Galapagos & Semana Santa.

I WILL write about Galapagos/Spring Break. I will.

The 'Rents in Ecuador. May 9-May 16.

On Monday the 9th my parents arrived in Quito! Their trip was much anticipated and could not have been timed better seeing as I had taken my last final exam earlier that morning. The end of that exam was so freeing. I had completed all of my course work for the semester and was officially on vacation from school for a little while! It felt so great to finally be done with the studying part of my study abroad experience because that had been the most trying/annoying/unenjoyable part of this semester (haha, isn't class/studying always the worst part of the semester?). Isabel drove me to the airport and then waited in the car so she could work on some homework and not leave her computer unattended in the car. This was definitely a good thing seeing as I started to tear up just standing in the airport looking at all of the people waiting and knowing that my parents were going to be coming through the doors at any moment. A very exciting and emotional day. The doors slid open to let other people through and I peeked through for my parents. As soon as I saw them with all their luggage looking a little bit confused and tired I began to laugh. They came through the doors and didn't even cry when they saw me! I guess they didn't miss me too much. ;) We met up with Isabel and then she drove us to the hotel, with me translating along the way. Good practice for the rest of their stay in Ecuador when I would be constantly translating. We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and got to our room. What a shock compared to my usual hostel experiences. This room had a nice TV with cable, a phone, carpet, and was soooo nice! Of course my parents felt right at home seeing as it mirrored American hotel rooms. :) After a few hours chatting and catching up, we slept.

In the morning we marveled at the beautiful view (of the hotel pool, the valley that contains Cumbayá, and the beautifully manicured lawn) and slowly prepared for their first day in Ecuador. I was peppered with questions about what kinds of clothes to wear, what the weather was going to be like, exactly how to avoid being robbed (tons of questions about this one, I think I scared them a little bit too much with my promise that they would be robbed if we weren't extremely cautious), etc. and then we were off. I don't know the area around Hotel Quito too well so it took us a little while to find the Ecovia which we took to Rio Coca. There dad and I got some street empanadas for breakfast (cheap and delicious, a combination we all know Dirk Snoek loves) and mom got some coffee. Then we took the Agua Clara bus to Ofelia and finally a bus from Ofelia to Mitad del Mundo or the Equator! They tried very hard to keep the names of the buses and stations straight but they found it a little bit difficult. It was hard for me to remember how overwhelmingly different everything felt when I first arrived so I may not have been as empathetic as I should have been. They were real troupers on the buses though. We had money hidden in various shoe insoles and they left their phones, passports, credit cards, and the majority of their money in the safe at the hotel. They got to see how I've been traveling around Quito this whole semester and got to see a lot of Quito through the bus windows. When we got to Mitad del Mundo we decided to go visit the Pululahua Geobiological Reserve which is kind of a hike up through some grass and flower-covered hills to see the crater of a dormant volcano. Simply beautiful and I enjoyed translating the information from our guide to them the whole time. We even had some hallucinogenic berries painted on our faces! Then we went to the Mitad del Mundo museum that is the real GPS-calculated equator but not the one with the big monument. They tried some Ecuadorian helados (ice-cream treats) and then we got a tour with various other English-speaking tourists of the museum. The highlights were the real shrunken head of a 12-year old (done by an indigenous Ecuadorian tribe), 2 large boa constrictors, some freshly picked free orito (little gold) bananas, a depiction of a tomb a different indigeous tribe used to use, and the different scientific tests to show how things are different on the equator (ej. strength, the direction water turns, balancing an egg on a nail, etc.). We had lunch at a typical Ecuadorian restaurant (our $2.25 meals included soup, a very typical part of Ecuadorian lunch, that had chicken's feet in it--now that's how you know you're not in the US anymore) and because the combination of travel and altitude had tired them out we headed back to Quito without taking pictures at the Mitad del Mundo monument. Their thinking: we had pictures of us on the real equator, why would we want them on the fake equator? We took the bus back into Quito and then took a $4 taxi ride back to the hotel, the cheapness of which astounded my father. We rested for a while and then got cleaned up to go to my apartment for dinner with my host family! In the taxi on the way there tears just started streaming down my face uncontrollably. I thought that I was mentally prepared to leave Ecuador and excited to go home, but I think how much I didn't want to leave and how much I was going to miss everything and everyone here struck me in that taxi. I was an absolute mess when I got to my host family's apartment. Such a mess that I forgot for a moment that my families couldn't understand one another. I held onto Joaquín as I showed my parents my home for the semester and tearfully translated for my families. I calmed down and we had a simply delightful dinner of chicken with peaches, rice (of course. :)), a pea and tomato salad, maracuyá juice, and a jello dessert. We had some tea afterwords and then decided to head back to the hotel because it was past my dad's bedtime (aka after 9:00 pm). Dinner conversation was delightful and ranged from discussion of the success of the semester, how grateful I was to my host family, and the different things that most struck my parents about Ecuador.

On Wednesday we packed up our bags for Mindo and our day in Cumbaya, put the rest in storage at Hotel Quito, and took some buses off to Cumbaya to see my university! We first visited SuperMaxi, the supermarket close to my school so that we could get some bus snacks and so that they could see the differences in prices and products between Ecuador and Michigan. Things like different fruits, chips, chocolates, books, and hygiene products and a huge increase in prices of makeup ($20.00 for a tube of mascara) and a huge decrease in prices of things like chips/crackers, fruits and bread. We bought some snacks for our 2-hour bus trip to Mindo and then headed to the university for a little tour. When I say "little" I definitely mean it. While MSU's campus would take a good half-day to visit thouroughly, USFQ took about 20 minutes. We visited the biggest library in Ecuador (the one at my school which is 1/8 the size of the one at MSU), some of my classroom buildings, and the lagoon near which I would study frequently. We joined up with my friends Tracy and Christina and went to La Pizzeria El Hornero for their lunch specials, delicious and cheap, another Ecuadorian and Dirk favorite. After lunch we went to Iomi, a healthy frozen yogurt shop which I like to think is fashioned after a not-so-healthy yogurt shop in an episode of Seinfeld. We left the beautiful and safe area of Cumbaya to take our chances on the buses and make our way to Mindo. After a bus ride, a taxi ride, and another beautiful yet terrifying bus ride later, we were finally in Mindo, a tiny town in the center of the Ecuadorian cloud forest. Exhausted from our adventures we checked into our hostel and fell asleep swathed in our mosquito nets. The next day [Thursday] we went off on an adventure. For the first part of the day we hopped in a pickup truck taxi and went to do some zip-lining. I had already been when I came to Mindo in January with my friends so I listened to music, looked out at the cloud forest, and swung in a hammock while the parents went off on the zip-lines with 2 guides who spoke minimal English. Before they took off I translated the very important safety instructions just to be sure they didn't misunderstand any of the guides' instructions. We went to El Cheff (a restaurant on the main street of Mindo that I had been to before) for a hearty Ecuadorian lunch, chilled at the hostel reading and napping for awhile, and then took another pickup truck taxi ride (me and dad hanging on for dear life in the back while it rained mind you) to "Mindo Lindo" a place with a hummingbird viewing area and some paths to walk on. We drank freshly made lemongrass tea (from the actual lemongrass), ate some cookies, and watched tons of hummingbirds feeding. In North America there are 2 kinds of hummingbirds, but in Ecuador alone there are 125 species. Crazy! That evening we had some more Ecuadorian food (sangria, helado, and patacones con queso fresco) and then headed off to bed early so we could catch our 6:30am bus back to Quito the next morning.

Friday we headed back into Quito and then split ways. I went back to my host family's apartment to pack up the rest of my belongings and get everything figured out back there while the parents headed back to Hotel Quito to rest for the morning. We went swimming in the hotel pool while it rained in the afternoon and just had a chill, relaxing day. That evening I took them to Red Hot Chili Peppers, a Mexican restaurant in the Mariscal that my friends and I frequent. We shared some grande drinks (piña colada and strawberry daiquiri), chicken faijitas, and chips, salsa, and guacamole. Delicious! We wandered around Plaza Foch for a while, taking in the sights and sounds and then had one more drink at BBQ & Co so dad could catch the end of some basketball game. We sent dad home in a cab and mom and I headed to meet my friends to do some chiva-ing!

