August 31, 2011

And so starts the ecuadorian journal. We´ll see how I like these grids. Most of the notebooks here are like graph paper rather than regular lined paper. I guess I could have found a regular notebook but this is normal for Ecuador and Im trying to integrate right?

Well it´s Wed. Almost the weekend, kinda, lol. So yesterday I stayed at the office to skype with Dad, Ruth and Tracy. I hadn´t seen them since May (well minus Ruth)! I then went downtownto meet Sharon and Julie. We went to grab our stuff, which I thought would take like an hour max. Then we found out the public transit throughout all of Ecuador was going on strike the next day. Apparently roads were going to be shut down. Julie was supposed to leave for Chile today, Wed. BUt with the strike she wasn´t going ot be able to get out! She still had to wait on Eulalia to pick up stuff but the last buseta leaving that night was at 6.

What we figured out was that she would leave her keys with the lanlord and Eulalia could pick up her stuff when she could. I gave her hte money Eulalia owed her and Eualalia would pay me today. The lanlord was really nice and got this guy with a truck to drop us off with our stuff at our homes. I got a really nice teapot, broom, hangers, and gas tank. I dropped off the stuff and then headed to the restaurant to eat before going to the basketball game. The soup was really good and she gave me the perfect amount of rice. I was still super full so decided to walk it off instead of taking the bus to meet up with Kim.

Kim and I then took a taxi to the game. It was a "professional" game. I put that in quotes because it was by no means professional for U.S. standards, haha. Ambato was playing Quevedo. I had actually met 2 players from the Quevedo team one night in Quito so it was cool to see them play. One of the guys was actually really good. Everyone was really really tall. I met some omre people form Chino´s "group". Everyone is so nice. It´s really interesting how touchy the guys are with each other. Latinos are generally really touchy feely, for example the PDA that´s out of control, lol, but even between male friends they are way more affectionate than what guys would be in the states, lol. Chino´s dad gave me a ride home, so that was good.

TODAY
I woke up early to go to what I thought was going to be an aerobics class at the gym, but ended up being a dance workout class! It was pretty good. I wouldn´ve rather done aerobics because I dont know it didn´t feel like I got a good workout. It was pretty much the same thing as saturday night when we went out dancing, lol I then went to Sharon´s to finish up our site locator form. SUch a pain in the butt with all these maps they have us draw. But I got it finished and now I just need to find a place to Fax or scan/send it. We are supposed to be meeting another Julie (3rd yr. PCV) for lunch downtown then I´ll go into work this afternoon till the meeting tonight. It was realy nice having the morning off! I´ll have to do this more, lol.