just another american saturday night...

hola familia y amigos,

just wanted to let all of you know that i'm still alive and kicking in Ecuador and that the earthquake in Chile didn't affect us here. also, i had a wonderful weekend. friday school was canceled, so i spent the day with some friends trying to cook an Ecuadorian dish, which was completely unsuccessful. then friday night, we met up with all of our Ecuadorian buddies in "gringolandia." we ended up having a couple of drinks and as usual, danced the night away. at about two, we decided that we were all going to have a big sleepover, and the party continued at luis and pablo's until about 4 in the morning. after a nice breakfast/lunch of papa john's pizza, pablo dropped us back off at home, and i spent the whole day doing pretty much nothing.. just relaxing since my parents were out of town for the weekend. then, around 7 or so, Kiley and Chelsey came over with the intention of just hanging out before going out. we then ordered another pizza (embarrassing i know.. two pizzas in one day) and decided we'd rather stay in for the night.

the three of us pulled my mattress into the family room and literally had a 7th grade sleepover. we talked about boys (and met Chelsey's boyfriend on skype too!) and all of our fun adventures we've had so far in Ecuador. after this, for whatever reason we decided it would be a good idea to watch My Sister's Keeper... although this is a great movie, we all ended up bawling our eyes out and then talking about how much we love our siblings (if you're reading this Max, i love you :)) we then snuggled into my bed on the floor and called it a night... it was such the perfect girls night and the best part was, we got to speak english ALL night!

today, we went to a soccer game with some of our ecuadorian buddies... boy, it was intense. people here are such diehard fans, and pretty much the whole time, the entire stadium was singing all sorts of songs about how much they love their country. what a cool cultural experience.

other than that, not much is new. we only have two more weeks of school left, which is crazy! here are a couple of pictures from our day at La Liga stadium and one with some beautiful children i met at a school in the mountains. hope you all have a wonderful week and know that i love you! chaaaao!

the day my heart melted for an hour straight...

so today i was a really big girl... i had an interview for my internship that i will be starting in a month. it started by me hailing a cab all by myself, somehow finding the school, conducting an interview ALL in spanish and then finding a taxi back to my house. although this little field trip was only a small victory for me, the time that i spent there was absolutely incredible.

for a little background knowledge, the school i went to is call fundación el triángulo and it is a school for children with some sort of developmental or mental delay (like autism and downs syndrome) from age 3 up until their teenage years. first of all, this beautiful, friendly woman comes up to me and tells me she'll be showing me around the facility and conducting my interview... turns out she was a speech therapist there?! COOL! so she starts out by showing me the three and four year old room (i never stopped smiling the whole time) where i was bombarded with adorable children all wanting to know my name and to give me a hug. she then showed me the room where the children with autism work, and the rest of the elementary school. then she walked me up to the secondary school were the kids were a bit older and learning some pretty cool life skills. the first group were "pretending to work in a chocolate factory" where they were going through the whole process of making the chocolate, wrapping them, and then packaging them so that they could sell these chocolates to raise money for the foundation. the next group were pretending to work in an office and working on their paperwork skills. another group was learning music and yet another was working on art. i am really not kidding when i say my heart melted for an hour straight... between the ladies working at this foundation and the beautiful kids attending school there, i absolutely fell in love every second of my time there. i don't want to wish my time away here, but i'm so excited for when i get to start there.

if anyone is super bored, here's the link to the foundation and they have some adorable pictures and videos on their website:

http://www.fundacioneltriangulo.org/index.html

that is all for now... i hope everyone has a wonderful weekend back in the US and all the other countries you all are in. MUCH love :)

a weekend at la playa... ecuadorian culture 101

so this long weekend was an adventure to say the least... here is the chain of events:

friday: sam, chelsey, kiley, lucy and i went to a super cool artesian market before our departure to the beach and bought some cool homemade stuff. then around 2ish, we met up with our ecuadorian amigos and set off for the beach. six hours and a million curvy roads later, we finally arrived at the beach. we quickly changed clothes and headed for a restaurant. after a nice little shrimp dinner (yes, i ate some shrimp) we found this cute little bar on the beach that had little cabana-like tables and had some cerveza. it was an excellent way to start the vacation because we all ended up dancing like crazy on the beach and having a super good time. after we decided we were too covered in sand to function anymore, we headed back to the hotel, jumped in the pool quickly, and then spent the rest of the night playing guitar and singing... ¡que chévere!