Saturday was our day to visit various things around Quito. We got breakfast and then headed to Joaquín's 1st birthday party! [To get to the bus station we took a cab and it was the first female cab driver I've even seen in Ecuador!] His birthday is the 12th of May and my host family had planned a birthday party for the Saturday after. It was a lovely affair. Even though we were 45 minutes late, we were still the first people there besides my host family! That's Ecua-time for you! We helped set up, ate some snacks, hung out and took pictures of Joaquín and greeted all the new arrivals with a kiss on the cheek (and me explaining that these strange white people were my parents and that they didn't speak Spanish). There was a clown at the party who did some face-painting, led games, did a little puppet show, and led the singing of Happy Birthday. An Ecuadorian tradition that I was unaware of that we got to witness is having one of the parents (probably the birthday boy/girl when they're old enough take a bite out of the cake before it is cut. Isabel did the honors and skillfully avoided having her head pushed into the cake. :) After a tearful goodbye the parents and I were off to Telefériqo. The Telefériqo is a gondala-type thing that goes up one of the mountains around Quito so that you can look out over the city. Although it was a bit cloudy we ended up being able to walk around and see both North and South Quito! A beautiful view and a good way to kind of wrap up my time living in Quito. After that we went to the Mariscal Market to buy some gifts and things and then to Crepes & Waffles (another one of our favorite restaurants in Ecuador) for dinner before heading back to the hotel to chill after our crazy-busy day. Later that night I went out with some of the girls for snacks and coffee, my last night out in Quito. :(

Sunday was our final day in Ecuador and we took the day to go visit the historical district of Quito (Centro Historico). While touring this crowded place I was interviewed twice by middle-school student Quiteños. They probably both went to the same school (maybe they were even in the same class) and needed to have themselves filmed interviewing a foreigner in English. I was happy to oblige and it was a very interesting experience. We started out at the Basilica (a big old gothic church) and then walked through the streets of Centro Historico, visiting both La Plaza de La Independencia and Plaza de San Fransisco. We also visited El Banco Central where we saw some interesting causes and effects of dollarization. It started raining so we went to Cafe Tianguez (another restaurant I went to once that I really liked) where dad got humitas, mom ceviche, and me locro. They were great about trying lots of Ecuadorian dishes and got to try a lot of different Ecuadorian and Latin American foods! After wandering around some more we headed back to the hotel. Later that night we went out to a more American dinner and then worked on packing up all of our stuff. A great tip for future study-abroad travelers is that it is MUCH easier to pack up going home when you have about 4 times the space than when you came. You accrue a lot of new belongings (be it gifts or clothes or things you forgot or needed to buy while abroad) and they will not fit in the suitcase that you stuffed and restuffed before you arrived. It was great that my parents could take a lot of my stuff in their bags.

Now I'm just sitting on the plane, listening to some music and writing this in preparation for when I next have internet and can post it. Getting on the plane this morning was such a strange sensation. Rebecca and I boarded together and it was so weird to realize that the next time my feet would be touching land it would be in the United States. Such a strange concept. For those who haven't studied abroad there are a lot of things that are probably hard to understand about the experience, simply because it is so unique and strange. I still feel like this isn't real life. I can't believe that it is May 16. When I bought my plane ticket last semester even January 4 (when I arrived) seemed so far away, May 16 even farther, and now I'm on a plane going home. The past 18 weeks have absolutely FLOWN by. I know they say that time flies, but when you're studying abroad it really really does. It is hard to explain how I feel or what exactly I'm thinking. I'm sad to leave but I'm excited to be back in the United States, but my feelings are so much more complicated than that. I want so many more chapters of my life to look like the last one and I truly have hope that they will.

-EM

How I'm Currently Feeling: May 13, 2011.

I walked into my apartment today for the last time and I just wanted to cry. I realized just how much this place has become my home. This is my room, my bed, my closet, my bathroom, my kitchen, my dining room, my family. I feel so comfortable here and so at home. This is part of what I don't want to leave. Why I do not want to leave this wonderful place and this wonderful experience cannot be put into a few words or a few sentences. It is the sensation. The feeling. It is this that I don't want to leave. And it is just this that can't be explained. I have been trying to explain it in my head. Trying to sum it up into words, but it feels nearly impossible. Although of course I will still try. This has been my life for the past 17 1/2 weeks. My friends are here, my family is here, my school is here. I have all of these incredible memories, so much new knowledge and ability, so many great stories and experiences, and when I leave it will all be behind me. Yes I will have "memories to last a lifetime" and a great experience that I can reminisce about and draw from. But my life will never be the same. I will never be with all of these friends just hanging out and living life in Ecuador again. I will never be part of that special international-student connection again where anytime you see a white person on campus you feel like you can smile at them because you share something special and unique together, because you understand. I won't be going to school on a campus that has a campus dog and a pirate ship in the lagoon and palm trees everywhere and the best cookies and salads ever. I can't just go visit Veronica's office anymore. I won't be spending my weekends either going out to the bars with my friends and exploring our city or traveling to brand new cities to eat new foods and see new culture and learn more about myself and my friends and traveling in general. All of my grades will matter, the weather won't always be the same, I won't have a queen-size bed anymore, and my life won't be constantly exciting or interesting anymore. Study abroad cannot be fully understood by even those who experience it, but those who have not experienced it cannot possibly understand how it feels to come and also how it feels to go. Ecuador, with it's incredible amount of diversity and culture, has taught me so much. It has stolen my heart and a piece of my soul will always remain here. Ecuador will always remain in my mind exactly as I have seen it and in that way my leaving is almost like a mourning process as well. This experience, because it started, had to end and on Monday when I fly back to the United States it will end. It is like love. It is so much better to have been here and to be sad that it is ending than to have never been here at all, but it is still an emotionally-trying experience for me to leave it all behind. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but living in a different country for 18 weeks is an unforgettable and marvelous experience and ending it is difficult. I will always have the thousands of photos that I have taken and the funny stories and great memories. I will always be able to chat on about Ecuador and study abroad and my semester here for hours, but as time passes the smells and sights and memories will become less clear in my mind. The things about living here that have been trying or lonely or difficult or frustrating or boring or awful are outweighed 10 times over by the goodness of it all. And the memories of the annoyances and trying times have already left my brain. As I sit here on my queen-sized Ecuadorian bed in my Ecuadorian home for one of the last times I try and soak it all up: the smell of the damp air, the sounds of the traffic, the smell of my coffee/hot chocolate drink that I invented about a month in, the feeling of my comforter on my bare ankles, and the feeling that I have accomplished something great for myself. I have done it. I can be proud of myself and look back on my time in college without the regret of not challenging myself. I have challenged myself and I have risen to that challenge with a smile on my face and a brain willing to learn. My first goal in coming here was to get through it. To know that I could live in a foreign country for a semester and survive. That I wouldn't need to get on a plane back home and give up because of loneliness or homesickness or the difficulty of the language. My goals progressed way beyond that and they became what my semester became. A semester of challenge, of learning, of seeing culture, of a better understanding of the world, of making new friends, of enjoying myself, of perceiving and learning through every step of every day, of traveling, and traveling, and more traveling, of seeing God's beauty and creation and people, a semester of experiencing constant new-ness and being completely and totally in love with it.

A constant refrain heard between my friends and I was, "Is this our lives?" As in, are we really this incredibly and totally blessed to be experiencing this kind of thing? Is this really our lives or is this a dream? I feel like when I return to the United States this may seem like a dream, and in a way it was, but also, in a very important way, this is my life.

The Past Little While: Part 2

Hi everyone! I have not updated you all in a super long time. Forgive me. I don't have an excuse. :)

Alright so the weekend after we went to the Amazon, we had this whole plan that we were going to go to Cotopaxi. Cotopaxi is the closest volcano to Quito and people go there to like legit climb (with tents and caribeners and all that) and also you can go to just hike up a little bit of it too. It's kind of hard to get there but we found a train that did! It's super cold at Cotopaxi and the train was set to leave at some unearthly hour of the morning so I gathered together my guantes (gloves), bufanda (scarf), and gorra (hat) and headed off to Emory's house for a sleepover on Friday night. At her house I got to take the most glorious shower. Seriously, it was amazing. There are some things that you never realize are blessings until you have to go without them for a long while. I am SO over luke-warm showers. So over it. That is one thing I will not miss at all when I go home.

Anyways, we got up bright and early and took the trole bus to the train station. Where we learned that all the tickets were sold out for the train to Cotopaxi. So instead we bought tickets for a train to Boliche, a site that the people at the train station told us was beautiful and had a forest to walk through and such. We hopped on with our fancy tickets and learned it was more like a tour than just a mode of transportation. We had a tour guide who explained all the stuff we were passing and it was super interesting and chévere. The most legitimate mode of transportation we've taken in Ecuador. Haha.



The 2-hour train ride there and back was beautiful as was the park.

I would write about the school weeks but really, they're just the same as always. Just like at MSU. I go to class, be bored, take notes, be stressed, eat lunch with friends on campus/around campus, avoid homework with watching TV shows, hang out with Joaquin, be stressed, actually do homework, and look forward to the weekends. :)

So the next weekend we went out on Thursday to Red Hot Chili Pepper's (a restaurant with great margaritas and piña coladas) and on Friday we flew to Cuenca! I love the idea of jetting off for a weekend and I'd never done it, so this was quite the experience. You can get to Cuenca by bus, but it's around 10 hours so if you're just going for the weekend it's best to fly. So we decided to splurge because we really wanted to see the 3rd largest city in Ecuador and one of the originals, hence crazy cool architecture and lots of history/culture. It was spectacular. We were in Quito and then 45 minutes later we were in Cuenca. Rebecca and I took a later flight than the others because they didn't have Friday classes so we literally took a taxi from the airport to the restaurant at which they were waiting for some amazing Italian food. That night we went to this cool restaurant/bar nearby called Wunderbar and then headed back to the hostel for a good night of sleep!

That Saturday (2 de abril) we hopped on a bus to go to Ingapirca, a site with ancient Incan ruins where we took a tour and got to see the ruins. Very cool. Check out the pics on facebook.

That afternoon we headed back to Cuenca, got some ice cream, absorbed la vida Cuencana, marvelled over the plazas and the streets and the houses, got some chocolate-covered strawberries, and then took a double-decker bus tour of the city! This was really really cool.

