travelincrys

11:25 pm - Also I ended up in an ads page in an Ecuadorian Newspaper...

http://www.hoydomingo.com/466/social.htm

11:11 pm - Life is a cabaret

So, on the day to day side of life I lost my cell phone on Thursday of the week before last. That’s made everything a bit of a hassle since and I planned on getting a new one... but now I only have 13 days left here! Less than two weeks. It will be a hassle, but paying for a new phone will be a hassle too. If I had a buyer lined up... but I don’t, so I guess I’ll make do.

The day after I lost my phone was the Ambassador’s going away party. Emily and I ended up getting our nails done, our hair cut, and buying a little bit of cheap jewelry for the event. I’d never gotten a manicure before and honestly, I don’t understand why people like them. Ok, so the fake nails they made me to replace my two broken ones were pretty cool and the nail polish lasted much longer than any I’ve ever put on myself, but I had to sit in a chair while someone held my hands for at least ten minutes and that was ridiculously uncomfortable. Plus they trimmed and pushed at my cuticles which I’ve always been told is like asking for an infection on top of the fact that it kind of hurts. Anyway, we got prettied. We called a taxi and the one that showed up was white and looked nothing at all like a taxi, which usually worries me, but this time was exactly what I wanted. When it dropped us off and drove away it looked like I had valet service or something instead of looking like we were two very out of place students who had had to catch a taxi. It was held at the ambassador’s house, which was gorgeous, and it was absolutely packed with rich and important looking people, almost all of whom were over the age of 50. I only mention that to show how out of place we were as two 22 year old non-rich non-important looking girls. As we stood awkwardly in the door wondering if we were supposed to drop our coats somewhere one of the rich important older ladies bustled up to us and declared that we looked lost. Then she asked “Are you the two quiz night girls?” Word had spread. It turned out it was the ambassador’s wife and a photographer showed up out of nowhere to take our picture with her. She started leading us towards Richard but was promptly intercepted by other rich important looking people and Emily and I were left to drift in the general direction she had been taking us in. Luckily, it was the right direction and in no time Richard himself came in from the balcony, spotted us, and bounded up just as if we were guests of honor instead of two random girls he had met only once a few weeks earlier. Richard actually managed to pull out his own camera and request that two men (who turned out to be British policemen in normal clothes) take pictures before the photographer managed to materialize again and take pictures himself. Do you know how special it makes a person feel when an ambassador wants personal pictures with you? It’s pretty special. Then he hustled us over to a table to show that he really had bought us our own bottle of Bailey’s just like he said he would and more pictures were taken of the three of us plus the Bailey’s. It was great. He had to head off to talk to other people after a little while and we were left floating aimlessly in the sea of notable people once again. Emily tried to engage a few in conversation but we never got more than a Hello before they went off in search of whoever it was they were searching for. Luckily Ian found us and introduced us to the only other young people there, pointed out the US ambassador, and we had a good run of real conversation and drinking of Bailey’s before we decided to head outside to escape the heat of the house. Then there were fireworks which were hilarious and handmade. The ambassador and one of his servants almost got hit by stray fireballs and a few landed on the roof (which was luckily made of tile). The whole time the ambassador was almost skipping around the setup with a huge goofy grin on his face, loving every minute of it. Later there were paper hot air balloons onto which we taped wishes to send up to heaven. It was beautiful and I hope someday I can try to recreate it. Is it legal to send stuff like that up in the US or is it considered littering? I can never think up good wishes. World peace and universal happiness never come true. Ian wished to meet Shakira, which at the very least is more likely that anything wished on the global scale.

Emily and I noticed that the party was beginning to break up and we started to discuss how the heck we could get home when we were too far in the country to walk to a street corner and catch a taxi and asking to use the ambassador’s house phone was too forward.... and suddenly everyone was gone. We were suddenly in an almost completely empty house with only the ambassador’s family and closest friends left chatting together, and it was horribly horribly embarrassing. Luckily Ian was giving some friends rides home and offered to take us as well. We got invited to a BBQ at one of their houses the next afternoon but never ended up making it there... and thus ended our experience with the ambassador and his friends. It’s really too bad we hadn’t met them all earlier because the entire bunch of them (the ones that would talk to us at least) were pretty much the nicest people I’ve ever met as well as some of the most interesting. The guy who invited us to the BBQ is basically an embassy temp. He gets sent to whatever British embassy has a temporary opening and has travelled all over the world, including Papua New Guinea! I asked him how he landed a sweet job like that and he said he started out by drinking his way all across the UK and Europe. I was obviously born in the wrong country because I think what little I’ve done in my short life will already keep me from getting any kind of international government post. Ah well. Anyway, the ambassador said there is a British Embassy sack/three-legged race on the 12th and I really hope to go. I do believe Richard was a bit tipsy at that point because he felt the need to grab his nearest friend and try to demonstrate how the three-legged section of the race would work. What a hoot!

