The 12 days near Christmas

On the first day near Christmas, my mother comes to town. I will see people off who I may never see again but hope to at some point during this crazy life.

On the second day near Christmas, I show her around Quito, meet my friends, spend lots of time together

On the third day near Christmas, more tours of Ecuador, and it’s Family Quiz Night. Last night all together SUPER BITTERSWEET

On the fourth day near Christmas, I LEAVE FOR THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. it’s only been my dream since i was 10 to go there. flight#3 of the 7 I’ll do in a week.

On the fifth day near Christmas, we spend time touring islands, snorkeling, getting tan, living the dream, looking at iguanas and blue footed boobies and finches and giant tortoises.

On the sixth day near Christmas, it’s my birthday! No longer will be a teenager. But I get to spend it at the Darwin Center being a nerd so it’s worth it. Get to see Lonesome George that day DREAM COME TRUE. hope he lives.

On the seventh day near Christmas, it is Christmas! Spent on Santa Cruz exploring and enjoying the warmth. But I have to say goodbye to Jeff that day. mehhhh.

On the eighth day near Christmas, return to Quito, flight # 4 of 7 for the week, say goodbye to my host family and spend my last night in Ecuador.

On the ninth day near Christmas, I GET TO GO HOME!!! not excited about flights 5-7 of the week when it’s high holiday travel. but that’s okay. I get to see snow and freeze my ass off and have a grand ol’ time.

On the tenth day near Christmas, I will go shopping and spend time with my family. Probably have Christmas celebrations. It will be splendid.

On the eleventh day near Christmas, more family time, breakfast club reunion.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, I will ponder the spelling of ‘twelfth’ and throw a baby shower for my sister because I’m SO EXCITED FOR HER BABY TO COME but have no idea how to throw a baby shower.

atypical like my life. busy. absolutely amazing. living the wavy life and the dream as my pal will would say.

One week left!

So much has happened in the past month or so. Finished up classes/still have to correct a project to "comply with the objectives" or something of the assignment and make it perfect. I guess I could be doing that right now but don't really want to. My grades are a lot better than I thought they would be- definitely a good feeling, but I still might get straight B's. Oh well.

My uncle Dave found out last week that he has pancreatic cancer, one of the worst kinds of cancer to treat, and it's spreading to his liver and to all his organs. He decided not to do chemo because it wouldn't buy him much time. So instead he's going to live his life to the fullest for about a month, travel to visit my aunt and uncle who live in the Florida Keys so he can enjoy himself for a month or so and then his body will attack itself and he'll be in too much pain to continue on so he'll have a few months of suffering. Basically he has 3-6 months to live. Such a weird thing. I've never had someone this close to me on the verge of death/die. It's especially weird just hearing about everything over skype or the phone and not actually being there. He's trying to be positive and just live as long as he can fight. Guess that's all anyone can do.

Last night was the last night of all my friends all together. We went out and got pizza at El Hornero- our favorite/the cheapest pizza for good reason, but it's a tradition. Then went to our favorite bar, Finn McCools for drinks, foosball, and just great company. Definitely bittersweet. But our favorite song came on at the end of the night to dance to- Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters so we just danced our hearts out, said our goodbye's/see you laters and left. Everyone is excited and ready to go home but we'll never be all together again. I'm one of the last to leave which is always strange. I haven't cried yet but my closest friends haven't left yet, well Jessie and Ben did but I know I'll see them. Valerie does tomorrow. Have to say goodbye to Meaghan on Wednesday and Jeff on Saturday. Jeff's going to be the hardest. Don't want to think about it.

But on a brighter note, my mom comes in tonight! We'll be touring Quito (what we're doing I have no clue) and then go to the Galapagos on Wednesday until Sunday and home on Monday. I'm so excited. I've wanted to visit the Galapagos since I was 10 or so. Dreams come true!

2 weeks left

Today marks my day with 2 weeks left in Ecuador. I cannot believe it. People are starting to leave and have already left, and I read their facebook status's about being home and it's so weird! The first month or so was really slow. Lots of new things. Lots of places to go. The language was overwhelming and everything was brand new. But once I got into the swing of things, everything has flown by. Especially the last month. I haven't done anything too substantial. No crazy journeys to the jungle, only one trip out of Quito to Otavalo for the 3rd time haha but other than that just lots of Quito time. I feel really comfortable here. I still am cautious when I know I have something valuable on me. I actually brought my laptop to school today to take an exam. But I've just learned that being street smart is just being aware of your surroundings, knowing what you have to lose, and keeping it safe. Blending in is the best way to do that, even though whenever we walk around, we always talk loudly in English which draws attention but we're normally fine.

