...me voy.

sitting in the Miami airport, just beginning the 8 hour lay over- straight from the diablo. Time to do some processing...

things i will certainly miss about Quito:

• the people. of course my fellow semester abroaders, but also the Bible reading gang (Mika, Roberto, Jose Luis, Joe,David, Dan, the twins,... so many!), the host family- Lilli, Ivanhoe,Cris, Gabi, Melba, Mathias!!, and of course... the fine folks over at Christy's store and my beloved Cuban (of, what else, "the cuban store".) 
• the language. I love spanish. I love speaking it and I love hearing it being spoken. good thing i'm from Chicago. 
• the food. rice with aji, lots of avocado,cilantro and regrettably, mushrooms. Soup with bones! pancitos, cafe con leche... ugh, everything. 
• the smells. walking past Arenas Panderia every morning, the natural medicine cart, the pee on the walls... this semester was also an adventure for my nose. 
• the trolley, the bus. public transit in general. What a totally nutso part of Ecuador, but it certainly makes it what it is. 

things i can't wait to get home to:

• the people. mom and dad and all the friends at home make goodbye a little easier on the other side. 
• flushing toilet paper (just did that here in Miami. so weird.)
• certain foods. dr.pepper, rold gold tiny twists, taco bell, chik fil a, pickles, hummus, regular cucumbers. 
• driving my car, feeling like a grown up.
• knowing what to expect when i do things. shopping will be easier, traveling more familiar and greeting new acquaintances will be a breeze. 

Yep. so thats it. el fin. vaya bien, y'all. Cuidate, no?

the lastest addition to the kitchen wall. I will live on in infamy. ask for the story...

same old, same old but not in Same.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes.  A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.  And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.  ~Richard Bach

a few steps from our door

... and the goodbyes have started. The cornerstone folks and Caleb left this morning. Sharon leaves tonight, and I head out tomorrow. This is weird. But that's something for another day... 

We returned from the beach town of Same (pronounced sah-may) on Wednesday. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it was, well maybe you would- but i'm from Chicago. Ecuador's pacific coast provided us with great waves, only two jelly fish stingings, sunburns/tans, a great sand castle and lots of memories. We left on Saturday night (spending no more than 24 hours in the apartment after the jungle) and took an overnight (and then some) bus to Same. It was a nine hour bus ride, both ways.... and about as hellish as Ecua transport gets. At one point, we were moving at glacial pace, no A/C and listening to the infernal cries of a 3 year old anti-christ. perhaps that last part was a bit much.

our cabanas at Isla Del Sol

All that said, it was wonderful, relaxing, albeit bittersweet trip. We used the time at the beach to debreif from our  three month crazy bus experience, and just hang out with each other one last time. Did i mention that it was beautiful? It was. It put my sad beach experiences at Lake Michigan to shame. We stayed at cabanas called Islas Del Sol that were right on the beach... it was amazing. 

Barnabay's... yummm-o!

This next part may come as a suprise... but everyday we at shrimp for lunch. Amazing. We walked down the beach to a place called Barnabay's each afternoon... so good. Apparently, Bryan's been going there forever, and he certainly didn't steer us  wrong. Coconut shrimp, ceviche, fried shrimp, garlic shrimp and lime. Lots and lots of lime!... mmmmm. Even better, it was just a walk down the beach.- the whole experience was sans shoes. : ) 

The beach was such a great way to end a great semester. For my last full day here in Quito, I am booked up. I am going to La Mariscal with Alyse, Sharon and Chelsey for some last minute souvenirs, lunch and then meeting up with Jose Luis for the last time in the Centro Historico. I'm even hoping to check out a good friday mass in old quito at El Convento del San Francisco. I'm not wasting a minute. Of course, i'll probably post just one last update. 

the gals. Quito Semester 2011.

view from our room at sunset

jungle boogie

Misahualli, bustling commerce

Wow. Just got home from the jungle. What a wild week. I'm alive, which is also helpful. (fun language fact. The word for jungle in spanish is selva which also means wild. what a fitting word.) We did some construction and hosted a VBS in Pununo all week with an organization (http://www.itsaboutkids.org/home.html) based just outside Misahualli (i still don't know how to pronounce it) and on Thursday traveled down the Napo to Pasuno for a one day VBS. And it was beautiful. Beautiful like you wouldn't believe (well, maybe you would if you have been somewhere tropical) but probably the most exotic, enthralling place I've ever been.

a little monkeyin' around in misahualli

Misahualli looked a lot like other towns we had been to, a few streets with a central park. One fun aspect though- this central park was packed full of monkeys. I'm not kidding. Every morning at about 6:30 or 7 the monkeys come into town from the pier and hung out at the park. They steal food and anything they can get thier hands on. It was awesome. We even witnessed a dog vs. monkey fight over a piece of bread. During said fight, a monkey ran right up the side up of Alyse. again- awesome.