Anyway, I chilled out for the rest of the weekend, celebrated Paul and Ely’s birthdays, watched The Prestige at Cinemark, and then shipped out for the rainforest on Monday. I saw monkeys! Three different kinds! Including the smallest in the world (I think?) which only grows to 14 to 17 cm. Those ones shimmied down vines to get better looks at us. The guy who owned the lodges also had a rehabilitation center for jungle animals that had been injured or bought as pets. A wild piglet was released right before we arrived but there were also ocelots, river turtles, a monkey, and some sort of large rodent (but not a capybara). After a period or quarantine and treatment if they were hurt or sick, they were let onto a fenced in part of the property to relearn how to be wild, and if they acclimated they were taken to a different area and let completely free. It was neat. We also went fishing, at which point I learned that our guide hadn’t been joking about piranhas living in the rivers... I didn’t fish, preferring to throw our bait to the fishes without a hook hidden inside, but Jessica kept accidentally catching blowfish and Monica caught the first piranha. When we had two piranhas, no more bait, and had thrown all of Jessica’s blowfish back we went back to the lodge and the piranhas were fried up for dinner. I took a nibble so I could say that I’ve eaten piranha, so ha! I’ve eaten piranha. It actually tastes a lot better than normal fish, so I guess the general rule of meat eating animals not tasting as good as herbivores doesn’t hold in the fish kingdom. I guess I should have known that because don’t both tuna and salmon eat smaller water animals? We also hiked in a swamp where wrong steps sunk multiple people up to their hips, went looking for caiman and managed to spot their eyes but not get close enough to see their bodies, and visited both an indigenous household and the local shaman. I now want to live in the rainforest because this one house had cocoa tress, coffee trees, mangos, corn, yucca, avocados, bananas, and other fruits and stuff that are probably delicious too. They also had a horse and chickens running around loose and happy. I bought $20 worth of jewelry made of different seeds and the other kids bought some stuff two. Down here in Ecuador, and especially out in the jungle, $20 in a single day is a killing. Our empleada only makes $200 a month and the tour guide I had in Monte was paid $10 each day there were people around to guide. Both of those are considered above average salaries for normal working people, so the fact that this one family got probably over $30 from us is really something. We paid the shaman $2 each for a ritual of good luck (which didn’t keep me from being a victim to Paul’s hissy fit when we told him he was paddling against us and turning the canoe in circles – he tried to splash us all with his paddle but somehow only got me - and it also didn’t keep us from getting washed down the river in our canoe when the guide told Paul to hold onto the rope connecting our two boats and Paul decided it was more important for him to paddle (against us again) and let go of said rope. Oy.) We took a bus ride back and promptly wished we had taken a plane. We knew it was a 12 hour bus ride but we didn’t know that half of it was unpaved or that we would be stopped and searched twice by the police. After hours of uncomfortable bouncing I had finally fallen asleep and was dreaming about being home when the bus door opened and we were all told we had to get off to be searched. Oddly enough, both times they skipped me. They searched the other VT kids but the first time they didn’t even take my ID and the second time when I offered them my bag to look through they just squeezed it and handed it back. I didn’t see anyone else getting passed over like that, but I didn’t complain. I guess I just look pretty harmless or something.

Now I’m back in Quito and plan on staying here until classes get out (in a week!). I’m weaving like mad trying to get my project finished in time and I still have final tests to study for and final papers to write. Wish me luck!

11:29 pm - "Mangos para picar"

I tried to post pictures but the computers here were too slow for it to work, so onto more interesting things:

I forgot to mention a couple things about my recent trips: Baños is probably the most beautiful town I've ever been to. It's surrounded by cliffs and mountains and every view is pretty much stunning. I might go back this weekend if I have time (wait for the end of the post to see why I might not!). Also in Otavalo I met these two cute girls who were so sweet I ended up not being able to resist them cheating me into buying a necklace made of gold plastic beads which I didn't even want for $2.50... way too much for plastic beads even if i had actually wanted them. They knew they had cheated me too because as I walked off they ran up and gave me another bracelet for free to make up for it. Hah, I don't even mind that they cheated me. They were just so cute! Plus they let me take pictures of them so now I can show everyone the native garb of the indigenous people living north of Quito. What did bother me a little was thinking I got a good deal at another shop and then the woman cackling so gleefully that I knew I had been completely duped. She threw in a sweater for $9 too. Who knows how little I should have actually paid for that...

I decided the other day that honking at women is something people must be taught in driving school here. I was being driven around by my host mother's father's chofer the other day and he honked, completely without any noticable reason, at every single woman we passed. It was just like instinct, habit, exactly how I don't even think about hitting my turn signal before changing lanes, it's just something I do. Somehow honking at women is just part of the driver training here.

Side note, how have I lived without driving for 3 months? Sable I miss you....

Mangos! I don't like mangos except sometimes in Mango bread, but it turns out there are types that just plain aren't exported to the US... There is an amazing type of mango down here that is smaller than my fist (and my fists aren't all that big) that you just cut open at the top and suck on! It's juicy and wonderful and horribly messy, and gosh I wish they had them up north. I think they're even better than the guanabana (which means you have to go back to central or south america to prove me right or wrong, Mike).