I'm done with my semester! As of about 10 minutes ago I turned in my last paper and can fully enjoy the rest of my time here. Not that I didn't fully enjoy my time thus far, but I don't have any schoolwork left. Definitely the worst semester thus far as for my grades. Hopefully it doesn't matter too much, I think only one matters for grades for my GPA and the others will show up on my transcripts and hopefully won't matter too much. The learning I've done since I've been here has been amazing and I'm sure it'll reveal itself to me in the upcoming months and years. More about taht when I get home. I still have 2 weeks.

Plans for the next 2 weeks:
Leave tonight at 10pm for Montanita. The hippie beach.
Return Fridayish sometime.
Hang out with everyone on Saturday before most people leave Sunday
Mom comes Sunday night.
Monday hang out with Mom and my friend Jeff and his family
Tuesday do the same
Wednesday head for the Galapagos until Sunday!!!!!!!!
Monday the 27th head home.

I didn't think I'd be this ready to go home and this excited for Mom to come down. Thanksgiving was rough because all my family was together and I couldn't be there. So I'm incredibly glad she's going to be here. I've never ever spent a birthday or Christmas away from my mother. How many people can say that? Very few.

The next two weeks will be filled with all sorts of emotions. Excitement for Mom to come and to go back to the States. Sad to leave these wonderful people I've met from my friends to my host family. Scared and curious for the future. Pure joy to go to the Galapagos. Probably many more I'm forgetting. But I'm going to live it up!

Lady Guaguas and Fiestas de Quito

Tuesday night was quiz night. Our teams won 1st place (Lady GuaGuas) and 3rd place (The Pinchinchillas) so we had to have our prizes. 3rd place got a pitcher of beer to drink. 1st got $50 behind the bar to be used by Monday. So last night we went to use the 1st place prize, during happy hour. Lots of cuba libres were had. But this week is also Fiestas de Quito which are celebrations of the foundation of Quito as a city. We were told they were really dangerous. We just didn't expect them to be as dangerous as they got. Inside Finn McCools, we were fine. Had some creepers creeping but nothing out of the ordinary. We left at one point to go dancing at another bar. One girl from our group had gotten completely wasted so we took care of her, but there was a lot of other activity going on so there were NO cabs around. What other activity, may you ask? Well, we walked and saw a crowd of people, mostly police officers which didnt make sense. But there were 5ish people laying on the ground, hands on their heads, with masked gunmen pointing their guns at the people. I have never seen this in real life. It was scary. But we stayed and watched, I don't know if it was real or what was going on but it was mildly terrifying. Went back to Finns for safety, left, got home safe with a really nice cab driver. I get up this morning and see that two of my friends got mugged- like thrown on a wall as the robbers dug through their pockets for money.

I knew Quito was a dangerous city, but didn't really see things in real life until today. I just want to stay home now, or stay in super safe locations. Hopefully I can find these locations to stay.

December

Thanksgiving was last week and it was definitely an interesting day. Went to school, took a test. That day was also the International Day Against Violence of Women so my Gender and Society class had a day to recognize it. My group made these big cardboard cutouts of different shapes of people, painted them black, wrote different facts about violence like "8 out of 10 women in Ecuador experiences some sort of domestic violence at some point in their lives" and had a little slogan. They looked really cool. Had about 20 that we put around the campus. Another group did a little play. Others handed out flyers and information. We all handed out little purple lassos to everyone to wear. It was really cool. Then I went to my host aunt's house. She's originally from New Mexico but married an Ecuadorian and tries to teach her kids English and celebrate traditions. So she made a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed Potatoes. Corn. Cranberry sauce. Fresh apple cider. Pecan pie. Pumpkin pie. So delicious. It was nice to be able to celebrate, but wasn't the same as being with my family, doing our traditions of watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade (which I watched a bit of online!), then the dog show, eating together, picking at the turkey as it's being cut, scoping the ads for the best deals for black friday, etc. I talked to everyone, though, which was definitely nice.

