Vacation Photos

Okay, so you caught me. I wasn't actually SAVING MY CITY from the THREAT OF EVIL. I was actually futzing around the globe a bit more, taking photos and getting into trouble. I'm home now (oh the glories of a warm, dependable shower) and ready to press you into staring at the instagram version of my travels.

So sit, grab a drink and enjoy. :)

 These are agricultural ruins in the Sacred Valley, Moray Peru. We climbed down a series of precarious steps to get to the very bottom, where a group of hippies had taken over the ruins for a spring solstice ritual that involved laying in a circle and saying "shhhh" a lot. This is also where I ripped my first pair of pants.

This, as you might have guessed, is Machu Picchu. That llama was just hanging out there. I didn't have to pay him to pose or anything.

Iguazu Falls is one of the most spectacular sights in the world. If you ever have the chance, go! I promise, these falls make Niagara look like a leaky faucet. 

These are coatis. They look adorable, until you find out that they can carry rabies and attack humans. Still cute? Didn't think so.

Another waterfall pic, because... why not?

This photo was taken from the top of Corcovado mountain, the mountain where you can find the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. This is about the point where my husband ripped his pants.















Here's the big guy.



















Another shot of Rio from above. My hostel was a little to the right of this shot. Imagine me there. Sewing up my pants. Sewing up my husband's pants.















These are ancient aqueducts in the heart of the city.

After this point my husband and I flew up to Manaus, which is kind of the doorway to the Brazilian Amazon. We did an amazing tour of the Amazon that included animal spotting, jungle trekking, pirana fishing, and cayman (alligator) hunting. (If by hunting you mean tracking down, tickling their bellies and releasing). On the jungle trek I ripped my second pair of pants. This time the damage was irreparable.

The vacation closed out with a trip to Ilha Grande, which is a very creative name for an island if you consider the translation. Here we swam on a gorgeous beach under the sunshine for a couple of hours and spent the rest of the time hiding from the rain.

So, that was our trip!

Thanks for sticking around through all the photos. :) I've missing my blogging buddies and, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't gotten much writing done lately. But, hopefully the amazing trip will help expand my brain and inspire new stories. :)

What about you guys? What trips are you planning and where would you like to go?

An Odyssey

This will be my last blog before I disappear for a while for extremely secret reasons. If you must know what I'm up to, imagine me in a bat cave somewhere up to my ears in utility belts and high-tech grappling hooks, working hard to SAVE MY CITY from the THREAT OF EVIL.

Ahem.

So, last week was the big dance showcase I've been neurotically tweeting about for the last few weeks. I get really nervous about these things, because there are eight million aspects that can go wrong and only a small handful of us to fix them.

Things do go wrong. It's the only thing I can count on. Every year I nurse the hope of a calm, stress-free experience. I organize and plan ahead like a maniac. I think that maybe, just maybe, this time everything will go right. Bwahahahahaha!

This year it was a small audio glitch. The cd player in our venue decided part-way through the evening (and in the middle of the performance) that it didn't like our cd. It expressed its displeasure by hiccuping at us every few minutes. Ugh. Sometimes there's nothing you can do to prevent this stuff. We ended up switching to ipod for sound and everyone lived happily ever after in a pool of contentment, but that hiccuping continues to haunt me.

I guess the important thing is to stay calm and not let the small stuff overshadow the fact that we had an excellent turn-out, lots of positive feedback and excited audience members, no injuries, and a very cleanly performed evening. Seriously, my dancers rocked it out. They were beautiful, committed and focused. I am an extremely fortunate choreographer to work with such professionals.

When I return to blogging, I'll try and remember to post a short video of the night.

I really am quite proud. :)

Are you a fan of live dance? What memorable shows have you seen and what makes them memorable to you?