It’s 9:00 AM on a Monday and I’m so tired and bored right now! My class schedule got completely switched around so I only have one class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-2:30. I am now taking Advanced Spanish, North and South: Process of Colonization, Advanced Conversation, Volcano Studies and Social Problems in Ecuador. Even though the times of my classes are a little weird, I’m pretty happy with them. Especially the volcano class because we get to go on a lot of field trips to the highlands, coast and rainforest.
To backtrack a bit, the last few days have been really fun. Last Thursday I went out with my host sister, Maritza, and her boyfriend to some of her favorite spots in the Mariscal. The Mariscal is the center of nightlife in Quito. There are always tons of people there and a lot of gringos. I went out Friday night as well with a bunch of other students from USFQ (including three students from Ecuador). That was a good time too because Ecuadorian boys don’t let the girls pay for anything! On Saturday, Julie, Angela and I participated in El Correr de Las Iglesias.
The race started at 7:00 PM and it was a struggle to get there because we had to walk from Julie’s house, to Angela’s house, to my house so I could change before we sprinted to the race and were still about fifteen minutes late. It worked out fine though because we decided to take a little short cut of about two kilometers and ended up running with the leaders in no time! The race was definitely the most exciting thing I’ve done here so far. There were over 4,000 runners, bands on every other block and fireworks going off from the finish line. Although we ended up speed walking the majority of the way because of the altitude, whenever we saw a big crowd of spectators approaching we would step up the pace so people would think we’d been doing that the entire way. There’s going to be a marathon and half marathon at the end of November so I’m thinking that if I start training now I might have a shot at it. After the race I went to a see Rush Hour III with Julie’s family at the mall and then crashed at around midnight.
All the pictures I’ve posted are from the tour of the historical district that the Oregon group took yesterday. It was so amazing to see what a beautiful city I’m now living in. The basilica was probably the coolest thing we toured all day. To get to the top we first had to climb an insane number of staircases and then three VERY steep ladders which creaked a little and at times had just enough space available for someone to slip through if they weren’t careful. Also at the basilica, some of us got the chance to see the tombs of three former presidents of Ecuador! Overall I’d say it was a good weekend, but I’m looking forward to getting out of Quito for a while. I guess that’s all for now cause I have to get ready to head out to la Universidad. ¡Hasta Lluego¡
P.S. I wrote this post yesterday and found out later in the day that there is a picture of me in the paper (El Comercio) from when I was at the Mariscal with my sister! I´ll take a picture of it and post it once I have it!
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