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
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