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