domingo, 30 de marzo de 2008
oops
so i meant to go back and fill in that blank about karaoke songs before i finished but, of course, forgot! ha The third ridiculous american song we did was Gangster's Paradise!
a slew of activities
so i have to make a correction. the week of pre-vacation/skipping school was the 2nd through the 9th. i was so confused when looking at what i needed to update yall on, so i'm pretty much just saying this for myself. great. thanks.
ok so a few weekends ago was relaxing and so great! i actually did not travel for the whole weekend.. it's been a while since that has happened.
On Friday, me and 4 friends decided we would try some random bars on Eloy Alfaro instead of going to the Mariscal where we typically go to dance or do whatever (all of the gringos go there and it's always hoppin haha). We ended up going to this karaoke bar and it was soo small, like the size of my mom's room here and it was completely full except for 5 seats at the bar, lucky for us. We listened and sang for a bit with the people that were already doing karaoke, and then we decided that we would treat the crowd to some gringo singing. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) , Don't Wanna Close My Eyes (Aerosmith) , and ___ ! It was ridiculous, and even some of the Ecuadorians were singing along! Then, Taylor and I decided that we weren't tired yet and wanted to go dancing so we went to a discoteca called Bungalow and after dancing with a few creepers found a fun random group to dance with until about 2:45 or so. It was glorious because it's been too long since I had last danced.
Saturday, my friends Taylor, Jen, Colleen, and I went to a zoo in a town about 45 minutes from Quito called Guayllabamba. This was only the 2nd time I had been to a zoo in my life and I was so excited!! (first one being when i was like 8 and pissed off.. or for what i can tell from the pictures!) So we saw a bunch of crazy awesome animals, including lions and tigers and bears, oh my! and some monkeys and the biggest turtles I have ever seen and probably will ever see in my life time! I got lazy that night and decided not to go out so I watched like 8 episodes of friends and ate in bed! it was fabulous.
Sunday, about 7 friends and I went to eat breakfast at this cute place in the Mariscal called the Magic Bean, and I had some delicious french toast and yummy batido! After, 4 of those friends and I went to the LIGA/Quito Deportivo soccer game, which is big because both teams are from Quito so there were SO many people there. We all bought jerseys to wear and support LIGA and they were only $5! For the first half of the game, we could see pretty much nothing of the game because there were so many people, we couldn't even squeeze down into the bottom of the stands, so we watched from the top of Sur Baja (where the crazy fans, "muerte blanca", sit) and since I'm only 5'2 1/2", that didn't work out so well for me! At halftime, we squeezed down to the bottom of the stands and stood happily while cheering with Muerte Blanca the rest of the game and LIGA won! (1-0).
That night I went with my brother Diego, sister Cris, and my mom to my oldest brother, Milton's apartment (married with a baby!) to have tea/coffee and cake. So since I don't like tea or coffee, but didn't want to have to ask for water and be a loser, I actually tried hot tea! Diego told me that if I put lemon juice and sugar in it it's not that horrible, so I did, and he was soo right! It was delicious. Pretty proud of that. Then, we all went to the airport to pick up my brother Pablo who had been gone for 2 weeks traveling in Chile and Argentina with a friend since he was on break from school. I was so tired when we were there, but we all decided to eat a 2nd dinner when we got back at like 11 pm, so I couldn't pass that up!
Overall, very lovely weekend, but very tiring!
ok so a few weekends ago was relaxing and so great! i actually did not travel for the whole weekend.. it's been a while since that has happened.
On Friday, me and 4 friends decided we would try some random bars on Eloy Alfaro instead of going to the Mariscal where we typically go to dance or do whatever (all of the gringos go there and it's always hoppin haha). We ended up going to this karaoke bar and it was soo small, like the size of my mom's room here and it was completely full except for 5 seats at the bar, lucky for us. We listened and sang for a bit with the people that were already doing karaoke, and then we decided that we would treat the crowd to some gringo singing. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) , Don't Wanna Close My Eyes (Aerosmith) , and ___ ! It was ridiculous, and even some of the Ecuadorians were singing along! Then, Taylor and I decided that we weren't tired yet and wanted to go dancing so we went to a discoteca called Bungalow and after dancing with a few creepers found a fun random group to dance with until about 2:45 or so. It was glorious because it's been too long since I had last danced.
