One more thing...

Oops! I forgot... Bit by bit I'm up loading my pictures on to Snapfish. If you would like access to them, let me know!

Blah...

Grrr... I think I'm getting sick. I've had a sore throat and just haven't felt well the last two days. And I just finished sucking on my last Hall's but I still have another class. I have to find something bigger than packs of 9. Last night Myriam made me a hot lemon drink with cinammon. That was good and did help my throat but by morning it was just as bad as before.

Anyways, this weekend was fun. On Friday, I finally got my censo, my temporary Ecuadorian citizen id card. Now I can get into national parks for a reduced rate and leave the country but only after I buy a Permiso del Salido (Permission to Leave, $4) and pay another $25 in the airport. These people know how to make money, the question is what happens to it.

Saturday, I worked on a paper at the apartment ofone of the girls in my Ecology class. It was fun to be in a "college" apartment again. We worked on it for about 3.5 hours. After that I read Frankenstein in Spanish for my Fem Lit class.

Sunday, I went to church with one of my friends. It was a really nice church we went to. Everything in English and very contemporary! We sang two of my favorite songs from camp and Chapel. After that Hannah and I went to the botanical gardens in Parque Carolina. Very beautiful, especially the orquids (is that how you spell it in English? I think I might by mixing Spanish and English). There was also a butterfly exhibit but with fewer butterflies than I hoped. We ate lunch at one of the really good (and expensive) gringo restaraunts in the Mariscal and then started shopping for a trip to the jungle for during our vacation next week.

Address!

People have been asking me what my address is, as in snail mail. So here it is:

Kristy Goodman UW-Madison
Programas Internacionales
Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Campus Cumbaya
PO Box 17-12-841
Quito, Ecuador, S.A.

Weekend at the beach

So this last Thursday I decided that I needed to run away to the beach instead of going on the andinismo trip. Here are the highlights or at least happenings...

Walking along the beach in las Crucitas and collecting pretty rocks and shells

Purple toilet paper at the hostel

Parasailing!!! (Yes! I went parasailing! It was a little scary at first but then super awesome.)

Delicious seafood! Mmmm fresh caught fish and patacones...

Walking on the beach and watching the sunset

Realizing that it was only Friday and that we were almost out of money Oops!

Waiting for a bus in Rocafuerte to Bahia - when it finally came, one of my friends was in the bathroom and pretty much the whole city figured out why we missed it

Seeing rural Ecuador on the coast - bamboo houses on stilts, shimp pools, people riding donkeys - way more character than Quito

Getting money from the ATM in Bahia (out of the way but necessary)

Arriving in Canoa, probably my favorite city in Ecuador (well at least one of many)

Meeting the Aussies at Hostel Bambu and playing pool with them

Finding out that Flaquito, the super skinny cat from last semester, was still alive

Watching Flaquito steal some of our bread and eat it

Playing in the waves

The sun finally coming out on Sunday morning

Getting tan!

Shopping for fun beach jewlery

Sad part: going home to lots of homework...

Nachos and Futbal

Before I left for Ecuador, some people were confused as to what kind of food I would be eating here. Just because they speak Spanish does not mean they eat Mexican food. I had a great illistration of this in my phonetics class today. We were supposed to find pair of words that were similar in pronounciation. One girl came up with Macho y Nacho. The professor said no, we couldn't use name brands and nacho is a name brand for a type of chips. We spent about 10 minutes trying to explain to her what nachos are and convince her that no it isn't just a brand name. She had never heard of nachos before as a food outside of the context of bags of chips. Obviously she's never been to a Mexican restaurant. Finally one girl came up with the example that there is a brand of milk here called leche (the Spanish word for milk) but not all milk is brand name leche. It was quite interesting.

The big talk around school now is the soccer game on Saturday. It's a World Cup qualifying game. Ecuador vs.Uraguay. If Ecuador wins, they'll go to the World Cup games in Germany in 2006. It's a huge deal here. Right now general admission tickets are (or were) selling for about $30, which is quite a bit of money here. (To give you an idea, Myriam was telling me this morning how expensive it is to go to a doctor, $35 for just seeing one) I don't think I'll actually go to the game mostly because I doubt I can still get a ticket now. Not to mention, I would need to go at about 8am to get a seat. The game starts at 4:00. Rumor is that they sell more tickets then seats, so if you don't get there early there might not be room. I think I'm just going to try to find a sport bar kind of place to go to with a bunch of friends. I'm really not sure if I'll be able to sit though a whole soccer game especially since I don't really know any of the rules beyond the basics. But I still want to buy a jersey.

My poor ignored blog...

Sorry, I've been really busy this last week and a half. I've had a test and two presentations plus I was gone all weekend. So a quick recap:

Last weekend, I stayed in Quito. On Friday and Saturday morning, I counted sparrows with my ecology class in Tumbaco and Puembo (smallish cities close to Quito) at 6am. Yes, it was about as fun as it sounds. But I did get know some of the Ecuadorian girls in my class better, so that was cool. On Saturday and Sunday, I went to the Historic Center with another gringa Hannah. On Saturday, we checked out the market in the park El Ejido and walked to the Mariscal for lunch at a delicious gringo restaurant. Then we walked to the Centro but caught in a rainstorm and took a cab the rest of the way. We went to the World Press Photo exhibit. Very interesting. After that we checked out some of the counterfeit products store and went home. On Sunday we went to the Basilica and ate pizza for lunch. Always a great treat!

Hmmm... I don't remember anything exceptionally exciting last week. Of course I haven't slept much lately either. If I think of something, I'll add it later.

This weekend (well two days ago) I went to Bellavista, a resortish place in a cloud forest, with the other Wisconsin folk and some MSU people too. It was our one field trip included with the program (ie we already paid for it). It was awesome! If anyone would like to give me $100 to go back there again, let me know. I'll send you pictures. There were hummingbirds all over. Really cool flora. There are these plants called epiphytes that grow on tree but don't harm them. It was crazy how big they can get. Sometimes there are so many of them on a tree, it starts to fall over from the weight. At night on Saturday, I went on a bug hunt with another bug lover from our group. So much fun! And crazy cool bugs too! One we named the butt fluff bug. (kind of gives you an idea what it looked like) On Sunday morning early before breakfast, I went on a bird watching hike. Incredible! Birds of every color of the rainbow and big too. After breakfast we hiked to a small but amazing waterfall. For lunch we went to a different resort and after that soaked in their hot tub. A great end to a awesome weekend!

Yesterday, I had a presentation about Magic Realism (a crazy topic) with two other gringas in one of my lit classes. We worked for hours and hours on it last week (hence the lack of sleep). We only had time to finish half of the presentation and will do the rest tomorrow in class. Today I had another presentation in my ecology class about a journal article about toads.

Nothing too exciting today. I got my Phonetics test back. I did really well on the part I thought I did bad on and not so hot on the part I thought I did well. Go figure. It averages out. Now I'm hearing thunder. Must be another one of those wonderful storms the rainy season is bringing. Yesterday's storm was so bad, the cable and internet at my house was knocked out.

Ok so now I'm babbling... Time to go. If you read this, send me an e-mail. My inboxes have been sadly empty lately.