So............ here's what I'm really excited to tell you. Did you know I know the British Ambassador to Ecuador? I didn´t either. I went to Quiz Night at Reina Victoria Pub the Wednesday before last and spent a few hours in friendlly jestful competition with two nice British gentlemen, Ian (I think?) and Richard, and their Californian friend. Though my team of college students was actually ahead for a while our older British and Californian friends ended up winning when we screwed up the last round and dropped to something like 5th or 6th place. We chatted, we learned that the worked at the embassy, and Richard gave us his email address and said we should combine teams the next time since we'd both be short some members. So. That pretty much brings us to today when he emails us saying something along the lines of "Sorry, can´t make it to Quiz Night tomorrow, I'm throwing a Christmas party for the British and German Embassies. Did I mention I'm the British Ambassador?" What? No you didn't mention that Richard! Or I guess I should say Ambassador Lewington? He went on to say his term in Ecuador was ending so he wouldn't be making it to any more Quiz Nights, but we should come to his going away party this Friday. Hah! I got invited to a party by the British Ambassador! I thought it sounded too crazy too be true so I googled Richard Lewington and sure enough there was his picture with captions about the british ambassador at this function or that function... you can look him up yourself. Maybe after Friday there'll be pictures of him shaking hands with an up-and-coming young engineer from the US. A girl can dream... Anyway, so I'm definitely going if nothing gets in the way. Live bands, fireworks, fancy food? Heck yeah! We'll see if I actually make it to Baños after a Friday of bidding fairwell to such a dear and close friend.

11:24 pm - I forgot to tell you Mike, I´ve made it a point to drink a few Guanabana shakes while here

Yeah, yeah, this would be a lot easier for all involved if I just kept up with my journal. I don´t even know what I've done in between the last post and this one so much time has past. Well, and easy one to remember is Mark's visit. It rained the whole time we were in Quito together so my grand plans of showing him around the university, taking him on the Teleferiqo, shopping in the artesan market, and walking around old told all ended up..... soggy. We still went, but we didn't stay in any place nearly as long as we would have because we kept getting cold and uncomfortable and bailing out to go back to my host family's apartment. He saw the school, but probably couldn't tell how beautiful it was, Teleferiqo took us up into the clouds so we saw absolutely nothing of the supposedly awesome view it has, and we only popped into one church in the old section of Quito. We did manage to buy $50 worth of gifts at the market, but considering I spent $100 alone in Otavalo this past Saturday, I guess even that part of his visit was subdued a bit by the weather.

Then, of course, we left for Galapagos where it would be cloudy above the hotel and then we would drive out from under the clouds to go to idealic beaches and all that. It was frickin' sweet. Check facebook for pictures if you can and I'll try to remember to post the best here, but we've all found out how reliable I am at posting stuff here... *clears throat* Anyhow, we went to beaches, snorkled (with sealions!), and saw more giant land tortugas than I ever thought possible. Giant land tortugas were awesome, but the best was definitely the sealions. I think they should be called sea puppies because they're cute and curious and I want to pet them, but I didn't get to pick the name. Somebody agrees with me or the babies wouldn't be called pups. Anyway, they'd swim right up to us while we were in the water, which was kind of scary sometimes. Once when I had given up on my snorkel and was just sticking my head under the water to see what I could see one swam right towards me, collision course like, and opened her mouth when she got close. I opened mine too and screamed right there underwater thinking she was gonna bite my face off. She didn't and I forgave her for scarying me like that. Another swam under me and we admired each other's tummies. I hope she doesn't know that my chub is just chub, not a useful tool for keeping me warm underwater. Also neat was the one glimse I got of a sea turtle. It was swimming in front of our boat as we headed out to a volcanic island and we all were terrified we were going to hit it. One moment we were just looking at water and the next this giant shell with a head sticking out just surfaces yards in front of the boat! It was HUGE! I wish I had gotten a closer look at one, but I guess you get what you get. I didn't even get a picture we went by so fast, but at least I'll always know that I did see one in the wild once. A little less cool about the Galapagos was the food poisoning everyone but me got on our third day there. They served us a cold seafood soup on the boat, and since there weren't any other options after asking to make sure it had been cooked everyone dug in and made the best of it. Everyone but me, that is. I tried my hardest not to be a brat about it, but there was no way I wanted to eat that stuff. It turned out to be ceviche, which is "cooked" by putting raw whatever-is-at-hand into lemon juice. Hmm. So everyone but me got food poisoning from the raw fish and octupus soup and our fourth day was significantly less fun for it. Ah well, last report I got Mark was feeling quite a bit better and Monica had gotten rid of the amoebas she picked up from it.

Weekend after that we rested up if I remember correctly and then the next week we skipped our Friday classes to have a long weekend in Baños. Here's where I get a little bitter. We got there Friday late in the morning, went rafting (which was way more fun that I expected - plus the tour guide looked just like Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, how cool is that?), stayed in a hotel... and then left Saturday morning. Why did I skip my Friday classes if we were only going to stay one day? Why did we pay for a hotel when we weren't going to do anything the next day and could have just caught a night bus back? Because that wasn't the plan; we were going to stay two in Baños and head down to Riobamba for the third. Why did plans change? Because the VT group is completely incapable of sticking with what we say we'll do.