Then I went to my friend Vale's house for another Thanksgiving feast- this time it was less than traditional. We opened bottles of wine and cranberry sauce cans with knives, had homemade mac n cheese, sweet potato casserole, avocado and grapefruit salad, cranberry sauce, pan de yuca, cookies and cake. It was definitely abnormal and what college students would do, but it was also nice to be all together, even though we lost in the finals of the South American Cup in soccer that night.

Sunday was the census day so we all were legally forced to stay in our houses from 7am-5pm as high schoolers would come around and have you fill out a form. My census girls came at about 4. The questions were necessary but semi-interesting. How many lights does your house have? How old are you? Where were you born? What is your race? (70ish percent of Ecuadorians say they're white... lies. They're mestizo which is a mixture between Spanish and indigenous.) So that was interesting.

Tuesday night was quiz night. It's every week at a bar called Finn McCools. There are 5 categories with 10 questions each, all are super random. My friends go almost every week. I've gone 3 times now. But we actually won it this week! We get $50 at the bar to spend before Monday so we're going to spend that tonight. Should be fantastic. I didn't really contribute, but it was still fun.

It's getting to be crunch time for school. Next week I have a dramatization, 2 tests, presentation, 3 papers due, and much more. I'm trying to be productive but it's difficult when I just want to sleep and get over this cold I'm getting. I'll go buy some coke and cold medicine and hope for the best.

Lately

Hm. I don't know what I've been doing lately. Haven't traveled outside of Quito since my class trip. I went to a soccer (futbol) game and it was absolutely insane. Fireworks. Toilet paper thrown on the field. Fire extinguishers. Every crazy thing you can imagine, people had it. It was the quarter finals for the south american cup. They won that game, won the next one. Onto the finals! Should be quite exciting. I don't know anything about the game but I'll probably go.

My Spanish has really improved lately. Everyone who I talk to says it's really strong and I'm good at grammar and pronunciation and all that jazz. That's why I came here, I guess, so it's good that I'm finally getting to that point to communicate. Of course, when people talk too fast or mumble or use words I don't know it's difficult, but I'm definitely learning a lot.

My friend Jessie turned 21 and her parents came down from the states for a week. They rented a Chiva (party bus) which took us all around the city. So much fun!

I've been helping out at a school in Lumbisi which is a small, poor country town. We have English lessons and then recess. I don't know if the kids are actually learning anything or just regurgitate what we tell them and immediately forget it. But it's very fulfilling to go sometimes. The kids are really nice, well some of them. There are 3 bullies that are almost kicked out of the program, but they're also the ones who really want to learn English. So we have a special class for them so they don't interrupt the main class.

I've been hitting the party scene in Quito more. I go to the same 5 bars, do the same things, but it's always different with different people.

Lately it rains every single day from about 2-10pm. Oh, the best part? I left my raincoat in a computer lab. Sucks. So much. I loved that raincoat. I bought an umbrella but it's not the same. Now I have to buy a new winter coat because that was the outside layer of mine. UGHHHHHHHHH.

My friends and I got all dressed up as various Harry Potter characters and went to see the 7th movie. I'll admit, I didn't read the book. But the movie was phenomenal. So sad. Jumpy. But really good. Even better when we dressed up and the boys in my group battled in front of the movie theater.

My mom is coming to Ecuador on December 19th and then from the 22nd-26th we're going to the Galapagos Islands! Christmas and birthday in the Galapagos? Cannot wait.

being abroad has made me learn so much about cultural differences and the world in general. grown up so much. but it also has made me miss things about the USA that i never though i'd miss. those things include:

- drinking fountains
- being able to go to a sink, stick a glass under and drink the water. not boil it. not waste lots of plastic bottles getting water.
- chinese food that doesn't make you sick
- thai food that doesn't make you sick
- food in general that doesn't make you sick
- Hershey's cookies'n'creme bars
- chocolate
- goldfish/cheezits
- my sister
- Halloween
- texting endlessly
- cell phone plans, not ones that run out every week
- phone with a keyboard and not my little nokia, even though it has snake
- weather that changes with seasons
- being productive

But don't get me wrong. There are definitely things I'll miss when I'm gone
- getting a full meal for $2
- traveling each and every weekend around the country
- improving my language and conversation skills
- warm weather
- the beach so close
- living in the mountains
- learning so rapidly about cultural differences
- buying bread for 20 cents regularly
- flowers everywhere


overall it's been a great experience thus far. some bumps along the way but that's to be expected. less than 2 months to live fully. let's do it.