Napo from the air!

Of course, I didn't take enough pictures. Well, I didn't take any pictures- my camera broke the day we made ceviche (a little google image search actually does some justice.) Anyway. Misahualli is on the Napo river- a winding, brown mass of super seguro bridges, long canoes and little villages that I have no hope of pronouncing the name of. In short, it was beautiful. Like most of my favorite parts of Ecuador, I have no hope of describing it here. It was a mix of summers at poskin lake with some possible anacondas thrown in, and every adventurous, Indiana Jones type movie you've ever seen. Incredible.

Now onto the clima in the salva. Picture with me, a scorching hot afternoon in mid august in the second or third floor of a house in Chicago- A/C is out and Sears is out of fans. That sweaty, nasty uncomfortable is pretty much what the jungle feels like. Believe it or not. Well all that plus killer bugs. I wish their was photo documention of Alyse's legs. They swelled to the size of a woman at 9 months and were covered with bites from pinky toe to knee cap. Que linda!

And this is getting long... some high lights

• VBS. Had a great time meeting some great new kids, being in charge of crafts with Alyse and learning new spanish kids songs (like Caminamos en la Luz de Dios, Alabare, and Yo Tengo Gozo) 
• seeing the widest tree in the jungle. vines, crazy kids, it was like the Jungle Book. This tree was about as wide as half a foot ball field. I'm not kidding. You could see it popping out of the jungle from town. 
• getting to work with It's About Kids (http://www.itsaboutkids.org/home.html) Cool ministry, cool kids- generally cool. 
• watching my friends (namely Caleb) jump off bridges in town. I just couldn't muster up the courage for that one. 
• we made our own chocolate. It actually wasn't very good. But i also ate cacoa fruit during day while doing our construction stuff. wierd, right?

...some low lights

• It was hot. see above. swass.
• mixing concrete by hand, like its 1899. (Okay. that was actually kind of fun. for like a minute.) Good thing we brough Stacy, who's calling is to be a human concrete mixer. 
• bug bites
• leaving. 

**we're leaving for the beach here in t-minus one hour for our overnight bus ride to la costa. i am hitting the Estados in 7 days. That feels wierd. I refuse to say that out loud.**

basillica y liga otra vez!

True story: that window is huge.

crossing over the roof of the sanctuary 

The girls and I headed out to old Quito yesterday afternoon to climb up the huge, old basillica in the city. It's wierd, it's probably one of the younger churches in old Quito, built in 1809. It took over a 100 years to complete, to avoid paying taxes to the Vatican. All that work, and no too much to show for it. It's pretty amazing to look at from ground level, but its not so pretty once inside. We climbed up spires and towers and felt like Quasi Moto in the bell tower. It was great to view the city from that high up, not so great to see the years of graffiti layered on top of one another in every corner of the church. I need to do some more google research to get to the bottom of this Quito mystery.

View just before entering the basillica. 

It was one of the weirdest experiences of all time. The city basically opened up this huge basillica to become a tourist playground. After three sets of stairs there is a maze of sketchy ladders and rickety bridges to traverse this old, stone monolith. The ladders were probably the best, and most frightening part. Even better, watching viajitas climb down the ladders on their butts. It was quite the afternoon. Did I mention I felt like Quasi Moto? I may or may not have yelled up the dizzy-ing spiral staircase, "I'm here, Quasi- it's Esmerlda!"

While this looks like cool, ancient writing- it's actually years worth of graffiti. Ecuador's finest ladies and gentlemen. 

More fun to be had tonight as some of hit up the Liga game. It was Liga vs. Quito (I have no idea how to explain that one, Liga is also a Quito team...) at El Estadio. The game ended in a tie, with both teams having zero points. Bummer. Two high lights for the night- empanadas de morocho with ahi (yes, despite Cole's warnings of "eat street, die") and that we sat in the Muerte Blanco section. For more information on Muerte Blanco, please see previous Liga entry. : ) Chelsea Smith bough a CD of liga songs as well. What a night.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Mishualli, a jungle town about 7 hours ?!?! from Quito. Im sure they'll be quite the update to follow... 

It's been a week since I've updated...  because I'm trying to suck the life out of each moment here. Kind of like I've been sucking the oxygen out of the air all semester here at 10,000 feet.