saturday: we were all up and running by about nine, so we took off for some breakfast and got ready for a day at the beach. because we're in south america, soccer, aka futbol is super big here, so all the boys wanted to do was play soccer on the beach, which was fine by me because they were intrigued by my mad soccer skills ;) even though i was super sunscreen-ed up and running around on the beach, i still found myself VERY sunburnt after our games. we hopped into the ocean a couple more times, then headed back to the hotel for a little siesta. once we were all fully rested, we got ready and headed out for another seafood dinner. everyone was still pretty tired from the night before, so we all lazily sipped on piña coladas after our dinner at another oceanside bar. every now and then we would get up and dance, but for the most part it was a pretty relaxed evening until we made a new friend, whom we called "hombre misterioso" for the rest of the trip. this man was decked out in dance gear and ready to show us a salsa move or two on the dance floor. we guessed he must have been training for dancing with the stars or some crazy dance company, because honestly, when i was finished dancing with him i was afraid of throwing up because he spun us around so much and so incredibly fast... pretty darn funny.

sunday: originally we thought this would be our last day due to the crazy traffic that we were going to encounter on our way back to Quito, so we thought we'd live it up large. we ended up going to a private beach where cars weren't allowed and laid under a little tent all day laughing with friends because we were all still sunburnt. around four, half of our group decided to leave this beautiful beach because they wanted to watch a "cock fight." so it was chelsey, kiley, lucy, pablo and i left on the beach and we continued to enjoy the beautiful weather. after awhile, some boys came up to all of us girls in the ocean and invited us to some party they were having, but after talking to pablo, we decided not to, and headed back to the hotel. after some salsa dancing in the pool (yes, this was quite interesting) we all took another little nap and once again got ready for one last hurrah on the beach. the party started in our hotel at about seven with some mixed drinks, and of course some serious salsa dancing. after about and hour or two of this, my girlfriends decided they wanted to go the beach to do some dancing and after some convincing of our ecuadorian buddies, we all left for the beach. we ended up going to some little concert with life music, which was super cool to watch and listen to. after that our boyfriends decided they'd rather carry the rest of our fiesta out back at the hotel. my girlfriends however decided they weren't really ready to go back, so after some deliberation, all the ecuadorians decided to go back to the hotel while the gringos stayed to "party." my buddies all picked up a hamburger, which i still can't make myself eat, and we stayed out for about another hour or so before deciding to go back to meet up with the rest of our buddies... this is where the drama began...

so we get back to the hotel, and our amigos are sitting around talking and my friend sam and i sat down next to our friend, pablo. pablo then informed us that they had been reminiscing about the friendships they had with each other (pablo, luis, jorge, y paul aka gordito) and the strong bonds that they all had. all four of these boys had been raised only by women, and because of this, pablo told us, they were very sensitive and emotional people. after a brief chat about friendship and relationships, pablo told us that they had all been a little disappointed in us that we hadn't followed them home to the hotel when they left. he went on to tell us, that when we're together, we should be acting as a fist, staying together and looking out for each other. he said he understood that we wanted to make new friends and that this was still all so exciting for us, but at the same time we had to remember that in their culture, their worlds revolve around each other and they're always worrying about us if they're not with us. he said it made him feel really sad that earlier that day at the beach we had been so eager to drop him and hang out with the "guapos hombres" that we had met. i tried explaining to him that it was only a misunderstanding and that in the united states if you wanted someone to do something, you had to be more upfront with them and tell them for example that you want them to come back to the hotel with you. the kicker... he said that (all in spanish of course) "oh i get it, in the united states you guys think more so with your heads, but here in ecuador, we think with our heart and souls." ouch... this chat really hit me hard and truly got me thinking about although we're still upholding our own culture within ecuador, we still need to be very observant of their culture and even more so, respectful of their culture, because they've totally open up their lives to us... planned all these wonderful trips for us, kept us safe, and most importantly have kept us very happy.. and after all that, an opportunity comes to hang out with some cute boys, and we drop them like that... since this little "charla" i have been very observant and aware of how i'm treating my new friends here and what they're expecting of me in return.. what a big lesson that was.

monday: we had originally planned to go home this day, but poor little chelsey got some sort of food poisoning from the hamburger she ate, and couldn't keep anything down. we ended up going to the hospital with her (an adventure in itself) and making sure she was okay. after about ten hours straight of throwing up, she was slowly starting to return to herself. we played a couple card games, laughed at all the drunk people, and then finally called it a day.

tuesday: tuesday came around and everyone was feeling a little better and ready for the big car ride ahead. it had rained the entire night before, which we didn't seem to think would be a problem, but soon learned otherwise. before getting on the highway, a police officer told us a bridge had collapsed so we'd have to take an alternate route. after turning around and driving an hour and a half, when we got to the other route they too told us we'd have to wait until a truck came to clean the roads, which wouldn't be for another four hours. to make a long story short, a 5 hour car ride turned into a 16 hour car ride due to the traffic and the damage from the weather. to make a long story short though, we all made it home safely, and definitely took away a lot of cultural knowledge from this long weekend in Tonsupa.