We had a tour guide, we were on the roof, and we got to see Cuenca as the sun was going down and the city lights were coming up. Pretty much spectacular. Cuenca is beautiful, cultural, and much calmer than a lot of other Ecuadorian cities. It is the most "livable" city in Ecuador in my opinion, and it actually is known to have a lot of retired Americans as residents! I don't really know how to explain why it felt so livable, but it did. Many of my friends said they could see themselves living there later in life. We met up with one of Emory's Cuencan friends and hung out with him and his friends for awhile, went to a few bars and such, and then it was time for beddy-bye again.

On Sunday we went out to an art museum and then just sort of hung around Cuenca. We walked the streets, wandered by the river, took some pictures, and generally enjoyed Cuenca. That afternoon it started to rain so we watched Black Swan back in our hostel before jetting back to Quito!

Last weekend (7-10 de abril) the highlight was the CHIVA! A Chiva is like an open-air bus type thing where in the bed of it there is open space and there are handles on the ceiling. The driver drives around the city (Centro Historico and things of this nature) while there is music blasted and canelazo (a hot alcoholic ecuadorian drink) flowing freely. You dance and sing and blow your whistles and get drunk as the Chiva drives around the city. It's pretty much the most fantastic thing ever. Here's a picture of it without any people on it so that you can kind of get an idea of what it is.The next few days of the weekend were mostly just chill days. Watched some movies at friends' houses, did some more gift shopping in the Mariscal market, and did some homework of course!

Then more school. Ugh. Haha. Although I did take a quiz that I got 20/20 on in a class I really need to do well in so that was very exciting!

This past weekend was another weekend in Quito since on Thursday we leave for Semana Santa!

On Thursday I went to a Barbeque at Matt's house in honor of the fact that his mom was in town! We had some delicious food, some great conversation, and some energetic dancing.


Friday we had dinner at Crepes & Waffles (a delicious restaurant that is unlike anything in the United States. it was started by some Columbians and unfortunately they only have locations in Spanish-speaking countries) and then we went to La Ronda. La Ronda is an area with more café and restaurant type bars and such. It is more chill than Plaza Foch/The Mariscal and canelazo is the drink of choice. It was a chilly night, but we had great conversation and basically great everything. I had been wanting to go there for awhile so I'm glad we finally did!


On Saturday Christina and I went to La Capilla del Hombre, a kind of art museum that was the idea of Oswaldo Guayasamín--a famous Ecuadorian painter.

We had to go for a class so we were a little bit skeptical but the art and the construction of the building were very cool. And afterwords we found a street vendor with mango slices (MY FAVORITE. Seriously. 50 cents and you get an entire mango pre-sliced in a little plastic bag. What could be better?). It started hailing (weird, right?) and thunderstorming and such so Christina and I had the brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea of gathering some people to go see a movie. We headed to Plaza de Las Americas, picked out a movie, bought our tickets (you have to pick your seats before you get into the theatre here), had some decadent coffee, and then went to the movie! We picked Rio, in 3D. So many new things in just this one experience! First movie in a foreign theatre, it was in Spanish (I mean I've watched movies in Spanish before but not in the theatre), and my first 3D movie! It was incredible and especially cool because it is set in Brazil where Christina is going next month to visit a friend! Incredible. Afterwords Beth and I headed to Emory's to eat some cake and watch some more movies. And yesterday I chilled and did homework, just like Sundays in the United States. Haha. Although I am especially disappointed that I'm missing Easter Season at home. I'm realizing how much I feel connected to Eastern Ave. due to how much I miss it and think about it. I also have realized how much I love Easter. It's things like this that you don't know you miss until you go without them for a long while. Interesting, no?

Anyways, I'm getting very excited to finally be done with school. I have one class tomorrow and then I'm off until May! That week after Semana Santa is going to be completely awful because it is a week of exams and presentations and quizzes and projects and homework and finals right after a week and a half off from school, but then after the following Monday (May 9) I will be completely done with school and my parents will be here! YAY!

Semana Santa translates as Holy Week but it is our Spring Break! From Thursday to Tuesday we will be in the Galapagos and then from Tuesday to Saturday in various Ecuadorian coastal towns and on the beach. I cannot wait. It is going to be such a good way to kind of end our time here in Ecuador. It's all coming to a close! Craziness. I feel like when I get home I will feel like this was all a dream and that it didn't really happen. Because it almost feels like I was at home yesterday and like I've been here for like a year all at the same time.

I love you all! Sorry I had to catch up on everything!

-EM

The Amazon.

Just got back from the Amazon a few hours ago. Most interesting and crazy weekend ever I'm almost positron. My photos (all 563 of them) are currently being transferred to my computer, I'm caught up on Facebook/e-mails, and I'm procrastinating on the whole unpacking thing. Thus, a perfect time for a blog post. :D

Friday morning we left for Tiputini Biodiversity Station, which is a combination education/research collaboration between Boston University and USFQ. To get to Tiputini, which is in an especially diverse and remote part of the Amazon Rainforest we took a plane [Quito to Coca, 30 minutes], a boat [Rio Napo, 2 hours], a chiva...aka an open-air bus thing...[through petroleum-land, 2 hours], and then another boat [Rio Tiputini, 2 hours]. Craziness. Our plane was delayed for a bit because of weather in Coca, but we didn't hit many other bumps in the road on our journey there. Being on the first boat was like being in a combination Jurassic Park/Florida kind of place. The river was ride, the tarp on the top of the boat kept us from getting all sweltering, and there were beautiful rain-foresty trees every which way. Everyone who had been to Florida said that it smelled like Florida, but I couldn't tell you. When we got off this boat we had to go through a little security station before getting on the chiva. This is because the petroleum company lets Tiputini chivas drive on their road, but it's still like petroleum-land so they don't want you to bring bombs and armas [guns] and things of that nature through there. Also, you're not allowed to take pictures during this section of the journey because one time there was a terrorist attack against the petroleum company and the people who attacked them had tons o' plans with tons o' pictures of the place making it easier for them to attack. So while this place is crystal clear in my head and I can describe it as best as possible, there is no way you'll be able to grasp what it was really like. Unfortunately. Anyways, we took the chiva on a pebbled road through the jungle, passing what appeared to be a school with half-naked children playing [I forgot to mention that the heat met us as soon as we hopped off the plane], ramshackle houses, and the occassional "peligro" ["danger"] sign. Some of us slept, some of us listened to music, but mostly we just embraced the fact that we were on our way to have some sort of crazy adventure in the Amazon rainforest and we really had no idea what it was going to be like.

Got off the Chiva and scampered down the side of the road to encounter our second boat! The boat was filled with food that was being brought to Tiputini [including a branch of plantains that literally looked like it had been plucked off the tree moments before], but there was enough room for us too. Off we went! After some used the baño natural [aka squatting outside] of course. This river was a little bit smaller than the other one, as in less wide, but it was still a grand river. After quite some time we arrived at Tiputini. Hauled our stuff up the wet, wooden steps, and were welcomed into the comedor [place where we would be eating...comedor=dining room]. We followed Eduardo, the director of Tiputini, to our cabins and were given some chill time before dinner, after which we played cards and took pictures of a taranchala before heading off to bed early.

Tiputini functions quite like a summer camp and quite unlike a resort. There is no hot water, however, all of the water that runs through the station is potable/drinkable, which is quite the treat after living in Quito for 3 months where you have to boil your water before you can safely drink it. Electricity runs off a generator and runs to the cabins only between the hours of 11am-1pm and 6pm-9:30pm. Breakfast is served promptly at 6:30, Lunch at noon, and Dinner at 7:00. And you best be on time because that food is delicious and it won't be piping hot if you're not there on time.

In the morning we divided up into 3 groups for the 3 different activities we would be doing. One Saturday morning, one Saturday afternoon, and one Sunday afternoon. My group [Vicki, Beth, Emory, Rebecca, Sharon (the amazing woman from USFQ who traveled with us all the way from Quito), and I] would be doing the puentes first. Puentes=Bridges. So we wandered through the rainforest for awhile with our super-chev [super-cool] guide Santiago, with him pointing out interesting plants and animals and insects along the way and then we got to a tower. Attached to the tower, high above our heads, we could see some bridges. Which we were to walk over. Ummmmmmm....so high. So not okay. But I did it! No harnesses on the way up or down the tower, but there was a steel cable above the bridges that we were attached to. One of the bridges went to a platform which had a jank-town ladder attached to a tree to an even higher platform. No thank you. It was hard enough just crossing that first bridge. So I sat on the strangely-located lawn chair on the platform while others went up and down the ladder to get an even better view. I walked back across the bridge, took a look at the next bridge, decided I'd had enough, and then climbed back down the tower. Soon after the rest came down and we made our way back through the jungle for lunch and naptime. At times it seemed like we were not on any sort of kind of path at all, and then all of a sudden, BAM, Santiago had us back on the trail. Crazzzzzzy.

The food at Tiputini is AMAZING.

Amazonian naps are the best I decided. Especially when it is raining.