Like I said, bitter, and I'm about to go into a rant you should feel free to skip over. I've tried to make it a point in the journal not to complain too much, and I know I should stick with it, but honestly, I've found it incredibly hard to be happy here with my chosen group of "friends." We had such an instant bond, being from the same school, flying into Quito on the same plane, being the only people we already knew once school started... it felt so natural to form a group that traveled together, partied together, hung out together... but it really never should have happened. At least I shouldn't have stayed in the group. I depend way too much on other people for my happiness, as you guys probably already know. When I'm alone it´s a pretty sure bet that I'm not all that happy (unless I've actually planned on being alone and have some activity only suitable to do alone - like two hour long baths. Ahhh two hour long baths, how I miss you...). Also, when my friends are unhappy with me, when my friends ditch me for other people, when my friends change plans out from under me or otherwise demonstrate how unimportant I am to them... anyway, I don't generally run into these problems more than once in a blue moon with my friends at home being my friends at home are REAL FRIENDS. They're great. I love them, genuinely and truly love them and only want the best for them, and for the most part I feel pretty safe in assuming they love me and want the best for me too. Here... well, I've never felt more judged in my life. When I asked for more information about the beach we went to way back when I was accused of being selfish and trying to make everyone change there plans and go to the beach I wanted to go to (it didn't seem to matter than I hadn't even suggested we go to a different beach). When the plans we had made for the weekend of my bday were changed out from under me and (upon being asked if I wanted to go out drinking) I told the group I had made plans to go to Cotopaxi with other people, I was accused of trying to force everyone to travel just because it was my birthday (despite the fact that I hadn't even suggested they go with me, and couldn't have since it wasn't my trip to invited people on). When I told them I had seen a movie, thought it was boring, and didn´t think they would like it, one of the girls decided that what I really meant was that they were all too stupid to enjoy a political movie (I said I thought it was boring for goodness' sake! Wouldn't that mean I'd have to be insulting myself too?). I really don´t see what I could have done to deserve all of these assumptions into my character. The way I see it I was just asking for information, letting them know my plans, and trying to avoid subjecting everyone to a movie I thought was boring. There's a whole list of things that have happened here that are supposedly my fault, and I really don't understand much of any of it, and honestly I think I was an idiot to put up with it for so long. I decided to not seek out their company anymore (though I also won't avoid them if they want to hang out with me) and for the last two weeks I've been much happier. Much happier. I've started hanging out with these two girls who don't seem to automatically assume I have wicked alterior motives for everything, and my only regret is that I didn´t do it sooner. One of the girls, Emily, is really who I should have been hanging out with and traveling with the whole time! She's smart, funny, we share a lot of the same interests, and the poor girl didn't have a group to travel with so she's hardly gone anywhere the whole time we've been studying here. If I had only known! Or if only I hadn't been so afraid to leave my group and strike out alone!

Anyway, let's get out of the rant mode and move on. I wanted to go to Otavalo again this weekend and instead of letting the fact that the VT kids didn't want to go discourage me, I asked Emily if she wanted to go and we had a great time. We bought lots and lots of presents for people and ended up hanging out even after we got back to Quito, going to a Hookah joint and talking until one in the morning!

So, sorry this one was so long and not nearly as fun as it should have been, but hopefully the next one will be pure pictures and anecdotes! I´ve collected a few really cool ones about why people honk so much here and stuff, so long as I remember them until I have time to post again...

Also, despite the fact that I completely stopped eating corn flakes weeks ago, a new family sized box appeared in the pantry yesterday. GGgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

09:27 pm - I have a new family sized box of cornflakes

So I obviously dropped the ball on making regular updates and now I have three weekends to summarize, hopefully without boring you all to death.

Ok, three weekends ago. The beach! A beach, on the Pacific, just south of the Ecuador! It wasn´t an amazing beach like you see in the carribean, or wherever it is that rich people go to enjoy beaches, but it was amazingly exciting for me because I haven´t even really seen the Pacific Ocean before let alone ran into it, taken a boat ride on it, or riden on a crazy scary dragged-behind-a-motor-boat floaty thing on it. Pictures will be available at some point. Also, I didn´t get sunburned or eaten up my mosquitoes! According to my host family they´ve never had a gringo who made it back from the beach without at least one of these problems. Hurray for avoiding cancer and deadly mosquito spread diseases!

Two weekends ago. Mindo! A beautiful little town next to an even more beautiful nature preserve. We went hiking, visited a butterfly house where a butterfly the size of my face landed on my hand (after a ridiculous amount of coaxing), bird watching, white water tubing (four random teenage boys tagged along with us three gringitas which was muy chistoso), and.... we jumped off a waterfall. Our guide told us it was 12 meters high, another girl was told 14 meters, which if you don´t want to do the math yourself means we jumped from somewhere between 39 and 46 ft. Neeps. We all made it, none of us hit rocks or otherwise suffered bodily harm, but if I got one thing out of that jump it was the knowledge that I never want to jump 40 feet off of anything ever again in my life. Who first saw a 40 foot drop and thought “Boy, I bet it would be fun to jump off that!”? Who decided that something like that should be a source of entertainment? I´m resolving right now that if in any given activity I could die if I accidentally slipped while doing it, I´m not going to seek it out as a source of entertainment. Now don´t get smart with me and say “But Crysta, you could slip while walking!” because obviously walking is something I do to get places, not usually for fun. Also if you bring up ice skating I´ll smack you. So don´t.

