Hello hello!!
My Quito email this week is going to be a bit un-adventurous sounding, as there hasn´t been too much going on lately. Don´t worry though, my adventure planning has definitely begun, so I just have to wait till the end of the week and it will all start! Aaahhh!
The weather here is just about perfect (although I do still crave snow sometimes, it´s good to be a true Wisconsinite). The mornings and nights are cooler, usually around 50 degrees or so, and during the middle of the day it is usually about 70 to 80 degrees. The sun here is insane (considering I´m so high up). I got burnt the other day from walking from the University to the bus and then from the bus to my house (which is not any longer than a 6 block walk). I guess it doesn't help that I have sensitive skin to start with. It usually rains in the late afternoon early evening for an hour or two. It´s really cool to see the rain clouds rolling off of the mountains all around you.
This weekend was a ton of fun... On Friday night I went out dancing with some friends to a bar called MAD that the group I hang out with likes to claim during the weekends. It is free to get in (for girls at least, heh heh heh), and it´s usually extremely easy to find a local who wants to buy you water or a drink in exchange for a dance (what a deal, huh... learn how to salsa or merengue or rumba (or whatever other kinds of dances they have here) and get a free drink). Of course, for all of you who are worried about me being an ignorant American girl, I watch the drinks to make sure they don´t try to pull anything stupid =) So going out in Ecuador has been super cheap so far, the only thing you really have to pay for is a cab, which is usually about 5 dollars for the entire night. Not a bad deal, in my opinion!!
The next day I didn't do too much, I walked around Carolina Park for a bit, which is a gigantic park near my house. I also went out again on Saturday night with my host sister (who is 20), my host brother (who is late 20s), and a couple of their cousins. I had a fantastic time. It was nice being with Ecuadorians for a change who knew what they were doing and who I could trust, so I could let down my guard a bit. My host brother gave me a night long salsa lesson, and it was amazing.
Sunday I went to a lunch with my family. It was very nice, and the food was sooo delicious. Ecuadorian meals always start out with this soup that tastes like it´s just a chicken-based broth. You are served just a bowl of broth, and then you add potatoes, cilantro, green onions, and sometimes chicken or guacamole yourself. After the soup, you get a huuuuge plate of meat (usually chicken, but sometimes beef, sometimes fish), rice, beans, and some kind of salad. Ice cream is a very common dessert (some of it tastes very different here), as are quimbolos, which are pastries made of flour, butter, sugar, and a couple of really big raisins that are placed in the bottom of each pastry. They taste kind of like a pancakes, but the batter is rolled up in big leaves of some sort, which give the pastries a special taste (supposedly). It´s nice that my family almost always has a big bowl of quimbolos in the fridge that I can warm up in the microwave whenever I want =) Well anyway, Sunday night, I´m sure many of you will be happy to hear (possibly impressed to hear) that I watched part of the Packer game. It was in a bar near my house, so I figured I should at least go to see part of it, so I stayed until halftime, and then decided that I should do some homework (yay).
Well, this is pretty much all that´s been happening lately with me. Everything has been running very smoothly except for an allergic reaction that I think I´m having from my Malaria medication, so it´s a bit irritating that I´ll probably have to go to a doctor to get a prescription for something else, but I guess stuff like that will happen.
I´m super excited for this coming weekend, as (I´m fairly certain) that I´ll be going to a town called Otaválo for a couple days (I'll go Friday afternoon and stay over night in a hostel), which is about a 2 hour bus ride from Quito. Otaválo is very well known for its Saturday morning flea market, and I think there are other cool things and cities around Otaválo that I´m sure I´ll check out. Also, my first volcanology trip is this Sunday!! My teacher didn´t tell us too many details about the trip, but apparently we´ll be going to this town called Papallacta, or some town that starts with a P at least. We´ll be leaving at like 3 in the morning (uhhhh) and we´ll be getting really filthy playing in mud and in a hot springs!! I can´t wait! Hopefully I´ll have lots of opportunities to take out my camera during the excursion.
Well that´s all I have for an update this week, as always, I´d love to hear back from all of you!! Hope the weather is getting better in WI =S
Abrazos,
Jenna
