big lever we had a big red button. Our machines were a brown-grey color with short brown plaid curtains--I'm sure they were the height of fashion when they came out 100 years ago.

Anyway, I voted.

I don't have many new pictures (for a change!), but in the last few days it has burst into fall here so I wanted to stick up at least one. This particular tree is up the street from my house. It feels like we're in a bit of a transitional phase, or maybe it's just the very beginning of the color changing, but the trees that are turning really pop out since there is still so much green around.

As for school... it's a ton of work but I'm loving it. Pittsburgh turns out to not be such a bad place either, though I may not be saying that come winter!

My birthday this year happened to be on the same day as the 6th Annual Pittsburgh Bichon Bash, so I had an interesting birthday "party". I had no idea there would be over 50 bichons at this thing, but there were. Whitney says there were 100 but I think she was just in shock over so many white fluffy dogs in one place. It's understandable.

The picture on the left shows Milo with his raffle winnings. I (we, he?) got a hand-made quilt and some bichon notecards. I think he was hoping for the yellow rain jacket but it just wasn't his day...

So if you ever wondered what a Bichon Bash looks like, or if you just miss seeing pictures of Milo, check out the photo album.

Here's a quick trip recap and links to the photo albums:

La Paz - Eric picked me up in La Paz, Bolivia, and we spent a couple days hanging out there while I adjusted to the altitude. In the pictures you can see how the houses are built right up the canyon walls, and don't miss our lovely rainbow toe socks.

Copacabana and La Isla del Sol - We took a bus to Copacabana, a nice resort-style town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and spent a relaxing evening exploring the waterfront. In the morning we took a four hour boat ride out to the Isla del Sol, the legendary birthplace of the first Inca and of the sun itself. We hiked the length of the island, through some neat ruins and beautiful scenery, and took the boat back to Copacabana that afternoon.

Floating Islands, Amantani, Tequile - Our bus from Copacabana was over three hours late because of a student demonstration, but we finally did get across the border into Peru and met up with two of Eric's friends from language school in Puno. We went on a three-day tour of some of the islands in the area -- first to the spongy Floating Islands for a couple of hours, then out to Amantani where we spent the night with a local family. We hiked up to the temple of Mother Earth, Pachamama, to watch the sunset, then the locals dressed up all the tourists and we had an interesting tourist party/dance thing. The next day we visited Tequile island for lunch, souvenir shopping, and a bit of a hike. On the boat back to Puno we all attempted to ignore the guide who had been telling us the entire trip that everything he said was "muy importante".

Cusco - We took the bus to Cusco and stayed with Eric's incredibly nice host family from language school. We didn't take many pictures in Cusco except for at the big Inca fort of Sacsayhuaman, but towards the end there is one picture of me at the host family's house eating a very traditional soup -- cusco55. After that there are a few pictures of the nicest hotel we stayed in -- funny that it was the free one that Lan Peru gave us to compensate for overbooking our flight.

Machu Picchu - The pictures speak for themselves... we had a spectacular day in Machu Picchu. We spent two nights in the town below the ruins, Aguas Calientes, and one full day exploring the park. The last four pictures show Ollantaytambo, another neat Inca fort.

Arequipa - I was pretty sick when we arrived in Arequipa so there aren't many pictures of the city itself. All but the first picture are taken inside the colorful convent.

Colca Canyon - From Arequipa we took a three-day trip out to Colca Canyon, which you can read about here. In colca34 you can see the trail that we hiked up at 3 a.m. and colca56 has a condor in it... see it?

Nazca and Huacachina - The last few pictures show some of the Nazca lines and the funny oasis town of Huacachina. In both of the Huacachina pictures you can see people sandboarding in the background.

Well that's it! I have to admit it's nice to be back in the U.S. and have all the corresponding facilities, food, etc. Although my "new" apartment is so old that many of the "facilities" aren't performing as well as they probably did a hundred years ago... more on living in Pittsburgh later!

Yesterday we went to a craft market in a huge warehouse with hundreds of stalls all selling sweaters, bags, rugs, jewelry, hats, gloves, etc. I bought, among other things, a scarf made from baby alpaca wool. The label has a picture of an alpaca and says "100% Baby Rabbit". Uh-huh.