P.S. sorry this was so long and also sorry that i didn't take single picture while i was at the beach... i didn't want to get my camera sandy or stolen. love you and miss you all!

amo lo que tengo :)

hola mis amigos y familia whom i miss very much,

i know you're just dying to hear about my weekend and what's going down in Ecuador, so here goes...

to make a long story short, the BBQ saturday was unbelievably fun and amazing. they party started the second we walked in the door and there were balloons and silly string everywhere. before we knew it we were playing all sorts of games that all revolved around dancing. in one, called "baila con un globo" we had a partner and had to dance with a balloon in between us. a person would call out a move and you had to do this move without the balloon falling... too funny! another one, was pretty much like musical chairs. there would be a person in the center with a broom, and when he or she dropped the broom, you'd have to find a partner and dance together.. if you didn't have a partner, you were out. before we knew it, the boys had finished barbecuing (which consisted of steak, sausage, and some other unidentifiable meats) and we sat down for a little meal. we didn't waste much time eating, and got right back to our dancing and chatting. during the noche, we made homemade mojitos and continued to dance and laugh the night away. all in all, it was a super fun night.

pics above: the first one is from the fiesta, and the rest are of my school and the meal we all made for each other :)

on sunday, i accomplished a small victory.. i watched a movie all in spanish with NO subtitles and totally understood it all, and of course ended up crying at the end. i felt super proud for understanding a whole movie.

monday though was a super cool day. in spanish class we talked about the graffiti all over Quito and about what it meant. Some of my favorite are the following:

"la cerca no está en el jardín, está en tu mente"
-- fences don't exist in the garden, only in your mind.

"rompe la riel... y ríe"
-- break the system and laugh

"amo lo que tengo"
-- i love all that i have

so yeah, i thought that was a pretty cool and significant way to see Quito through the eyes of its inhabitants.

ALSO, yesterday our teacher told us we had to bring a typical ecuadorian food in that we had prepared for the following class. i was assigned a banana cake and rushed home to tell my mom about my assignment in hopes that she would help me. she had no idea how to make it, so she called her mom who RUSHED over with the ingredients. what a cool experience it was to work alongside three generations (my host grandma, mom, and sister) of ecuadorian women in the kitchen... we had a lot of fun and i learned quite a bit. so today in school we all brought in our plates and enjoyed a typical ecuadorian meal.

this weekend is "carnivales" where we have a 5 day weekend. 5 of us from the US and 5 of us from Ecuador are going to head over to the coast to hang out on the beach... i'm SO looking forward to this experience. sorry to you all who are still trudging through the snow in the midwest. i'll for sure add a bunch of pictures of the beach to give you guys hope for the warmer months. love you all very much and thinking about you constantly.

¿que te molestas del mundo y que vas a hacer para cambiarlo?

so the entire time i've been in Ecuador, all of our classes have been about development and the economy in third world countries, which is important, just not really something i'm interested in. thursday was the last lecture on this subject, and one of our professors ended it with a simple question: "what bothers you about the world and what are you going to do to change it?" obviously, this is a really broad question, but the answers that came out of my classmates were truly inspirational. answers ranged anywhere from buying local to support farmers to adopting children to help overpopulation and reduce the number of orphans. although some things weren't as important to me as others, it was so cool to be in a room full of people who are SO motivated to make a difference in this world... you could truly feel the energy... and this was only the beginning to a fun weekend.

after class, some of my friends and i decided to venture to a local university to use their library to do some homework. it was super cool to be on a campus where all the local Ecuadorian students were hanging out. we kinda did some homework, but got bored after about 2 hours, so decided we would find a place to get some pizza. my friends and i decided to ask some cute boys where a good pizza place was, and not only did they recommend us a great place, they also accompanied us for dinner :) after dinner one of the boys i was with got a call from his host brother saying they were going to go out and dance for the night. after a quick clothes change, we were ready to go to "gringolandia" to hang out and dance. we met up with the brother of my friend and our new friends also joined us so it was super cool to be hanging out with all these wonderful, welcoming people. after hours and hours of dancing and being drenched in sweat, my two girlfriends and i slept over at one of our houses.