For our afternoon activity we were going on the Lago path. Which would, of course, lead to a lago/laguna. We saw tons o' monos [monkeys] on the way and it was spectacular. [List of interesting flora/fauna we saw/ate/heard will be at the end] We got to the lago, hopped in a dinky boat which seemed as though it would tip into the anaconda/manta ray/electric eel/piranha/cayman--laden water at every move. This laguna was so incredibly peaceful, yet so active at the same time. The sounds of the rainforest were incredible. The birds, the monkeys, the frogs. Everything. And there was no possible way that any of the sounds we heard could be from civilization. There were all just nature. Pure, unadulterated nature. Incredible. It's like you could see God everywhere. All of the pine trees in/around the laguna had spines on their trunks and leaves. It seemed almost pre-historic. Like a dinosaur was about to poke its head out of the trees at any moment.

After we paddled around the laguna for awhile we docked the boat and walked to the river where a boat came and picked us up to bring us back to the Station in time for dinner. Dinner was delish, and then we saw this AMAZING powerpoint presentation. Tiputini, in conjunction with National Geographic, has these motion and heat-sensor cameras set up all over this section of the rainforest that capture pictures of the animals and birds that you don't get to see usually because humans make a lot of noise and animals are scared of them. Pictures of jaguars, a rabbit (which is actually more rare to see in the jungle than jaguars), pumas, deer, tapirs, etc. all captured off-guard and in their natural habitat. Incredible. They can even identify the individual jaguars based on their spots. Then we went off to our cabins. Of course as soon as 9:30 rolled around the lights went out automatically and we were all so tired anyways that we went right to sleep. Although the candle-lit cabins were pretty much incredible.

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More new stuff about the Amazon!

Alright, so the next day (Sunday) in the morning we woke up and were told that plans had changed. We would be doing our third activity in the afternoon and go swimming in the river in the morning. So we headed back to our cabins, put on our swimsuits, put on our clothes and rubber boots over our swimsuits, and headed out to the dock with all of us and our 3 guides. As we cruised down the river some people fell asleep (I mean it was like 8:00 in the morning), some people searched for animals and birds along the riverbank, and some just soaked up the feeling of having the breeze in your hair as we boated down a river in the Amazon. We saw lots of birds, monkeys, and vegetation. After about an hour or two we reached a spot in the river where we were to jump out and float down in our life-jackets. Now this may not seem hard to you. I mean seriously, how hard is it to just float down a river. However, we had been told that there were pirahnas AND 20-foot anacondas in this river. If those were in the river, what other crazy things could be in there too? Like seriously. But we jumped in anyways! The water was the perfect temperature and as we floated down we laughed and joked and spotted monkeys and other wildlife along the shore. The guides, still on the boat, also found some crazy fruit for us to eat, so as we were floating alongside the boat they handed us pieces for us to try. I don't remember what kind of fruit it was, but it had a seed in the middle surrounded by this cotton-y yet delicious white stuff. Crazy. Ultimately we ended up getting back in the boat and returning to the station for lunch. Not of course, before it started downpouring (making us all quite a bit chilly), and getting out of the boat at some random spot along the river where the guides knew there was this one tree that housed a couple of pygmy monkies. In our swimsuits, rubber boots, and ponchos/raincoats, we slid up the muddy embankment to stand for a while around this tree trying to see the monkies. It was wet, cold, and crazy. Matt and I joyfully sang river/jungle songs all the way back to the station, much to the "delight" of our shivering and crabby peers.

In the afternoon my group was supposed to go to "The Tower." This tower, I had been told, was twice as tall as the last one we climbed so I knew there was no way that was going to happen. Thus, I tagged along with the group who was going to the lagoon so that I didn't have to sit at the bottom of the tower for a couple hours by myself. This proved to be a very good choice seeing as we saw a CAYMAN in the laguna! Crazy. And I feel like it was a completely different experience, even though it was the same path. The rainforest is an ever-evolving kind of place and it never looks the same.

That evening, after dinner, we were supposed to go drifting in the boat to look for caymans, but it had rained too much that day and the water was too high, so instead we went on night hikes with our guide. This was cool and scary all at the same time. We were armed with 3 flashlights so as we went down the path, everything was pitch black except for the small areas of the forest that we were lighting up. So many scary wanting-to-kill-you things were in that forest. I honestly thought we were all going to be killed by a jaguar or a puma or a spider or something like that. But don't worry, we survived! Although we did see one of the most dangerous spiders in the world. Yikes!

The next day we returned home taking the same modes of transportation as before but in reverse and we were also in coca a lot earlier than our flight was so there was a lot of waiting around. Luckily, the strange hotel place where we docked and waited had tons of monkeys for us to watch and play with so it really wasn't too bad. Also, an interesting thing was that in the airport as we were waiting for our flight, our leader (Sharon) pointed out that most of the people in the tiny airport (except for us) were male. This is because most of them work for the petroleum companies in the area and that is mainly who the coca airport services. Super Interesting.

Absolutely incredible weekend, probably one of my favorites ever.

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Interesting things we saw/learned about:

Hongo de Tasa: Mushroom that the indigenous people use to measure medicine for babies.

Monkey Ladder: This kind of branch monkeys use as ladders and to make hammocks.

Jardín de Diablo with Lemon Ants: A special kind of tree that gives off acid, thus no vegetation grows beneath it. It also has ants that taste like lemon in its branches. The indigenous people call it "Jardín de Diablo" because they didn't use to know why no vegetation grew beneath it.

Wooly Monkeys

Cute little frog

Giant scary hormiga that if it stings you can make you have to be in bed for half the day because it is so painful.

There were most likely monkeys sleeping above the paths we were walking on.

There are red roots that lead to this specific tree that has posionous sap that you can also use if a mosquito lays its eggs in you to kill the eggs.

We saw the world's smallest monkeys and the world's largest monkeys in the world in the same day.

You can use the soldier ants as sutures.

Giant millipeed.

There are leaves that taste and smell like garlic that the Quechua people use to cure fevers. Drink 3 cups of garlic leaf tea a day and your fever goes down.

The gigantic trees in the rainforest can be over 500 years old.

Palmera que camina: Palm tree that "walks" with its roots to find sunlight and nutrients.

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Hope you enjoyed this post, because I truly enjoyed writing it!

-EM

Carnaval

This past week/weekend we had Monday and Tuesday off for the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval. Nobody has really been able to explain to me the real exact point of Carnaval, but what it ends up being is 2 days with no school and lots of foam and water and eggs and stuff being thrown around. Aka, a great excuse to go to the beach. Thursday night we headed out. Our bus left Quito at 10:30 pm. We didn't really know how long of a trip it was going to be but we had chosen Same (pronounced Sah-May) because it was one of the closer beaches. Aka, the trip would probably take 4 hours by car and probably 6 hours by bus. Nope. We arrived in Same at approximately 7:00 in the morning. The crabbiness we felt from being on a crowded and uncomfortable bus the whole night was somewhat stifled by the fact that we were on the beach and on vacation and didn't have to worry about school or homework or anything except enjoying ourselves. We had two apartments for what ended up always being the 11 of us even though some people left early and came late. One had the jankiest kitchen I've ever seen and the other one was completely and totally bedazzled. It was pretty much an awesome combination. And we had balconies that overlooked the "Iguana Club" which was basically just a bunch of iguanas who hung out in the trees across the street from us. That was pretty sweet too. So our days basically consisted of going to the tienda to get breakfast food whenever we woke up, putting on our suits and going to the pool, eating lunch, chilling, going to the beach, showering and/or napping, back to the beach for dinner, back to the apartments for hanging out times, then back to the beach for swinging in hammocks and walking down the beach and going to bars and such. The openness of the coast is amazing. You never feel like you're inside which I love. All the bars and restaurants don't really have walls at all. It's just such a unique place. Oh and it didn't hurt that it was like 20-30 degrees warmer than in Quito. We were just living the idealistic perfect life. How amazing our 5-day vacation was made coming back to rainy work-filled Quito that much harder. Especially after another much more miserable bus ride back home. We left Same at 10:30 and hopped on the bus which would prove to always be the wrong temperature. First of all when I got on the bus I already felt a teensy bit sick to my stomach and was trying to keep the mental images of me huddled over a plastic bag in a moving bus for 10 hours out of my head. Second of all within the first hour I had to pee and was sweating. But about an hour and a half in we were stopped. At a complete standstill. In a line of probably 50 other buses. We had no idea why we were stopped, just that we were stopped and that the driver had turned the air vents off and it smelled a bit like urine. This was disheartening. And made it all the more difficult to sleep. About an hour later we realized we were in a line waiting to be searched by the police. About an hour later we actually made it to this police check point. We all had to get off the bus, present identification, and be patted down by the police, the guys with their hands against the side of the bus and the girls just in a line. Then we had to walk back on showing our faces to the video camera that one policeguy was holding. Now this wasn't entirely unexpected since on the way to the coast we were stopped and a policeman came on and took video of all of our faces, but still it was weird and uncomfortable. We finally got moving but were stopped another few times by the police just so they could talk to the bus driver and take video of everyone one more time. Ridiculous. Now I was smart in my planning and knew that it would be colder on the way to Quito so although I was wearing a skirt, I had sweatpants in my bag. As soon as it started to get chilly, I went to get them out, but alas, my water bottle had spilled all over them. So for the rest of the ride I shivered. Due to all this nonsense and the utter uncomfort the bus seats are, I did not sleep. For 10 hours. I was pretty darn crabby the next morning when we got into Quito and we arrived too late for me to actually go to my first or second classes so I took a two hour nap, then got up and went to school. I've been recovering ever since and I think I've come to terms with the fact that I no longer just get to chill on the beach every day and just have fun, but still. If my whole life could just be a huge long vacation, I would be so incredibly happy.