Saturday, my friends Taylor, Jen, Colleen, and I went to a zoo in a town about 45 minutes from Quito called Guayllabamba. This was only the 2nd time I had been to a zoo in my life and I was so excited!! (first one being when i was like 8 and pissed off.. or for what i can tell from the pictures!) So we saw a bunch of crazy awesome animals, including lions and tigers and bears, oh my! and some monkeys and the biggest turtles I have ever seen and probably will ever see in my life time! I got lazy that night and decided not to go out so I watched like 8 episodes of friends and ate in bed! it was fabulous.
Sunday, about 7 friends and I went to eat breakfast at this cute place in the Mariscal called the Magic Bean, and I had some delicious french toast and yummy batido! After, 4 of those friends and I went to the LIGA/Quito Deportivo soccer game, which is big because both teams are from Quito so there were SO many people there. We all bought jerseys to wear and support LIGA and they were only $5! For the first half of the game, we could see pretty much nothing of the game because there were so many people, we couldn't even squeeze down into the bottom of the stands, so we watched from the top of Sur Baja (where the crazy fans, "muerte blanca", sit) and since I'm only 5'2 1/2", that didn't work out so well for me! At halftime, we squeezed down to the bottom of the stands and stood happily while cheering with Muerte Blanca the rest of the game and LIGA won! (1-0).
That night I went with my brother Diego, sister Cris, and my mom to my oldest brother, Milton's apartment (married with a baby!) to have tea/coffee and cake. So since I don't like tea or coffee, but didn't want to have to ask for water and be a loser, I actually tried hot tea! Diego told me that if I put lemon juice and sugar in it it's not that horrible, so I did, and he was soo right! It was delicious. Pretty proud of that. Then, we all went to the airport to pick up my brother Pablo who had been gone for 2 weeks traveling in Chile and Argentina with a friend since he was on break from school. I was so tired when we were there, but we all decided to eat a 2nd dinner when we got back at like 11 pm, so I couldn't pass that up!
Overall, very lovely weekend, but very tiring!
viernes, 14 de marzo de 2008
bad student
So last week was amazing.. kind of like a 1st spring break since we have our actual one coming up starting next thursday.
Sunday, the 9th, I left for another trip to Banos. I went with Ryan and his 3 friends, Van, Jordan, and Jacob, that came from VTech to visit for their spring break. We were only in Banos from Sunday until Monday, but it was awesome. So when we got there, we spent what seemed like an hour to find a hostal even though there are like 80 million of them there! We ran into my friend Danny, who is also our travel agent for the Galapagos trip, and he told us a good one to stay at so we went there and it was only $5.50 for each of us and we stayed in a room with 4 bunk beds! The things that happened in there were hilarious, including Ryan pushing Jacob's bed off of the platform with his feet from underneath and Jacob almost falling off.. the most hilarious thing was them trying to get it back in place.
After we got settled in to our hostal, we went for lunch at a restaurant called Explosion or something (which is appropriate because we were in the town next to the exploding volcano), and had a very delicious typical Ecuadorian meal (some kind of meat, rice, "salad", a dessert, and a juice). Then we went to this place called GeoTours cause we knew they were reliable and we went repelling down waterfalls! (2 30-footers and a 150-footer!) It was super fun and kinda nerve-racking. That night we went to the natural hot springs that was like a 2 minute walk from our hostal and there were 2 or 3 springs that each had sooo many people in them! It was a rule that you had to have a bathing suit on, but a group of guys that were right next to our little circle decided that they would take theirs off underwater and hang them in the air.. that's when we decided it was time to go! On Monday we went white water rafting on a level 3 and it was soo much fun and my first time ever doing it! (and only cost $30, including all the gear, the guides, and a meal afterward)
We got back on Monday night, I went to one out of two classes on Tuesday, had bible study, went to Finn's, and peaced out on a night bus to go to the beach! We went to a town called Atacames and were there from Wednesday morning (arrived at 6am) until Friday. Van was sick the entire bus trip on the way there and Ryan got sick on Thursday night.. miserable! We had pretty good weather and met the cutest kids that hung out with us every day and at the end made us copper bracelets from a spool of wire one had in his pocket so I gave him a dollar so that he could get some food. We also met up with our friend Melanie and her friend that came to be with her for his spring break as well (All 6 of them went to VTech!).
