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
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