early the next morning our friends called us to wake us up and tell us to go to the park so we could play a game of soccer. i honesly haven't missed soccer since i've played in high school, but i really enjoyed playing with my Ecuadorians friends... i even impressed them a little with my mad skills ;) after running around, hiking (where my friend chelsey tried to teach our new friends yoga in the woods haha) we decided to leave the park and go for lunch. i'm still struggling through the food here, but trying really hard to enjoy it. after a car ride full on lady gaga, shaggy, and sublime, my Ecuadorian friends dropped me off at home. i took a quick shower and then was off with my family to meet a new cousin of theirs and then go to my "Dad's" pizza place for dinner.. a great end to a great day.

today, after having pizza and hamburgers for breakfast (what?!), i'm going to jump in the shower and then head off to a barbecue of one of our new little boyfriends... definitely looking forward to it! i hope all is well back in the US (i've learned not to say "america" because people from south america are offended when we call ourselves americans, since they too are from an american continent). i miss you all mucho! muuuucho amor y paz para todo :)

por que, no...

sooo friday as i was buying my new camera, my friends chelsey and kiley were telling me that they were going to venture to a town called Baños with a guy from our group, Sam, and a whole bunch of Sam's host family and friends. the girls were encouraging me to go, but at first i wasn't feeling it and told them i would call them later and let them no. a running joke we've had here is "por que no?" as in why not since we're only going to live in ecuador once. so as i was showering before going out friday night, i thought por que no, sure i'd go on an adventure with a big group of people. so i ended up going out with some different girls friday night, got back really late, and chelsey and kiley called me at 5 saturday morning to say "get your stuff together because we're on our way." after a 4 hour crazy car ride, we made it to baños. everyone was super tired and i was pretty cranky because i got practically no sleep and the group was ready to go out and had the whole day planned out.

after breakfast, we checked into a super cute hostel, changed into our swimsuits and met up with a tour guide. we then (all 13 of us) hopped into the back of his truck and stopped sporadically throughout the trip to take pictures or go on a little hike or whatnot. one of the first stops was a spot where we could bungee jump right off a bridge over a crazy river. i chose not to do this, but both of my girlfriends did it fearlessly... so crazy... only cost 10 bucks with no need to sign a waiver or anything. then we stopped at this chairlift like thing that brought us over the river and showed us some pretty incredible views. the next stop was probably the craziest thing i'll ever do in my life.... we stopped at a trail to hike down to a cascada aka waterfall. when i packed for this little trip, i had no idea we would be doing so much climbing, so i chose to pack only flip flops which made climbing crazy trails very interesting. after struggling for about an hour, we finally reached this incredible waterfall. the ecuadorian boys we were with encouraged us to swim in the waterfall (of course, why wouldn't they want to see american girls in their swimsuits?!), soo sure enough we jumped right in. i wish i could put pictures up to show how cool this was to swim at the base of a waterfall... the water was coming down so hard that it was splashing up water into the air so hard that you couldn't see the person next to you... the water was SOOO freezing, but we sucked it up because it was just so beautiful. after we finally couldn't take the cold anymore, we got out of the water and adventured back up the trail. when we got back to the truck, the boys bought a crate of beer and then the party started in the back of the truck. they had also brought a speaker and an ipod, so we were listening to reggaeton, drinking beer, and laughing about all that had happened that day... life doesn't get any better than that...

after taking a nap, we got ready and danced allllll night long.

the rest of the weekend proceeded the same way and honestly my abs still hurt from laughing so hard. it was absolutely incredible to experience the ecuadorian culture through people that were around my same age. no one was hostile towards each other due to our opposing upbringings, everyone was just there to enjoy themselves and make some memories. i can't even express how happy i was all weekend long because we were all so carefree and the boys and girls we were with were so welcoming and accepting of us even if we were from "los estados unidos." soo that's all for now. i've attached some pictures that my friends chelsey, who's conveniently a photographer. took on the trip...absolutely incredible. if you would like to see some more pictures, check my facebook page. hope all is well back en los estados. i miss you all very much :)

sneak peak of the best weekend of my life

hola amigos,

i've gotta go to school now, but just wanted to post a picture of the best weekend of my life. to make a long story short, 4 americans and 9 ecuadorians went on a weekend trip to Baños... absolutely incredible. i'll post details tonight! love you all :)