This weekend was quite the mezcla. Saturday I hung out with the Williams' kids, a YouthWorld missionary family that lives in the jungle was in town for the weekend and Bryan volunteered to hang out with their kids for the day. Alyse, Sharon and I went with them to play laser tag at a mall a few blocks from our house. We had so much fun and the kids were great... espera, me cachaste (wait, did you get that?) I'd played laser tag here in Ecuador, in a mall. Weird things. We took kids that have grown up in the jungle to play laser tag and then we ate McDonalds. [insert feelings about western influence in Latin America here.]

Me and Ronald...just hanging out with our Ecua pals!

Sunday. I traveled south with Sharon to visit my friend, Jose Luis's church. He preached at the early service (8 freaking thirty) and then invited us back to his house for lunch. We had an amazing time with lots of bicultural and bilingual laughs. I love Latin culture in that way, even though there is a bit of a language barrier in some moments- the people here are so forgiving. Jose laughs off my terrible language faux pas and I correct his English pronunciation. It's perfect.  We talked about cultural stuff and laughed some more about that, too. Here, in the Ecuadorian Christian community, it's pretty trashy for girls to have tattoos or piercings. ( Oye! I have two tattoos and a nose piercing...!) It was funny that Jose told me, "well it's fine because you're a gringa." I'm beginning to love these Ecuadorian friendships I'm forming and the cultural interactions I get to have. When Ecua meets USA inevitably laughter ensues. Basically, "I'm lovin' it," but not in the way of McDonalds in Quito, even if they label me an aninada (spoiled brat), but that's another story.

Wednesday this week I hung out at the dump with the Chelsea(y)s. Chelsea has been interning there and showing off her cutesy kid spanish all semester, I needed to check it out. Chelsea's job at the dump is helping with the day care run for the children of parents who work at the city dump. Some are scavengers for metals and plastics and others are employed by the city. In my non-biased opinion, all of their kids are cute. Even that 10 month old baby girl who did nothing but cry for two hours straight with a green poopy diaper that soaked through her pants and went up her back, yep- her too. We had a great day.We colored, practiced writing big As and Bs and little as and bs. We even sang a song to learn colors in english and spanish (sung to the tune of farrah jacques!) Needless to say, had no one been looking when I left- I might have tried to take a kid home with me. : )

Ceviche with Mario

Today we made ceviche with Mario, our spanish professor. For those who haven't experienced this latin delight, its a cold soup made of orange and lime juice with tons of cilantro, chopped onions and tomatoes. Our ceviche had shrimp, but in South America there are lots of varieties, some with fish, mixes of sea food or some with clams. I'm glad we played and safe with the shrimp. To a North American palet, ceviche certianly sounds gross- but it was great. Enjoy it will all the Ecua fixins', it'll be reminiscent of the first time you had Chik-fil-a (ok not that good, but close.) The Ecua fixin's are congil (popcorn), tostadas (big unpopped popcorn kernals) and home made chifles (fried plantain chips). You put the popcorn in the soup, and munch on the other two on the side. I know it sounds bizarre, but it really was great.
...oh yeah. I wish i had pictures of our Ecua creation... BUT. we dropped my camera half way into ceviche prep. Thankfully there's a thriving black market here in Quito, full of stolen tecnologia.

We're leaving for the jungle on Sunday. I've got a feeling there will be quite the update when I get back...

the land of no instant pudding

...and i'll continue to be whoever i am, in whatever country i live in.
Case in point:
1.yesterday.
2. today.

"dirt." 

Yesterday I tried to bring a little bit of home to Ecuador."Dirt" and "Sand" for dessert. Dirt being that precariously combined oreo and pudding concoction that never quite tastes as good as it did when you were six and someone's mom made it at their birthday party. Sand being its counterpart, comprised of vanilla pudding, bananas and graham crackers. Apparently, Ecudorians aren't as wild about getting in touch with the tierra, as I couldn't find any pudding at the grocery store- instant or otherwise. In my infinate wisdom, and being dead set on providing my pals with said dirt and sand- i decided to make pudding from scratch.

"sand."

diastre. disaster. hot mess. big mistake. Whatever you call it, it didn't go well. The vanilla pudding didn't set at all, it smelled like a barn yard and Chelsey compared it to baby food all afternoon. On the other hand, the chocolate pudding was pretty good and I referred to my self as a pioneer woman because of my pudding skills. I'm not sure that pudding was a prime chow choice for pioneer dwellers- but we'll call it poetic license. All that being said, both pudding projects were redeemed by the liberal usage of Ecua gummies on top. Usually, this dirt business is accompied by gummy worms- here they have gummy osos. It is what it is. We fashioned a beach scene on top of the sand, complete with banana surf boards and gummy beach balls. My only regret? No photo documentation, TG for google. Now there can be no doubt I'm not the only freak who makes sweets to look like nature.