-EM

Weekends Gone, Current, & Forthcoming

Weekends are the greatest. I mean I know that most people like weekends. For most it's a break from school or work, from real responsibility, and it's a time to blow off steam or relax or have fun with your friends, etc. etc. But here weekends are reallllly the greatest. We get to do such cool things. I forget about school until Sunday and just throw myself into whatever I'm doing, whether that be on vacation somewhere around Ecuador or in Quito itself. I allow myself to embrace the vacation-ing aspect of study abroad on the weekends and I'm not going to apologize for it. :)

Weekend Gone: Otavalo.

Last weekend Becky, Carly, Emory, Vicki, Megan, Rebecca, and I went to Otavalo. Otavalo is a small-ish town known for their indigenous population and their amazing artesanal market. It's only a 2-hour bus ride away from Quito so it's a popular destination for both tourists and Ecuadorians. We went on Friday night because we had heard that there was a really cool animal market (where people buy and sell animals, not like a petting zoo...) in the morning on Saturdays that we didn't want to miss. We stayed the night at this really cool hostal that was open in the middle, like it had a courtyard and when you walked out of your room you were under a roof but you could lean over the balcony and see the sky. On the ground floor of the courtyard there were also these amazing hammock chairs. Like seriously, they were so cool. We ate dinner at a wonderful restaurant that the hotel guy had suggested to us and then we went out on the town. This was not going out on the town like in Quito. Not even close. We had heard there were, "cool Andean music bars" that were "kind of all in a row." Welp, not sure if we actually ever found those while wandering around the completely deserted streets of Otavalo. Seriously, there was like no one out on the street which was a very strange feeling. We finally found a little row of bars and tried out a couple of them. Both were very cool. I love going to bars and restaurants in new cities. They just have such a different feel to them and it's really interesting. The next day we woke up nice and early, had a panaderia breakfast...

Side Note: Panaderia Breakfast

A panaderia is a bread store. There were tons of them all over Otavalo but there was also one right outside our hotel that we could see from our balconies. The scent of freshly baked bread wafted over and we couldn't resist. Also, bread here is really cheap so even though the breakfast in the hotel was only $3 we knew we could get it for cheaper ("how about for cheaper?") if we went the panaderia way. I picked out 2 pieces of bread and a little container of cream cheese for my panaderia breakfast and it was delish. :)

...and took a $1 taxi ride across town to the animal market. The animal market was crazy. Basically it was a big dirt field filled with Indigenous people and animals. Chickens, guinea pigs, kittens, puppies, pigs, llamas, horses, cows, sheep, etc. I've never experienced anything like it.

Photos!

Then we went to the artesan market. Another amazing thing the likes of which I've never experienced. The streets were full of vendors and their beautiful wares. Panama hats, gorgeous colorful jewelery, fantastic art, pants, shirts, pipes, incense burners, coasters, scarves, food, anything you could think of and everywhere you turned was beauty. We wandered and bargained (which is expected and necessary) and purchased and smiled and then it was time to go home.

Weekend Current: Parque Metropolitano, Los Mercados Cercas, y Plaza Foch

Seeing as next weekend we're headed off to the playa (spoiler alert), this weekend I stayed close to Quito. On Friday I went walking through Parque Metropolitano (the largest urban park in South America) with Becky and then Rebecca, Becky, and I had some dinner and delicious frozen lemonade at the Mexican restaurant right next to Becky's apartment and watched some movies, a great relaxing Friday. On Saturday I woke up to the most gorgeous day. It was sunny, it was bright, and it was beautiful. Had a great brunch and then headed out to Parque El Ejido which is a smaller park in Quito that has art vendors and other artesanal vendors on Saturdays. Meandered around there with Matt, Tracy, and Alex for awhile and bought some more gifts, then went to another little market thing in Mariscal. This one is open during the week too and is partially inside. After awhile everything started to look the same but that didn't stop the internal must-buy urges. Jaja. Then I met up with Becky and we went to El Jardín which is a mall (centro comercial) near Parque La Carolina. We tried to find a book she needed for a class but we were unsuccessful, so we drowned our woes in Crepes & Waffles ice cream. Crepes & Waffles is a most delicious and amazing restaurant/coffee shop/ice cream store that is popular in the malls here. Let me tell you, we need to get them in the U.S. My coffee toffee and choco rochelle double-scoop cone cost $1.60 and was spectacular. And in a waffle cone! Free of charge! Amazing.

Saturday night we headed out to Plaza Foch (the hoppin' bar district) and went, what do you know, bar hopping! We discovered The Boot (La Bota) where you can sit on the second floor in the open air and look out at the busy streets while drinking 2-for-1 vodka sprites. And we also discovered Strawberry Fields Forever, a bar themed around The Beatles. They had art and newspaper clippings and drink names and music. And their chairs were the coolest things ever.

And today I'm just chilling. Sat out on the balcony in the sun for awhile and wrote a paper for one of my classes, uploaded some pics, posting this, relaxing, and getting excited for the playaaaaaaa!

Weekends Forthcoming: La Playa...Same, Ecuador

NEXT WEEKEND WE ARE GOING TO THE BEACHHHHHHH! oh my gosh i'm just so excited. We get next Monday and Tuesday off for Carnival so I'm skipping my classes on Friday and heading off to the beach a little bit early. We're taking a bus from Mariscal overnight to the coast on Thursday and will arrive Friday morning for a long weekend of fun, relaxing, sun, sand, and did I say fun? We're staying in condo-type things at Casablanca. We'll have our own kitchen to whip up meals if we don't feel like spending money at a restaurant some days and it's walking distance from the beach. How. Exc. Iting. Also, there are jet skis and ocean kayaks and horseback riding and clubs, etc. etc. etc. I don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to school after this weekend is done. Jaja. Anyways, I'm super duper excited! And also Rebecca's boyfriend Robert is bringing me a new camera from the States because my camera is turning janky and cameras cost like four times what they do in the U.S. here. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY. :D

Casablanca

<3

-EM

Conversations

The little things make my days here wonderful. One of the little things that always makes my day interesting and lively are the conversations I have with my host family. Not only are they funny or intruiging or contemplative or fascinating, but the thing that really gets me is that I'm having these conversations in Spanish. Regular, normal conversations, and I am able to fully grasp them and talk about them all in Spanish. It's amazing. For example, the other day we were talking about Pico y Placa (how on Tuesdays we can't drive between 7 and 10 and 4:30 and 7:30 because our license plate ends in 5) and about how one time my host mom left in the car to go get bread at 7:15 without realizing it was Tuesday. Pico y Placa fines are immense ($80 and they impound your car for a day...after your first offense it gets worse) so you don't want to get caught driving when you're not supposed to. So anyways, my mom leaves the house in the car when she's not supposed to. Isabel, my sister, realizes this and calls her to tell her to come home. She catches her on the phone when she's at the corner. If she goes around the circle drive thing to get back to our house she'll pass directly by the police and get caught. So she has to put the car in reverse and get back to our garage. So she puts the car in reverse and starts backing up and all these people are yelling at her and yelling at her and saying things like, "why are you out of the kitchen?" and "shouldn't you be at home cooking?" obscenely sexist things like that. And all the while she's just backing up the car. Maybe you had to be there but it was SUCH a funny story. Isabel, Marcia, and I were just cracking up. Joaquin was oblivious of course. Jaja. But it was amazing to me that we were just chilling, chatting, and it was all in Spanish and I felt totally comfortable. :)

Some other conversations we've had are about fairy tales, which ones are the same in Ecuador and the U.S. and which ones they have that we don't and vice versa, how one of my friends looks super-Latina but she's not at all and that makes for some interesting encounters with the locals, how my madre accidently insulted one of her friends and how hilarious it was, and how Joaquin always coughs (even when he's not sick) because my madre always does that and he learned it from her.

Conversations are amazing in general because they allow you to really connect with other people. It is spectacular to me how at home and comfortable I feel here in Ecuador and with my host family and I love the interesting conversations I have both with them and with the people I've met here.

-EM

P.S. I hope you have an amazing conversation too this week. :D

The Past Little While

I know I haven't posted in a while and for that I am sorry. But I do have a reason. Last Saturday I wasn't feeling so great (don't worry, it was far from terrible, my throat just hurt and I was completely exhausted) and thus I literally laid in bed all day and watched old episodes of The West Wing. I quite enjoyed this little respite, bu I didn't think it worthy of a blog post and I didn't want to get your hopes up when you saw I had a new post and it just turned out to be me regaling the faux white house adventures of 1999. But now, of course, I have far too many adventures to tell you about. Ah the conundrum. Well let's begin.

Thursday/Friday (3rd/4th of February) was kind of awful because I had a quiz in both of my history classes. Boo. And we've been getting our grades back on stuff. Turns out the first one went horribly and the second one went alright. Again, boo. I'm not a big fan of getting bad grades because a) that means I'm either not working hard enough or b) I'm stupid. Or you know, a combination of the two. But either way I end up feeling like a horrible human being and I don't like that (hint as to how this week is going...)