On Friday, my friends Taylor and Mark came to Atacames on a whim, so I decided to stay with them at the beach for the rest of the weekend! Ryan, Mel, and their friends left. We went to this beach called Same and I bet there were like 100 people there in total.. so small! It was nice to be at a beach that didn't have so much going on, but I really did like Atacames as well. There are only like 4 "restaurants" in the town and we gave everyone of them business, and the 3 little tiendas as well. We also, on Saturday went to this beach right next to Same called Casa Blanca, which pretty much only consists of a million condos that are painted white and cost about $1000 a night to stay in! It's private property, but we decided to do a little exploring and ended up swimming in one of the pools, but when we tried to swim in another one, some guy came and asked us what family we were with so we played the american card and asked him if he spoke English haha. So we had to peace out of there.
We went back to Atacames on Sunday at like 1 and tried to get a bus ticket for 3:30 in the afternoon, but the bus was full! We couldn't take a bus back to Quito until 11 pm! Not too bad having to be stuck at the beach for 9 more hours.. I had the largest, most yummy batido, took a nap on the beach, swam a lot, took a walk down the beach, had a yummy dinner, and played some cards! ha So we left for Quito and got back at 5:30 am, which was 30 minutes shorter than planned!
What a great week and I'm tan again! woo! Unfortunately we had to come back to rainy, cold weather, but that's Quito for ya in rainy season. I got home, took a shower, took an hour and 1/2 nap, and went to school! Amazingly was not tired at all and haven't been since! Talk about relaxing and napping at the beach.. I guess I caught up!
Sunday, the 9th, I left for another trip to Banos. I went with Ryan and his 3 friends, Van, Jordan, and Jacob, that came from VTech to visit for their spring break. We were only in Banos from Sunday until Monday, but it was awesome. So when we got there, we spent what seemed like an hour to find a hostal even though there are like 80 million of them there! We ran into my friend Danny, who is also our travel agent for the Galapagos trip, and he told us a good one to stay at so we went there and it was only $5.50 for each of us and we stayed in a room with 4 bunk beds! The things that happened in there were hilarious, including Ryan pushing Jacob's bed off of the platform with his feet from underneath and Jacob almost falling off.. the most hilarious thing was them trying to get it back in place.
After we got settled in to our hostal, we went for lunch at a restaurant called Explosion or something (which is appropriate because we were in the town next to the exploding volcano), and had a very delicious typical Ecuadorian meal (some kind of meat, rice, "salad", a dessert, and a juice). Then we went to this place called GeoTours cause we knew they were reliable and we went repelling down waterfalls! (2 30-footers and a 150-footer!) It was super fun and kinda nerve-racking. That night we went to the natural hot springs that was like a 2 minute walk from our hostal and there were 2 or 3 springs that each had sooo many people in them! It was a rule that you had to have a bathing suit on, but a group of guys that were right next to our little circle decided that they would take theirs off underwater and hang them in the air.. that's when we decided it was time to go! On Monday we went white water rafting on a level 3 and it was soo much fun and my first time ever doing it! (and only cost $30, including all the gear, the guides, and a meal afterward)
We got back on Monday night, I went to one out of two classes on Tuesday, had bible study, went to Finn's, and peaced out on a night bus to go to the beach! We went to a town called Atacames and were there from Wednesday morning (arrived at 6am) until Friday. Van was sick the entire bus trip on the way there and Ryan got sick on Thursday night.. miserable! We had pretty good weather and met the cutest kids that hung out with us every day and at the end made us copper bracelets from a spool of wire one had in his pocket so I gave him a dollar so that he could get some food. We also met up with our friend Melanie and her friend that came to be with her for his spring break as well (All 6 of them went to VTech!).