This past weekend. Friday we partied in celebration of my 22nd birthday. Started out at Vinos y Tapas, watched a drum concert for a while, then went to a discoteca. At least that´s how I remember it. =P Anyway, Saturday I got up early and headed to the edge of Cotopaxi National Park with a group of other USFQ international students. It cost me $90 which is probably even more than I paid for the four day weekend at the beach, but it included horseback riding, zip-lining, really good food, and just a generally really good time with fun nice people that I haven´t really hung out with much. The zip-lining was really hard for me to do. Again with that fear of heights thing that made the waterfall jump traumatizing. I was doing ok, not sure why I had signed up for the activity but still willing to do it, until the first person actually did it. I wanted to watch him to reassure myself that nothing crazy was going to happen, that it was going to go smoothly, he´d be in control the whole time... but he had gone the day before, and learned how to do tricks... so while I was watching him hoping to see a completely mundane non-scary trip, instead I saw him let go of the cable, let go of his harness, and dangle upside down from the attachment at his waist and look back at us. I freaked out. I knew he was doing it on purpose but I had a real hard time doing it after that. They hooked up to the cable and asked “¿Estás lista?” (“Are you ready?”) and I said “¡No!” so they asked me again “¿Estás lista?” and I said “¡No! Nunca voy a estar lista. No quiero. No quiero.” (“No! I´m never going to be ready. I don´t want to. I don´t want to.”) I also threw in something about being very afraid of heights. I don´t think they knew exactly what to do with me, but there was really no other way to get down because there wasn´t an extra guide to walk someone back down the mountain to the base camp area so eventually I just took a few shaky breaths and made myself let them push me off the mountain. Terrifying. But once I was zipping through the air it wasn´t really bad. I didn´t do any stupid tricks like the boys (until later) so I stayed in control of how I was moving down the line the whole time. I could break, I could speed up, I made sure my elbow stayed out just like the guide told me to... and I even made a graceful landing at the end. It was fun. The bus rides to and from the place were awesome too. We went through some real country areas with lots of cows, pigs, and horses. The buildings out there are really interesting, at least to me. Plus Cotopaxi itself if crazy huge. I thought I had a good view of it from my apartment but what I can see from here is nothing. It might be the top fifth of it. When we saw the whole thing I could barely believe how huge it was. It was exactly how my dad described Mt. Ranier. You know you´re hours away from it but it dominates your whole vision, it fills the whole panorama. Crazy. I´d like to go hike a little of it (I doubt I´d make it to the top) but I don´t know if I´ll get a chance. I don´t really know how to arrange that sort of thing.

Anyway, drop me a line. A note here or an email or something. A real letter sent to Ecuador if you really love me. =P I love hearing from people. Until next time I´ll be here, eating corn flakes like there´s no tomorrow and enjoying the flowers that occasionally fill my apartment to the brim.

01:10 pm - Well over 60 roses, and this was after they had been being given out over a few days

01:07 pm - Eating lunch on Pasachoa

01:05 pm - Me, Mary, and Jen sitting on the equator

12:57 pm - A little late...

My mum pointed out that I haven´t posted in a while, so here´s the entry I wrote about the weekend before last and then never got around the posting:

The Tech kids and I went to Papallacta this weekend. It´s a hot springs complex thingy and it´s pretty cool. There were some technical difficulties with meeting up since we didn´t all go on the same bus and that led to some frustration and delays at the beginning, but once we were in I thoroughly enjoyed it. We didn´t end up staying at the onsite hotel because it was all booked up but that was fine because it was, being the only hotel actually attached to the springs, very expensive and we weren´t sure we wanted to spend that much money anyway. Instead we rented a cool suite type set of rooms at a hostal 10 minutes down the mountain from the springs. It was $100, which was still more than we wanted to pay, but between 6 people it´s not that bad and the set up was pretty awesome. There was a fireplace, we didn´t have to share beds, breakfast was included, and the bathroom was huge. I swear if I stood in the bathtub the water would have come up to my waist. It had and a nice indoor and a neat outdoor thermal bath too, which was one of the reasons we picked the place... but then we didn´t end up taking advantage of it because we were all too tired. So the baths – the hotsprings are natural but they´ve built pools for them to feed into instead of it just being hot puddles gathering on rocks. It was really pretty and only cost $6. There was an onsite spa that we didn´t go to. There was also a freeeeeeezing cold river running through the place. You´ll probably see hilarious pictures of me in that river at some point. So... there´s really nothing interesting to say about the trip. It was fun and it really felt good to soak in warm water for a while considering how limited the hot water supply in my family´s apartment is... but no crazy stories came out of it.



Last weekend I didn´t go anywhere. I just kinda chilled in Quito, checked out another local market, and bought a few gifts for people back home and too many gifts for myself here in Ecuador. I skipped classes yesterday and today due to the eating of an apparently less than sanitary cinnabun (from a cinnabon at a mall! could i be more safe with my eating habits?) but I´m feeling better already and will be back in school tomorrow. This weekend us tech kids will be heading to the beach, so if you have facebook good pictures should soon be posted by someone. We´re spending a little more than $20 each to rent out a whole cabin. Next time you go to the beach, tell me how much you have to pay for a hotel room cuz I´m pretty sure I'm excited by the prices down here.