Today. Skipped class, tried to register for classes. Had an amazing Ecua- afternoon. A new friend from Juan Valdez (Latin America's answer to Starbucks) asked me to help him practice his English this afternoon. Claro que si. We talked alot about culture, language and how my accent makes me laugh. Also- he told me he can't tell the difference between British English speakers and North American English speakers. Interesting, no? Tonight, theres been a fair amount of procrastinating and listening to all the great play lists i find on 8tracks.com.

Somethings don't change- i love desserts, and i hate homework.

Other news. I went out to CoffeeTree (misleading name, it's a glorified bar.) with Alyse and Caleb on Tuesday night, we had a great time catching up, enjoying totally Ecua (read: non existant and totally foreign here) customer service and getting really decent (sometimes english deserves italics too.)  taxis, both to and fro. On the way, the guy wanted almost double the usual price, which we skillfully argued down. The man on the way home should have been breathalysed, as i'm sure he was barracho.

This weekend should be great- tomorrow going out with the girls to Cafe Mosaico to see some great views of the city and Sunday checking out a friends church to hear him speak and hang out with his family. Any suggestions for next weekend? Its my last free weekend here! (the last two weeks i'll be in the Jungle and at the coast.)

What a long post to say nothing. Life is exceedingy wonderful here in Quito and thinking about leaving makes me beyond sad.

some old stuff and the mountain that severely bruised my ego.

The last week has gone by really quickly. We had a week intensive Worldview course that kept us pretty busy and gave us tons and tons of homework. With the end of all that nonsense- it's turning out to be a rather eventful weekend. 

I posted a bunch of pictures of facebook today, so check those out for maximum creeping. I've been busy busy! Yesterday our Culture class headed to the centro historico to check out the presidents house and a few churches. Awesome. The churches are so beautiful and there are so many close together. The president's house or Palacio de Carondelet was lack luster- the "tour" was a shuffle through three rooms used for meetings and public appearances. Highlight of the Palacio was the guards outside- excellent get ups and stoic expressions.  Obvious tom foolery ensued.  

After Palacio de Carondelet we visited a church built by the Augustinians that I can't remember the name of, and the Compania de Jesus church as well. Lots of pan de oro and old stuff. Breathtaking, but I didn't take any pictures inside. Respect and all, you know.  This is a view of the Augustinian church, walking up to the church from the street- dead on it's just as beautiful.  

As if all that sight seeing wasn't enough we had dinner as a class up on the rooftop of a restaurant a few blocks from Compania de Jesus. The views were spectacular and the cafe con leche and empanadas de morocho eran muy rico! Basically, I love being surrounded by mountains chowing down on Ecua delights with some of the best company Quito has to offer (that's you semester abroad!)

Sounds like a full day, but I'm like Ke$ha and for night- I went hard. Sharon and I had been invited out to La Ronda with some friends for dancing and silliness. Well, a huge group of us went- Ecuadorians and Americans and had a great night. We started out at La Ronda with more empanadas (i'm telling you it's all about those little yellow bags and the woman selling them- less teeth the better) and some mora canelazo and then we all went to la mariscal. After our 10 minute taxi from La Ronda we met back up and found a small, dark, sweaty salsa/regaeton club. Holy freaking fun night. The place was packed like the trolle, only this time the "grind on me" was intentional. It was a half gringo crowd and i'm pretty sure I couldn't have looked any more foolish- but I had a ton of fun. Mika, an Ecua friend showed us some of her moves and laughed with us when we started to look like idiots. We danced our little cans off and then headed home, calling it an early night because this morning we climbed PINCHINCHA. The mountain that borders the city to the west. 

I should clarify... "we climbed" is misleading. I made it all of 30 minutes at 1400 ft. before I realized by little piernas and pulmones would not make it another 5000 feet up. Let me back track. We all took the Teleferico a little more than half way up the mountain, basically a ski lift that gives you some spectacular views of the entire city as you go up the mountain. From the end of the Teleferico its about a four hour hike to get to the top-i'm not sure why, but apparently people enjoy that type of thing... 

Defeat, 14,000 feet.

Not to worry though, as an act of solidarity I did got for a run after I ate lunch. 15 minutes at 10,000- I'm feeling the burn.