Friday afternoon we went to this really cool photo exhibit in Centro Historico called World Press Photo. It is an exhibit for photo journalism that travels around the world and has already been to EE. UU. (USA). We ate lunch at a cute pizza place and then I went home and fell asleep at like 7:00, basically until the next day where I laid in bed all day. Definitely a necessary respite, but I felt so lazy considering I'm in a foreign country and I'm supposed to be adventuring.

Sunday we went to the La Liga vs. Barcelona soccer game. Both of these teams are Ecuadorian, but they represent different parts (the Sierra and the Costa) and thus are HUGE rivals. The game was crazy. There were an amazing amount of police there to keep the crowds in check. The game was very cool. I'd never been to a big soccer game like that so it was all very interesting, and although it rained, we had a ton of fun.

Then starts the week.

Last week was definitely a roller coaster (montaña rusa). The beginning of the week started off badly. I had to watch this movie for one of my classes and then write a 3-page paper on it, all of which was due Tuesday. When did I start watching the movie? Monday afternoon of course. So that was my Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were both pretty wonderful because my classes weren't awful and Tuesday night we went out for Vicki's 21st birthday (and I had a super-wonderful piña colada) and Wednesday we went out for Ladie's Night at Bungalow 6 (a club where on Wednesdays ladies get in free until 10). Those were both very fun nights although I was quite sleepy in class for the rest of the week.

Friday night we went out to the clubs which was fun. We even met some backpackers from Argentina! Although they both spoke Spanish, they would talk to us in English. We wanted to practice our Spanish though so we would respond to them in Spanish. Conversations definitely work like this (and happen more often than you'd think) but I kind of wish people would just speak to us in Spanish since they know we're here to practice and learn.

Saturday we went to Papallacta which is a resort place about 2 hours outside of Quito. This is one of the trips that is included in our study abroad package so we didn't have to pay for anything which was very nice. They have thermal hot springs that are supposed to be super good for you. There are all sorts of things that being in the water is supposed to do for your health. It was amazing. We were sitting in Ecuador, surrounded by mountains, in hot water from a volcano. Crazy. We had the MOST amazing lunch and then some people got massages while others went on a little walk/hike. I was one of the people who went for a little walk and it was amazing. We walked past an organic garden, some llamas, some sheep, cows, little rivers, etc. It was quite the fun little excursion. And the view on the way there and back! Amazing. Everyone always says they're going to take a nap on the bus but we never do because there is just too much to see out the window.

On Sunday Becky, Rebecca, and I took the bus to Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world). On the bus on the way there it was raining, but luckily it wasn't when we arrived! Oh and there was the most adorable little sleepy puppy in the lap of the woman next to us on the bus. So cute! So Mitad del Mundo is (I believe) technically a city, but there is basically this park area with a monument in it that you pay to enter. $2 gets you inside where you can go to the monument and take a picture of you straddling the Equator. There are also tons of little shops with food and souveniers, it's almost like it's own little town. There are playgrounds too so it is a popular Sunday destination for Ecuadorian families. We took tons of pictures then met up with Emory and her host sister and host sister's friend. Now this Mitad del Mundo is not actually technically the Equator. The guy who made it was about 300 meters off. This we knew, but we didn't know how to get to the smaller park with the actual Equator. But Emory's sister did so we got to go see that too! More of a cultural/sciency park than a touristy one, we still had a lot of fun taking pictures and looking around. Then they asked us if we would want to go to a lake that was about an hour and a half away. We didn't really have anything else to do but homework so off we went! What a crazy adventure road trip. The four of us were squashed in the back seat as we wound through the Ecuadorian countryside. It's not everyday that you get to see a volcano while you're on a road trip. We finally made it to the city of Cotacachi (famous for their leather) about 2 hours later and headed up into the dark and cloudy mountain to see the lake that is actually in the crater of an inactive volcano. GORGEOUS. The water is all tourquise-y and beautiful and even though it was raining we could tell just how clean and fresh and beautiful what we were seeing was. We made our way home, all of us nodding off slightly as we were heading back to start yet another week of school.

The more I see of Ecuador, the more I love it and the more I am in awe of what God created for us to discover.

Monday I wasn't in the greatest mood because I had gotten some bad grades back and was feeling like an idiot and a failure and found out that I'm going to have a really hard midterm on Monday. But I made some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for my family for Valentine's Day! That was really fun. And it was also interesting shopping for some of the ingredients that I needed that we didn't have. They don't have baking soda here. It doesn't exist and nobody knows what it is. That was interesting to discover. And I was also going to use applesauce instead of butter in the cookies (galletas), but they don't have that either. Interesting, no?

Today is another day. I ate a mango (25 cents at the supermarket) and had hot chocolate for an afternoon snack and now I'm about to embark on another adventure. But this one is not going to be fun. HOMEWORK. Yuck. But I know that I have to focus more and try harder if I'm going to be able to reach my academic goals. I'm learning so much just from living here that it feels very hard that I have to be tested on stuff I'm learning in the classroom. I'll remember my experiences here and what I learned from living in a foreign country so much more and so much more fondly than the things I'm learning at school. But it is important to me to not feel stupid, and thus I am going to begin going above and beyond in my schoolwork. Hopefully.

Anyways, I sent out some love-vibes yesterday for the day of love and friendship/el día de amor y amistad (as it is called here). I hope that all of you are doing well.

Besos y abrazos,
EM

Pics: Facebook Album #3

One Month

So I've been in Ecuador for an entire month now. HOW WEIRD IS THAT. Super weird. One part of me feels like May 16 is really really far away, and the other part of me feels like it's just around the corner.

Anyways, that's all. :)

-EM

Baños de Agua Santa

Baños is a small touristy town a 3.5-hour bus ride from the Southern bus terminal in Quito.

Spoiler Alert.

[Side Story: Yes, you are right. Your first grade Spanish has gotten you far. Baños does mean bathroom. But the town of Baños is technically named Baños de Agua Santa, or Baths of The Holy Water. Quote from some tourist website: "Banos draws its name from the 5 sets of thermal baths fashioned into concrete pools."]

Okay back to the story. So Baños is a small touristy town a 3.5-hour bus ride from the Southern bus terminal in Quito. Which is a hectic/tiring 2 hour bus ride through Quito from my house. Which we didn't really realize when we hopped on the Ecovia on Friday. Rebecca, Emory, and I had quite the time of trying to figure out where the bus terminal actually was and how we were supposed to get there. But we made it, met up with Megan (another girl who was going with us), bought our tickets, and were on our way. The Southern part of Quito felt like an entirely different country, and it wasn't even in a different city. I don't really know how to explain why, but it did. And the bus terminal was just as nice/legit as most airports. Super clean and big with all sorts of buses going everywhere.

And bathrooms. That you have to pay to use. This is actually not an uncommon thing here, and in my opinion it seems quite intelligent. Women have to pay 15 cents to use the toilet, and after paying they receive a small section of toilet paper. There is no toilet paper in the actual restroom. Men pay 10 cents to use the urinal and 15 cents to use the toilet. How embarrassing would that be. "Oh you gave me 5 extra cents sir." "Nope, I didn't." "Oh but yes you did, here's your 5 cents." "No, really, I don't need change. Can I just have my toilet paper?" "Ohhhhhh... [pained silence where both parties know that the man has to poop] Yeah, here you go sir, sorry about that." Anyways, I think this is a good thing because a) it helps out the economy which is always good b) it's less messy if you don't have extra toilet paper to get all over the floor and such and c) much of the time, and especially in less developed areas, you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet, you have to throw it away in the waste basket, but if you only have a little square, it can't get clogged and such!

Anyways...

I really love the introspection that long bus rides through a new place bring. I like road-tripping in a car as well, but when you're in a bus your mind is completely free to wander and wonder because there's nothing you can do to make the trip go any faster or slower, your plans are completely up to the bus driver. We left in the early evening so as we were driving the sun set on many sleepy nameless towns. We picked up local families and travelelers as we wound our way through the mountains. The sun set and as the lights passed I listened to music and let calm wash over me.

You know how people always say that they wish their life had a soundtrack? While when you're on a bus in the middle of the Ecuadorian countryside and you're listening to your iPod, your life does have a soundtrack and it is a completely soothing and existencial experience.

Anyways...

We arrived in Baños in the early evening and basically wandered around until we figured out where our hostel was. The streets of the town at night are not like Quito. In Quito when you walk around at night, even in a group of people, you feel like you must constantly be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. Cops hanging around and doing who knows what, other drunken tourists, people who look like ladrones (robbers), perritos, etc. In Baños the main street/area was super well lit and there were tons of people everywhere. I had been told by a girl I met who had already been there that it would feel a lot safer than Qutio but I was struck by how different it really did feel. Part of the reason for this is that the town functions because of tourism. They are used to tourists and they aim to please them. If your town is rumored to be unsafe, the tourists don't want to come. At least that's my idea.

We checked into our hostel, set up camp, and went out to find food.

[Side Story: Ecuador has a change/money problem. Don't know if I mentioned this before or not. But yeah, they do. If you pay with anything that is not a coin or a one dollar bill they will inspect it to see if it is counterfeit. If you try to pay for something with a 20-dollar-bill the cashier will give you a look of death. Unless your total is like $18. If it's not, be prepared to feel guilty for the rest of the day. Coins are like gold. And I mean, okay Sacas (Sacajewaya is just too hard to say or spell so we always just abbreviate it) are gold-colored, but you get my point. If your change is $3.50 you will be getting 3 Sacas and a 50-cent-piece. You want to have coins. You need them to pay for bus rides and taxi rides and just about everything else. And don't even go thinking you can pay for anything with a credit card. Unless it's at the grocery store and you want to pay a lot of tax.]