02:45 pm - The little things

Whenever I make it to a computer I think "What have I done that I have to tell everyone about?" and end up writing these long narratives about things that were probably a lot more fun to do than they are to read about. I´ve been building up a stockpile of things I keep meaning to write about, but completely forget about in the stress of typing everything I can in the short amounts of time I usually get to spend online. This time you´re in luck - I haven´t done anything. Except homework. And a lot of procrastinating before that. Yuck. So here are the little things that are a lot more fun to talk about than what I´m actually doing.

Did you know that Highfield is completely unpronouncable in spanish? I didn´t either. I had listened to people struggle with it, marvelled at how they guessed at the spelling... and then I had to spell it out once for a receipt, and the guy looked up at me, baffled, and said something along the lines of --There is no possible way to pronounce that.-- I explained that it was two words in English and translated, which he thought was funny... but obviously didn´t help. Highfield. Hie - feel - duh. I dunno. Can´t pronounce it.

The day before yesterday I squeezed onto a crowded bus and, miracle of miracles, a seat that was about to be grabbed by someone else was instead reserved for me by a random nice lady. She said something and she said it so fast that I did not understand a single word. Not one. But my host mum had told me I should try to strike up conversations on the bus to practice my Spanish so I said "Que locura" or "What crazyness," just about the bus experience in general. She responded with another string of words, and this time I caught one. Just one. She was saying something about the lines. I decided not to follow that up seeing as how I have joined in with a huge group of ecuadorians who wait until the lines stop moving (meaning the bus is too crowded and the people in the line would rather wait for the next one) and then jump on anyway. So long as I´m willing to stand and cling to whatever handhold happens to be nearby, why should I wait? Anyway, instead I commented on how fast she was talking and asked her where she was from cuz people in Quito talk relatively slow and I know there are certain cities where everyone talks really fast. I don´t know if I really have to say it... but I didn´t understand her response. Too frickin´ fast. I did catch that it was somewhere near the coast though. Hence began a crazy conversation where I guessed at what she was saying and tried to respond appropriately. All I really got was a compliment on my Spanish and that she thinks the US and England are the same thing, so why bother differentiating which one I´m from? It was all so much crazy hard to understand fun that I just about missed my stop and had to jump up yelling polite goodbyes as I pushed through the crowd to the door. Good times. =)

Corn Flakes! The people here, or at least my host family, think that everyone from the US loves corn flakes. A couple days after I arrived they asked me what I was accustomed to eating for breakfast and I replied with the standards - eggs, cereal, toast... and they nodded knowingly and said Corn Flakes. I said well, yeah, but really I liked Honey Bunches of Oats much better, and low and behold, less than a week later a box of Honey Bunches of Oats appeared in the pantry! Right next to a box of Corn Flakes. So I ate the Honey Bunches of Oats, and when I had completely ran out and had thrown out the box, I started on the corn flakes. A few days ago I went to get breakfast and in the place of my old box of Honey Bunches of Oats was... a second box of Corn Flakes. A huge one. Economy family size. My host mum walks in with a big proud smile and says something like --That´s what you like, Right?-- What could I say? I smiled and nodded and now I have a whole lot of corn flakes to eat.

Flowers. The night before last, or yesterday morning, I can´t remember exactly when, I went to open a cabinet in the kitchen and realized there was a whole cooler of roses in my way. I look up and find there´s another two dozen or so in a water pitcher in the sink. As I look around I realize there are roses everyone. I wouldn´t be surprised if there were 100 in total. I didn´t ask about it because I was afraid I had missed someone´s birthday or anniversary or something, but last night before dinner there was an opening in the conversation and I asked ¿Porque tantas flores? which I really hope came close enough to meaning "Why so many flowers?" and which I wish I could hope had more style to it than that. It turns out that my host father (the neurologist) had a patient who worked in flowers, and didn´t have the money to pay his bill. So he paid in roses. Paid in Roses! A barter system exchanging the services of a neurologist for flowers? Where am I? What a crazy and beautiful world! The apartment is completely full of roses, in every water tight container in every corner and on every counter. Everywhere. How many flowers does it take to pay off a hefty doctor´s bill?

Current Mood: chipper

03:50 pm - Mailing address

I forgot to mention: the mailing address I gave you is correct. It just needs "Crysta Highfield, Virginia Tech, care of La Oficina de..." and whatever the name of the office is in my previous post. I forget if it's the office of intercambios culturales or estudiantes extranjeros or what, but it's in the address I posted earlier. That's it. Chao.