On Friday, my friends Taylor and Mark came to Atacames on a whim, so I decided to stay with them at the beach for the rest of the weekend! Ryan, Mel, and their friends left. We went to this beach called Same and I bet there were like 100 people there in total.. so small! It was nice to be at a beach that didn't have so much going on, but I really did like Atacames as well. There are only like 4 "restaurants" in the town and we gave everyone of them business, and the 3 little tiendas as well. We also, on Saturday went to this beach right next to Same called Casa Blanca, which pretty much only consists of a million condos that are painted white and cost about $1000 a night to stay in! It's private property, but we decided to do a little exploring and ended up swimming in one of the pools, but when we tried to swim in another one, some guy came and asked us what family we were with so we played the american card and asked him if he spoke English haha. So we had to peace out of there.
We went back to Atacames on Sunday at like 1 and tried to get a bus ticket for 3:30 in the afternoon, but the bus was full! We couldn't take a bus back to Quito until 11 pm! Not too bad having to be stuck at the beach for 9 more hours.. I had the largest, most yummy batido, took a nap on the beach, swam a lot, took a walk down the beach, had a yummy dinner, and played some cards! ha So we left for Quito and got back at 5:30 am, which was 30 minutes shorter than planned!
What a great week and I'm tan again! woo! Unfortunately we had to come back to rainy, cold weather, but that's Quito for ya in rainy season. I got home, took a shower, took an hour and 1/2 nap, and went to school! Amazingly was not tired at all and haven't been since! Talk about relaxing and napping at the beach.. I guess I caught up!
lunes, 3 de marzo de 2008
"Hell week" with a good ending
So I'm gonna have to say that last week was ridiculous and I'd rather not experience it again!
-On Sunday after we got back from Mindo I was so tired and went to sleep fairly early for me, but forgot to set an alarm and missed my tennis class for about the 1000th time on Monday! Not to mention, we haven't had it in about 2 weeks due to the rain!
-Tuesday I had a presentation that I was supposed to do for my conversation class about a month ago that never happened, and had to re-read the article for myself since I couldn't remember what I even wrote it on; I couldn't reach the top of the chalk board (we have to write new vocabulary for the class on the board) and apparently I suck at writing on chalk boards so I'm not even sure people could read it and were probably laughing at me while I was trying to start higher on the 2nd column but couldnt really go much higher due to being vertically challenged ;)
-At Finn McCool's on Tuesday night I beleive we placed 2nd to last in the pub quiz. Sucks. I had a horrible few games of pool as well.
-Wednesday, I had an essay due in my grammar class and wrote it about an hour before class and forgot to correct my other one for a better grade. go me. I also had a midterm in photography, which you might not think would be so bad. Me and my friend Ryan are the only gringos and we are pretty sure our professor thinks we are a burden and doesn't like us very much so we've got that goin for us! We decided to study 2 hours before the test, after I got out of class, but we found out the book cost $36 and didn't want to pay that, so we borrowed a friend's computer for like 15 minutes to look at parts of the camera just so we MIGHT know something on the test. Then we got tired of doing that and decided to get some sun since it was a nice day and we were sitting by the pond. So the exam sucked and I'm pretty sure I knew ONE question and maybe 1/2s of ones. ha ridiculous.
-Thursday I had a midterm in Panaderia, which kicked my butt as well. I read the 4 chapters that the 10 questions were going to be on during the 2 previous classes so that probably wasn't very good preparation. The written part took me about 40 minutes (only short answer, nothing else.. 10 ?s from 4 fricken chapters) and I feel like I knew maybe 3 of the questions. For the practical part me and my partner Laura made some pretty good bread, but the first one didn't have enough water in the dough and the 2nd one had too much. We felt like we couldnt do anything right already and at the end when our professor was grading our bread, he was like error #1 is.. #2 is.. and #3 is.. ha. oh man.
