Siguiente parada....Naciones Unidas.

Hello, everyone!! I hope you are all doing well. It’s sort of unbelievable that I’ll be home in a little over THREE WEEKS! Time is flying….a little too quickly, I think. I’ve been spending my weekends in Quito studying and working as the semester winds down and the work load picks up. Luckily, I'm done with the behemoth workshop (12 page writeup and one hour presentation, both in Spanish) on homosexuality and discrimination that I had to develop and present. It went really well but there definitely seems to be a trend here to save the majority of assignments for the last month. I’ve been living in libraries and cafes with free WIFI. I think it might be a good thing though because it will make it easier for me to leave. I’ll probably be ready for a break by the time May 22^nd rolls around. And because I’m spending more time in the city, it’s starting to feel a lot more like home. Quito has definitely grown on me.

It’s just hard to imagine that in three weeks, I’ll be leaving Ecuador, possibly forever. It’s really sad. Ecuador, and the people I've met here, have changed my life and I can see that even before this experience is over! Being separated from the life I put together for myself has made it a lot easier to reflect on it. The beautiful thing is: this experience has been extremely reaffirming. It’s like seeing my life through a new set of eyes…and liking what I see! On the one hand I’m ecstatic to jump back into my life with this newfound clarity but on the other hand, I don’t want to risk losing this perspective that I’ve gained. I definitely have mixed feelings about leaving Ecuador.

Luckily, I still have time here. Unfortunately, I’ll be spending a lot of it on my laptop typing papers and planning projects. I have been, however, making a point to carry my camera around as I stay here in Quito so I have some photos of my home, host-family, and Quiteño adventures to share. Seeing as I spend most of my time here in the city, I know I am way overdue for a Quito- themed blog post. I may not be jumping off of bridges everyday but it’s definitely a wonderful life! Enjoy.

Chronicles of the Quito version of adventuring: girlfriends, dresses, and dancing!

After a few requests for photos of my host family...here they are! Marcela is on the right and Rebe is on the left. They are both fantastic and are really good at making me feel at home here.

Jose y Daniela. I seriously love these guys. They are a lot of fun and oftentimes I find myself laughing through entire dinners when they are over. No photos of Carola yet, she wasn't around when I took these.

Emily, Carley, and I in Plaza Foch for Jenny's birthday party. Tapas!

Taking a breather (AKA taking a photograph).

"Too cool" (to make peace signs in photos).

My room...with my new bed. My old bed was so concaved in the middle, it seriously felt like I was sleeping in a bowl. It was better than a lot of other sleeping arrangements I've had, but the new bed is definitely better than the bowl bed.

Formal dining room. I like this photo because Marcela painted all three of the paintings shown here. She's really, really good.

The Caspicara sculpture that Marcela smuggled out of Museo Banco Central in her sweater. See the Factoids section of the Fuya Fuya blog post.

Lock(s) on the back door. There's a sixth component at the bottom, near the floor. This house is serious about security.

Marcela has set this out every Saturday and Sunday that she has lived in this house, well over a decade. She picks the flowers from the garden out back.

PUCE's courtyard. There aren't any students in this photo because I was too embarrassed to take this on a week day.

PUCE, or at least the part I use. Psychology in Tower 1 on the right and Art in Tower 2 on the left.

Contrary to popular opinion, I do study here! Photographic proof. Ahem...Dad!

Ecovia. My stop, Naciones Unidas (hence the title). There are probably about 200 people crammed into that bus. We are packed so tightly sometimes that I could be holding on to nothing as the bus screeches to a halt and not even stumble.

View from my bedroom window. That is the famed Pichincha (behind the power lines).

Awkward table suspended from the ceiling. Cool restaurant though. We could draw in the menus but I can't draw, so I just left one of my favorite quotes.

Concert in Plaza Foch, Mariscal. Somewhere in that crowd of people is a man dressed, head to toe, in metallic gold.

Market in Plaza Foch.

At Amber's house making brownies and I got excited because we got to use the alternative "high altitude" recipe. Less vegetable oil. Excitement!

Please appreciate this photo. Yes, that is a lawn mower strapped to a bicycle.

And now for the next edition of....

FACTOIDS!

• Running in the park a few days ago, I came across one of the twelve women in Quito with blonde hair (actual blonde hair. Ecuadorians tend to think I'm blonde. False). Anyways, this Gringa had a pretty awesome fanny pack, complete with cup holders. In the first cup holder, a bottle of water. In the second, a bottle of vodka. Represent.
• I went to the vivarium a few weeks ago and saw a shockingly huge frog; it was about 9 inches tall. But there wasn’t much info about it provided, so I googled “giant frog” and about the only things that came up were “Devil frog,” “frog from Hell,” and a Wikipedia stub about a frog from Dungeons and Dragons.
• On my bed, I have SEVEN blankets, not including the sheets. I’m convinced that instead of putting the spare bedding in a linen closet, they just put it all on my bed. Not complaining. LOVE it.
• I need four different keys to get into the house. Marcela color-coded them for me.
• My Biodiversity professor, Hugo, used to be jogging buddies with Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, back when Correa was an Econ professor at USFQ. Correa also used to teach Economics with my study program. Earlier in the semester, there was some confusion with an outdated syllabus. But we soon realized that, no, the EcuaPres is not making any regular appearances at IES.
• EcuaPolice are not investigators. When a car accident is reported, EVERYONE involved is taken to jail and stays there for up to three weeks until lawyers can sort everything out. Needless to say, accident victims rarely report incidents to the police.
• Recently I got a text message from an unknown sender that began "Eres uno de los elegidos..." (Translation: "You are one of the chosen.")
• In my Psychology of Sexuality class at PUCE, the professor was using a poorly translated English source, which included some words that had not been translated at all. As a result, I was asked to please explain, for the entire class, the significance of the English terms “petting” and “necking.” I'm really coming to love that class.

So that’s it for now. I've put this off long enough but I was motivated to get going since I have an adventure planned for tomorrow and I didn't want to get backed up. So you'll probably hear from me again soon. I am climbing (part of) Cotopaxi in the morning, or at least I hope I am. I have a cold so breathing might be an issue. Seeing as respiration is a pretty essential life process, I'm going to play it by ear. Until then, Peace!

PS I would just like to add that, moments after posting this, Marcela brought me hot tea to my room for my cough because she knows that I'm climbing a ridiculously cold (by Ecua standards) mountain tomorrow. She is pretty much wonderful.