03:16 pm - la vida en una país extraña es muy dura

So this past Saturday I went to Pasachoa with a group of students and we had the dubious honor of witnessing the first rain of the season. Rainy season was supposed to start a week or two ago I think, but it really hasn´t. This weekend it definitely started at Pasachoa. Our hiking on the first day was canceled, so on Sunday we started from the very base, hoping to make it to the top all in one way. We got about halfway up where there were some really nice views, ate lunch, and then looked up. The whole top of the mountain was covered in clouds and the guide said we had to go down because it was going to rain again. If we had kept going it wouldn't do much good anyway because we'd just end up in the middle of a cloud and not be able to see anything. So we started packing up our lunch and it started raining before we could even get back on the trail. New vocabulary word: mojado(a). It means soaked. And we were very mojados. A little sore throat I had had before going on the hike turned into a very unpleasant day in a half of feeling absolutely dreadful, but thanks to my youthful constitution, lots of sleep, and 1600% recommended daily intake of vitamin C, I'm already healthy again.

Now the cool stuff about Pasachoa - it's an ancient volcano! I have officially climbed a volcano, albeit one that's been extinct for something like 100,000 years. That still makes it newer than the mountains I've lived in for the last 11 years. I was walking along the edge of it's caldera, how cool is that? I'll post pictures when I can.

Not much new other than that. I still miss you guys a lot. I think this foreign country thing would be a lot better with more friends and less classes. I absolutely hate stressing out over hw here. That's what the United States is for. I'm taking mostly classes meant for extranjeros such as myself - why don't they lay off and encourage us to relax and enjoy the country? I have a presentation to prepare, an essay to right, and about a billion pages to read all for one class - and it's a class that's exclusively foreign students. In my Spanish class I have a quiz, a presentation, and six pages of homework assigned. And pretty much all my classes penalize for absenses. How am I supposed to travel and explore when I'm only given 2 day chunks? There are places I want to go that take a day to get there and a day to get back. Hmph.

The real experiences are definitely not classes - they're when you're at a hostal mostly used by locals and someone gets curious as to why a gringa is walking around. That's something I meant to tell about Pasachoa! It's actually a really funny little story. Jenny and I were about to go to bed after our first day at Pasachoa and we decided to go to the restrooms first. On the way we ran into a group of 4 Ecuadorians who started asking us questions. We ended up spending tons of time talking to them about culture, behavior, politics, machismo, dancing, traveling... everything. It was awesome. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Then we get back up to the room where the other students were playing cards and getting ready for bed, every one looks up, and one girl asks "Where were you two?" Jenny said "We went to the bathroom" and the girl responds "For an hour?" We told them we had been talking to locals but they didn't seem very interested. Maybe they didn't believe us. I hope they didn't, because I bet whatever they think we were doing is more hilarious than the truth. Still, that conversation with the Ecuadorians was awesome and never would have happened in a classroom. Ah well.

04:22 pm - Mailing address

Certain people have inquired as to how to send me mail while I'm here. The international office told me to have it sent to them, and this is the address I pulled off their website. However, it's supposed to say something else too and I don't know exactly what that is... I think it's something like "Crysta Highfield, care of International Programs" or "Crysta Highfield, Virginia Tech, care of International programs." I'm not sure and I'll try to figure that out, but if you're brave and really really want to send something before I get that done, smack one of those beginnings onto the address provided below and give it a try.

Mailing Address:
Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Oficina de Programas Internacionales,
Casilla 17-12-841
Quito, Ecuador - América del Sur

What confuses me a bit is that the university really isn't in Quito... it's in a valley near Quito...

01:45 pm - Buena Vista 2

In this one you can hopefully see that the volcano is actually huge (if the snow on top didn´t give it away).

01:44 pm

This is the view from the apartment I´m living in. Cotapaxi is the massive volcano in the middle of the picture.

01:37 pm - El Hotel Indio

This is the tech kids in the inner courtyard of our awesomely beautiful hotel. Might I add that we paid $8 each to stay there? Frickin´ sweet.

12:26 pm - Otavalo

Four of the Tech kids and I went to the closest market town this past weekend. It was really cool - we kind of just jumped on a bus and headed out there without a solid plan. We walked up to a hotel at about 7 or 8... I don´t really know the time, but it was past dark, and just asked for rooms. Reservations are not usually a necessity here.

The town was having some kind of festival that night, so we headed out to the live concert and commenced making fools of ourselves. No one was really dancing and lots of people were staring at us, so we decided that if we were going to be stared at anyway we might as well do something to deserve it and we started dancing. Nothing crazy really, just kind of moving with the music because it would have been boring to stand still. One of my friends offers me a cigarette and I take it cuz, what the hell, one´s not going to kill me, but before she can light it this guy behind me offers me a lighter and he and I start dancing. The funny thing was he had to be over 40.

Did I mention how people dance here? It´s a little strange. In most aspects of their lives people here are all touchy feely, kissing and hugging their friends everytime they say hello or goodbye, pressing cheeks with strangers as a greeting, sitting leg to leg on buses or standing squished together once there are no seats left... but when they dance, they don´t touch. Kind of opposite from the States, huh? The one time I went to a discotech here I kind of accidentally crossed the cultural barrier cuz I´m used to dancing closer, but I digress.