So we ate at a restaurant on the main street. Then we decided to wander around and check out some of the stuff they had around. We of course ended up at a little store with Ecuadorian goods. They had tons of scarves and shirts and purses, etc. etc. It was super cool because we all ended up getting things we wanted and we got to talk to the store owners for awhile. Again, everyone in Baños is super nice. They were playing Avril Lavigne so we talked about that for awhile and other American music and all the tourists who come into their store, etc. etc. It was great and a fun way to practice our Spanish.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to rainy and dreary weather. Not exciting. We got a good Ecuadorian breakfast for $2 then headed off to find the tourist information center to figure out the day's activities. We wanted to go horseback riding, mountain bike, and take a nighttime tour of the volcano.

[Side Story: There's a volcano in Baños. Tungurahua Volcano. It was too cloudy on Saturday to see it very well but on Sunday our taxi driver stopped on the way to the Aquarium and let us take some pics...my camera was dead of course...but still it was quite cool. Photo.]

Anyways, we only really ended up doing the horseback riding. We had a super amazing guide who took us up some streets and then up this path up through some mountains and then on this super trecherous path and then to some waterfalls. I had never been horseback riding before, thus I was a bit scared. So I got an old, slow, nice horse [Luchita] who the guide led down the trecherous part. Pics or it didn't happen... The very small portion of time where I had my camera out while on the horse and then immediately regretted it.

We got some AMAZING food at Café Hood, an extremely well known and well recommended restaurant, and then decided to go to the zoo.

The zoo was just a short taxi ride away to the small town of San Martín, but apparently it was far enough away/small-town enough that gringas were an exciting sight to see. While inside the park, 2 different groups of Ecuadorians asked to take pictures with just me (the blond hair...) and then all of us. It made me feel famous. Anyways, this zoo literally cost us $2 a piece and we saw a jaguar, turtles from the Galapagos, pumas, condors, parrots that talked to us, other turtles, tonnnnnns of monkeys, and bears. WHAT? It was awesome. Here are some pics: Mono 1 Mono 2 Tortuga Puma Chica Paisaje

That night we went out for dinner at this fancy little Italian place. And by fancy I mean it had a bottle of wine on the table and tableclothes and candles but it was still like $8 a person total. Then we went to the thermal baths that the town is famous for. We suited up and headed out to the baths that we heard were a mix of super crowded and cool. Well first of all they were right next to a waterfall, so that was pretty cool. And they were also packed full of people. The water is known to have therapeutic/curative powers and there are 3 pools (too cold, just perfect, too hot) and so people like to come to just hang out in the just perfect pool and get cured of everything. Very fun and relaxing. And the walk back to the hostel wasn't as cold as we thought it was going to be! Although we did seeing a drunken man peeing against a wall.

The next morning we went to the aquarium that was in the same town/across the street from the zoo we were at the day before. After we ate some great pancakes with fresh fruit on them first of course. At first the aquarium was just kind of strange. All sorts of fish that creeped me out and literally FIFTEEN boa constricters that we're thinking they just went out to the jungle and caught. But then we discovered the exotic birds portion of the exhibit. Flamencos & Natalie Portman & Ostriches.

Heading back home on the bus to the South terminal was great. The rest of it not so much, although it did go quite more smoothly than the way there. :)

Anyways, I think that's all I have to say about Baños. Very good weekend.

Today I worked on a paper that's due tomorrow while sitting next to the school's lagoon in the sun and ate a blackberry popscicle. It was quite heavenly. Minus the paper-writing part. But I wrote it! It's done! And it's not even due until 14 hours from now. Now that's studiousness.

Also, MSU has a snow day for tomorrow already. WHAT? How am I not there for this epic-ness? Being away has been very much a learning experience. About Ecuador and life and Spanish and culture, etc. etc. but also a lot about myself. Introspective post to come. :)

It feels like I have an exorbitant amount of time to spend here at the same time that it feels like I'm already running out of time. Strange, no?

Anyways, I love you all. At least I assume I do because if you're reading my blog you probably like me a little tiny bit and if you're willing to do that then I'm pretty sure I love you. :)

-EM

Cómo se dice "to complain"?

Quejarse. That is the verb, "to complain."

But see the thing is...here, they really don't complain. This was something I noticed after being here for about a week and a half. Maybe it's just my host family, but even the other individuals I've interacted with from Ecuador just don't really seem to want to complain. Maybe it's part of the culture. Maybe they have a feeling of felicidad (happiness) just because they're alive and relatively healthy. Maybe they have just been taught that complaining is a waste of time. I really don't know...

But the thing I do know is that I like how mostly kind words, words of happiness, peace, excitement, contentment, etc. are spoken in my house.

All food is rico (yummy) and all days are lindo (beautiful).

Taking afternoon naps is also commended as doing one of the awesomest things you can do. Por ejemplo (for example), this afternoon I woke up from a nap and came out of my room. My sister was in her room and she asked, "descansaste bien?" (did you rest well?). I said yep, definitely, and laughed a little bit at myself. To this she said (repeated here in my broken version of Spanish), "a descansar en la tarde es el mejor cosa, es rico, no?" "To nap in the afternoon is the best, isn't it?"

I hope that this is one of the things I can learn from the culture of Ecuador, because I think America would be a much happier place if everyone complained just a little bit less.

-EM

A Week in the Life

Hola mundo!

I know I haven't written anything in like a week, bad Emily, but really it just consisted of school, just like every normal week at MSU.

A normal day consists of: I wake up, get ready, cross the terrifying street, hop on a bus, go to class, hang out outside/do homework, go home, do homework, hang out with my host family, watch some TV online, and go to bed by 11:00.

Not necessarily normal, but not quite exciting enough to blog about daily. But now I have a whole week and weekend's worth of observations and conversations and events that I need to write about. Aye.

Exciting school thing of the week! I actually raised my hand and asked a question in class. Yes, I rehearsed it in my head before raising my hand, and it wasn't a complicated question, but I still asked a question in class. Not something you'd think I'd congratulate myself on, but being in a non-Spanish-studying class that all speaks Spanish and is taught in Spanish means that asking a question for the first time is cause for a little celebration. :)

Non-exciting school thing of the week. One of my classes apparently has pop quizzes. I'm not really loving on this. First quiz wasn't so bad, I understood what she was asking and had read the material BUT I mixed some things up in my head and probably only got half right. Second quiz was bad. I didn't understand exactly what she was asking for all the parts of the quiz. I also thought we were supposed to read the second chapter before coming to class, so I had spent a good two hours the night before reading the second chapter. Apparently not. Apparently we were supposed to read the third chapter. Hence, I did not do so well and am not excited about future pop quizzes.

Alright so yesterday. Yesterday was Friday. I went to my 2 morning classes, chatted with Rebecca for awhile (I love just chatting one-on-one with Rebecca because it's calm so we can talk in Spanish and not feel like we're not able to get our whole point across and we help each other learn at the same time), then went and got some ice cream at my favorite ice cream place near campus, Kicos. As I was sitting there, enjoying my delicious $1 mango ice cream, who happens to walk by? Two guys in full camo military get-up with huuuuuge guns. Waltzing around like they own the place. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I was actually talking to someone about that today. The police here don't seem like they're here to protect you, same thing with these scary camo guys, they seem like they're there to shoot somebody if they do something wrong. Or like something is going wrong, someone's in the mafia, or running a secret drug operation, and they're there to catch it. I've been here like two weeks and I can't count the number of times I thought I was in a place where there was a secret drug operation going on.

So yesterday I took the bus home, right? And a guy hopped on selling DVDs (as has happened before). He hands out DVDs (usually really new ones, like some that are still in theatres) in plasticy covers and then comes back and picks them back up if you don't want to buy them. Usually I just ignore the guy and don't even take them when he hands them out, but I wanted to check out which ones he had. I ended up getting 3 of them for $2 (even though they're supposed to be $1 each). The Tourist, Gulliver's Travels, and Never Let Me Go. I've heard they're usually in English with Spanish subtitles and I'm hoping they work in my computer! (Because I've heard somewhere they don't. This seems incredibly sketchy and illegal, right? Well I mean it probably is, but here they really don't care. Like there are actual stores that sell these kinds of copies of DVDs. Interesante, no?

All of the children who go to school here have to wear uniforms so you'll be getting on the bus or walking around town and there will be tons of kids of all ages in uniforms, but something I noticed yesterday was that most of their uniforms don't seem to be weather appropriate. Like yesterday it had to be 70 degrees and most of the children I saw were wearing uniform gray sweatpants and sweatshirts. But they don't seem to find it out of the ordinary or uncomfortable.

