The journey to Cusco!

I arrived in Miami an hour late because the fuel truck was late at my previous layover in Dallas.  The flight attendants let the connecting customers off the plane first and I thought in my head that I had 45 minutes to make it to a different gate within the D terminal, however I reglanced at my ticket and realized that I was switching from American to LAN which is in the J terminal. To make a long story short, I barely made my connection because I was forced to go through security again. Although it was a bit stressful, it ended up turning out to be great because LAN, an international airline, was a pleasure to fly with. There was a blanket, pillow, and headphones on my seat upon arrival.  The seat reclined about 30 degrees further than American, they fed us a decent meal with complimentary wine, and there was a touchscreen tv attached to the seat with 100 decent movie choices.  The blanket was very useful because there was no air control and it was quite chilly.  Alex flew American to Lima and didn´t have such a pleasurable experience. I had to go thru customs with ALL of my luggage in Lima, but luckily they had free push carts! I barely made my connection to Cusco and Alex actually missed her´s by 10 minutes. It all worked out in the end and Alex made it to Cusco two hours late. I waited for her at the airport while I exchanged my dollars into Soles for a 1: 2.55 ratio. Someone from the school picked us up and we went to the school for a tour and our initial Spanish placement exam.  The exam was eye awakening to the fact that I have a lot to learn. I had to guess on 50% of the answers and ended up in the basic intermediate level along with Alex.  There aren´t any group lessons going on in that level so we have one hour of private lessons and one hour of tandem conversation with a Peruvian trying to learn English each day. I definitely felt the altitude the first day but luckily I didn´t get sick.  I was a bit dizzy after climbing stairs, had a mild headache, and definitely took a long nap.  I´ve been taking Ibuprofen regularly and drinking Mata de Cocoa Tea which is supposed to help!