I mentioned the way they dance to show that it really wasn´t all that sketchy to be dancing with an older guy. There was always like a foot between us (no crossing of cultural barriers this time!). The other kids ended up dancing with people too I think, but eventually one of them decided we had danced with the same people long enough and we all filed out of the crowd. When we returned to a different place I found myself dancing with an even older guy! I don´t know why, but the old guys were all about dancing with me that night. Still, it was better than dancing alone like I did most of the night at that discotech (I forgot to mention most people here only danced with people they know, and since I don´t know anyone, that meant a whole lot of dancing alone at the discotech). We went back to the hotel and slept like rocks.

The next morning was the market and it was huge. It totally transformed the little town. You have to haggle for everything there, which was sometimes fun but always stressful. I still don´t know if I got good deals or if I was ripped off. The thing I don´t like about haggling is that you can never admit how much you think a think is actually worth. If someone says $20 and you think it´s worth $15 you have to say $8 or something. Sometimes the people act really offended too, and I don´t know if it´s because I haggled in a really rude way or if it was just their technique for keeping the price higher. Like I said, always a bit stressful. I came out of it with a few treasures that might end up presents for you guys, so you should really tell me what you want. You may really want a neat little hand crafted pipe, but you´ll end up with a coconut shell necklace if you don´t speak up.

I´m still wrestling with the class thing. Í have 3 pretty serious classes and 2 that are more fun, and it´s definitely a bit overwhelming. I just don´t know what to drop! And I really want a conversation class because I´m way over my head when I try to talk to people who don´t know English. I mean I suppose I must be learning some through just hearing it all the time, but I really learn much better with someone teaching me... What do you think? Should I drop a class and add conversation, should I drop a class and leave it at that, or should I push through with my hard classes and figure that that stress and panic of not understanding my own profesors are character building experiences?

Current Mood: tired

04:27 pm

Ai, I got online with the best intentions of putting up a really interesting post but I´ve spent so much time reading and answering piled up emails that I´ve lost my enthusiasm.

Saturday a couple other Tech girls and I went to a park called El Ejido where they have an art show and craft fair thing every weekend. It was really cool. The art was awwweeesome and I really want to buy some and bring it home, but most of the ones I like best are on canvas with wooden frames and I don´t know how I´d pack them. If anyone knows, please tell me. And while I´m thinking of it, what do people want for Christmas?

Then we went on to Quito Antigua, where tons of the buildings that were put up by the Spanish conquerors are still standing. We kind of ignored traditional tour routes so we didn´t really see all that much of huge historical significance, but it was definitely cool. There were obviously old old old buildings... and in them would be furniture stores or cheap candy-junkfood shops. There was a fantastic old cathedral... with little junk shops in its lower level. I also saw the Virgin of Quito for the first time, which is a huge statue on top of a really big hill. It´s pretty impressive from a distance, so I can´t imagine what it´s like from close up. The girls and I stopped and had coffee and desserts at a kind of touristy restaurant, which was actually really great. Something about a mochachino makes me feel comfortable no matter where I am. Also, I got home all by myself on the buses without even missing a stop. That was a proud moment for me.

Now I´m back to classes and I´m thinking of maybe dropping one... but Calvera says the ones I´d consider dropping are probably all going to be worth something towards my minor. 5 classes is just kind of a lot to absorb in a language I haven´t really gotten close to mastering yet, and I´d really like to be able to relax and enjoy myself here...

06:48 pm

Well... so... classes started yesterday. Just to warn you I´m a tiny bit disillusioned right now. I kind of expected things to be a bit more different, but Quito is a lot like any big city in the US except they all speak Spanish and honk their horns even more. Still, it´s cool. I´ve had some really neat moments where the language barrier came down and I was actually able to communicate something in Spanish. Like yesterday for example - me and the other kids from VT took a bus to a local mall to check it out, only none of us are used to the buses so when it came time to get off only one of us managed to push through the crowd before the door shut and we were stuck on the bus. We all exclaimed and the locals yelled "¡Abra! ¡Abra!" and the doors opened back up to us. Anyway, we fell all over each other laughing and I noticed a man looking at us funny and I said "Somos estudiantes a la Universidad San Francisco" o algo asi ¨("We´re students at San Francisco" or something like that) and he asked "¿Estudiantes de risa?" (Students of laughter?) and after a couple moments of confusion I understood and responded "¡No tenemos que apreder esto!" which I really hope means "We don´t have to learn that!" Well, he laughed, so the message must have gotten across somehow. Thát´s probably the best story I have right now. There´s one about me being terrified of the buses and taxi´s, but that´s less interesting and more pathetic.

Anything else... hmm... you know what I miss already? Obviously the people, Mark, my family, my friends... but also Mike Taczak´s music. I have some tune stuck in my head and I know he always played it, but I don´t know the words, the band, or the name of the song. ¡Que pena!

Also, it´s a whole lot colder here than I thought. Also a lot hotter. When it´s cold here it´s freezing, and when it´s hot, it burns. It´s all based on the clouds too - if it´s a hot day and a cloud passes over the sun all of a sudden it´s cold. I wear a tanktop and carry a jacket every day than I can, which is a bit of a pain since I mostly just brought clothes for moderate weather.

Current Mood: tired

09:14 pm - I´m here!

So I´m here, and I have tons of things to say... but I can´t right now because I´m on dial up and it´s expensive. I´m safe, I´m happy, and my family seems very very nice. More later!