In the afternoon I was supposed to meet up with some of the girls at a market near Plaza Foch. I got there and started walking South, because I was relatively sure I had seen a map and that was where the market was. I was wandering around for awhile, saw no market, and was realizing how sketchy I felt wandering  around somewhere by myself and having no idea where I was. I ended up at this intersection where there was a mall and a CoffeeTree and some statues so I felt more comfortable there. Then I got a call that my friends had gotten robbed on the bus and so I should probably come back to Plaza Foch seeing as they didn't really want to go to the market anymore anyways. I went back and they explained to me what had happened. We were given all sorts of instructions on how to not get robbed, but even though they were following all of those instructions it still happened. They were on an incredibly crowded bus and even though they were holding their purses close to their bodies, a 20-something old girl and her 50-something old mom/older woman friend slit open their bags and stole their wallets and one girl's camera. They all felt incredibly violated and upset, because replacing ATM cards and Censos and change was going to be difficult. But we were all also very impressed with the skill of these robbers. How they did all of that on a crowded bus without hurting anyone and without ANYONE noticing was kind of incredible. Another thing that was interesting is that it was two women. Christina commented that that was probably the things that shocked her the most, was that it wasn't two able-bodied young sketchy men like you would expect, but it was an overweight older woman and a woman our own age. This was all very interesting to me, obviously, but I have yet to critically unpack the ideas this implicates. We needed a little American time so after this we went to Emory's host family's apartment and ate pizza and watched a movie. :)

Today we went to Centro Historical (the Old Town area of Quito) to wander around and sort of explore.

A photographic tour of our journeys will be updated shortly. :)

-EM

P.S. Photographic Tour

Las calles

Mas

Ecuadorian White House, but the president has elected to not actually live there.

Plaza Grande

Bonito

Chevere

Plaza San Fransisco

Basilica

Mindo es Lindo.

Lindo means beautiful in Spanish. If it also meant ridiculous, adventurous, dramatic, terrifying, extremely terrifying, janky, unreal, and crazy, then the phrase "Mindo es Lindo"would accurately describe this weekend. This weekend was en serio (seriously) one of the most adventurous and ridiculous weekends of my life.

Mindo is a very small touristy town in Ecuador about a 2-hour bus ride through the mountains from Quito. We left on Friday around 4:00 luckily making it to the correct bus station and correct bus in time for our bus's departure. We were thirteen MSU/USFQ students who had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The bus ride was...frightful to say the least. Our bus wound through the Andes mountains and through the ventanas (windows) we could see the absolutely beautiful paisajes (landscapes) around us. We passed an orchard reserve and tiny farming houses and it was incredibly gorgeous. We could also see the extreme likelihood of our deaths if our bus driver made a tiny little mistake. The road didn't exactly have barriers to keep us from toppling over the edge of the mountain and into the abyss. I was a little nerve-wracked. But we made it to Mindo! Success. The owner of the hostel we had reservations at (thanks to Allison!) met us at the bus station and walked us over to our hostel. Ah to describe our hostel experience in one word: Chévere (really cool in Spanish, a colloquial word of Ecuador). Casa de Cecilia. We had a whole house to ourselves, with lots of rooms and bathrooms, outfitted with linens and towels and mosquito nets. We ate a $2.50 breakfast that she made us while looking out at the river and the hummingbirds that always fluttered around. For all of our activities we just paid her and she called taxis for us and/or told us where to go. For only $6/night! Words cannot describe the great experience we had there. There was a reggae bar down the road that was also super cool, with rocks suspended from the ceiling and tables made of what seemed like trees. The bar was actually a three-story, open air, bar/restaurant/house where the owner's family lived. The first night we walked into "town" (really just one street with restaurants and stores on it) and found a restaurant to eat at. The owner was this adorable old man and the food he served us was delicious. We would soon learn that what we ordered at this restaurant was basically what all the restaurants had in Mindo, Pilsener (a very popular Ecuadorian brand of beer), Coke, Rice, this tomato and onion "ensalada," papas fritas (french fries) and some variety of fried sea food (fins & head included of course :/). While it is annoying to have to go out to eat for every meal when we go on excursions, it is amazing how much cheaper food is here compared to the United States, and it especially helps that there is a service tax that includes tip, so you don't have to worry about that and it's often included in the price of your food. For example, over the whole weekend (2 breakfasts,  2 lunches, 2 dinners) I spent a total of about $23 on food, something nearly impossible to do in the United States. Whenever we would go out to dinner or go out to bars (where liquor and beer is also much cheaper than in the U.S.), without fail someone would say, "I really don't want to go back..." :) We went out for a while Friday night, but we were all exhausted and wanted to have energy for the next day, so we went to bed at around midnight.

Hostal

River behind our Hostal

Then we get to Saturday. The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast by the river and started our day in a flurry of bug spray and sun screen. Our plan was to go "tubing." Now there are different kinds of tubing, and as usually happens to us, we all expect a specific experience (and our ideas of what our activities will be like differ) and usually none of us are right. Now there's the kind of tubing done behind a boat (this one we weren't thinking of, because we knew we'd be going down a river), the kind of floating down a calm river tubing (affectionately called "floating down the river with beer"), and apparently there's the kind of tubing where you need 2 guides, you're in 6 tubes all attached to each other, and you need helmets and life jackets because there are a RIDICULOUS amount of rocks in the river that you're attempting to tube down. Yep, that was the kind of tubing that we did. On our way to tubing we were in a taxi (a.k.a. a pickup truck with room for 3 in the cab and the rest of us standing up in the bed of the truck) and I kept seeing a river to our right. It had a lot of rocks in it so I kept saying, "guys is that the river we're going down?" And everyone kept responding, "well, probably, but we're probably not going down that part because there are too many rocks." Oh how we were wrong. We got out of our taxi, put on our lifejackets and helmets and were introduced to our guides. Given quick instructions in Spanish about how to maneuver the tubes if we were to get stuck on rocks, we were ready. We split up in two groups, got into the icy water, and we were off. What exhilarating and crazy fun. "Cuidados" were heard loud and clear and Mateo's girlish screaming was quite humorous. The chill of the cold water was no longer our greatest concern. $6 can buy you quite a bit of fun in Mindo.

Tubing

El Grupo

We went back to our hostel and changed clothes, immediately ready for our next adventure, ziplining. $10 buys you a ziplining tour of the cloud forest with 2 trained guides over 12 different cables. Needless to say I was terrified. My fear of heights was not the greatest thing for zooming on cables hundreds of feet above the ground. But it was an experience I am so glad I did not miss out on. The first and last trips were the worst, the first because I was terrified and I didn't know exactly what it would be like, and the last because it was the highest, probably 1000 feet off the ground. There were fancy tricks you could do with the guides (Mariposa y Superhombre), but I elected to not do those. Simply ziplining was enough of a challenge for me already. :) While you were "zipping" you could see everything around you and it was absolutely incredible. We talked about how in the United States you couldn't do something like that. A) because there is nothing as cool as the cloud forest in the U.S. B) Because it would need to be incredibly regulated, and C) Because it would probably cost about $200 to do 2 cables instead of $10 for 12 cables.

Tengo miedo de alturas

Cuidado

Éxito

Mindo Ropes & Canopy

What a crazy day. On the way back to our hostel (in the back of a pickup truck of course) we were talking about how we had never done so many ridiculous things in one day.

That next morning we took a taxi to this thing called terabita which goes to the waterfalls. It is this little cart that goes along this cable and brings you to this other mountain so you can hike around and go to the waterfalls and swim in them and such. This was also terrifying, you'll understand when you see pictures. I kept saying, "this is the craziest, most dangerous, jankiest thing I have ever done in my life." But we made it. Little did we know that we had to hike on paths in the mountains that were covered in incredibly slippery mud to get to the waterfalls, but it was a great experience. Beautiful waterfalls, some janky stairs, even sketchier bridges, etc. It was incredible and also extremely tiring. We went back on the Terabita, got back to our hostel, ate some lunch, and then everyone slept on the bus back to Quito.

Terabita

Sketchy Bridge

Una Cascada

What a weekend full of craziness and fun, I'm glad to be back in Quito because this weekend was culture shock for me with so much adventurousness. This afternoon I'm ready for a nap for sure!

-EM

Normality

It's strange to me when I think about how much everything feels normal. Nine days ago I had no idea what this place looked like or smelled like. How I would be getting around exactly, where my classes would be, what my host family was like, what the food would be like, etc. I would tell people that I was almost more excited for living in my house next year than for my study abroad semester because I could imagine what that would be like and I couldn't imagine what this semester was going to be like.

But this feels like normality.

Waking up and having it be sunny outside.

Walking around a campus that is a tenth the size of MSU and seeing all the MSU international students just about every day.

There being people on the buses in the tarde (afternoon) that try to sell me bootleg DVDs.

People getting angry when I hand them a ten dollar bill for anything.

The bookstore only accepting Diner's Club cards and cash, no Mastercard, no Visa.

It taking five minutes just to cross to the other side of the street because of the traffic.

Understanding (at best) 75% of what people say to me.

Only being able to communicate with my best friends and family online. Before arriving we were all told to prepare to not have internet in our homes or apartments, because wireless internet is not as common here as it is in the United States. I was very pleased to find out that we do have internet, and now I can almost not imagine not having internet. Silly, I know.

When I'm at home, just watching TV or doing homework or blogging or taking naps in my free time instead of hanging out with people. I love hanging out with the people here, but when we hang out it's not just chilling or watching TV or whatnot like when I'm at MSU, it's actually going out and doing something, taking a taxi or bus and going out and doing something.

Learning new words and phrases and things every day, all day. It's tiring, but worth it.

Sounding stupid most of the time.

Seeing mountains and valleys and palm trees every day.





I can almost not imagine life being any other way.