-Friday I had a grammar midterm which really wasn't terrible.. it just sucked that I had 3 midterms in a week! I didn't study very much for it, so I hope I did alright. I finished class at 11 and had to finish a project to turn in to my photography professor which took about 40 minutes to do, and then I came to find out, I payed $3.20 on some thick paper for nothin cause it was the wrong kind! So I was already annoyed cause I had to get that taken care of THAT DAY since I was leaving to go on a trip, and also had to find someone to bring it to school for me on Monday since I wasn't going to be there. Then I stayed at school for like 18,000 hours working on amplifying 2 pictures for a different project for photography and could not get the 2nd one to save my life so I finally left at like 4:30 or so.
-To end my day/week right, I decided to get a pedicure with my friend Taylor really near our houses, which only cost $5, and looks pretty good. There were actually no massage chairs to sit in, they didnt massage all the way up to the knee with the lotion, and were not very precise with their painting! ha But worth the $5!
-On Sunday after we got back from Mindo I was so tired and went to sleep fairly early for me, but forgot to set an alarm and missed my tennis class for about the 1000th time on Monday! Not to mention, we haven't had it in about 2 weeks due to the rain!
-Tuesday I had a presentation that I was supposed to do for my conversation class about a month ago that never happened, and had to re-read the article for myself since I couldn't remember what I even wrote it on; I couldn't reach the top of the chalk board (we have to write new vocabulary for the class on the board) and apparently I suck at writing on chalk boards so I'm not even sure people could read it and were probably laughing at me while I was trying to start higher on the 2nd column but couldnt really go much higher due to being vertically challenged ;)
-At Finn McCool's on Tuesday night I beleive we placed 2nd to last in the pub quiz. Sucks. I had a horrible few games of pool as well.
-Wednesday, I had an essay due in my grammar class and wrote it about an hour before class and forgot to correct my other one for a better grade. go me. I also had a midterm in photography, which you might not think would be so bad. Me and my friend Ryan are the only gringos and we are pretty sure our professor thinks we are a burden and doesn't like us very much so we've got that goin for us! We decided to study 2 hours before the test, after I got out of class, but we found out the book cost $36 and didn't want to pay that, so we borrowed a friend's computer for like 15 minutes to look at parts of the camera just so we MIGHT know something on the test. Then we got tired of doing that and decided to get some sun since it was a nice day and we were sitting by the pond. So the exam sucked and I'm pretty sure I knew ONE question and maybe 1/2s of ones. ha ridiculous.
-Thursday I had a midterm in Panaderia, which kicked my butt as well. I read the 4 chapters that the 10 questions were going to be on during the 2 previous classes so that probably wasn't very good preparation. The written part took me about 40 minutes (only short answer, nothing else.. 10 ?s from 4 fricken chapters) and I feel like I knew maybe 3 of the questions. For the practical part me and my partner Laura made some pretty good bread, but the first one didn't have enough water in the dough and the 2nd one had too much. We felt like we couldnt do anything right already and at the end when our professor was grading our bread, he was like error #1 is.. #2 is.. and #3 is.. ha. oh man.
-Friday I had a grammar midterm which really wasn't terrible.. it just sucked that I had 3 midterms in a week! I didn't study very much for it, so I hope I did alright. I finished class at 11 and had to finish a project to turn in to my photography professor which took about 40 minutes to do, and then I came to find out, I payed $3.20 on some thick paper for nothin cause it was the wrong kind! So I was already annoyed cause I had to get that taken care of THAT DAY since I was leaving to go on a trip, and also had to find someone to bring it to school for me on Monday since I wasn't going to be there. Then I stayed at school for like 18,000 hours working on amplifying 2 pictures for a different project for photography and could not get the 2nd one to save my life so I finally left at like 4:30 or so.
-To end my day/week right, I decided to get a pedicure with my friend Taylor really near our houses, which only cost $5, and looks pretty good. There were actually no massage chairs to sit in, they didnt massage all the way up to the knee with the lotion, and were not very precise with their painting! ha But worth the $5!
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)