busy busy busy

I can't believe how much I did this week. Sometimes I really do feel like I'm on a 5 month vacation... School can't possibly be this fun. It's weird but I have officially gone to the movies more times in Ecuador than I have in my entire life. Monday I saw Wall Street (2 apparently, but I never saw the 1st). I guess I liked it... blows Letters to Juliet out of the water anyway. Then Tuesday night Liz and I went to Milton's house to watch the Liga match. We were the only girls in what was clearly a "boys' night" and then Liga lost making it more awkward/tense because they are all complete hooligans and can't live if Liga loses. After the match we watched some of the news on the miners. Oh and we watched 2ish hours of 2 and a Half Men which is seriously the most popular U.S. show here. I have no idea why but everybody watches it. Also I really can't believe I used to have an old man crush on Charlie Sheen. Like really.

After my internship on Wednesday I did homework all afternoon. It was really exciting! Thursday after class I got lunch with Laura, Kelly, and Erika- this super nice Ecuadorian. We finally ate at the vegetarian restaurant I've been DYING to eat at, so naturally it was a complete disappointment. That night Liz, Lily and I went to eat at El Pobre Diablo, mostly for the awesome live jazz music they advertise which never actually happened. Fortunately the food was good, but I'm still a little mad.. no a lot. Afterwards Carlos picked us up and we went to Aladdin (which you HAVE to pronounce Ah-la-DEEN), this bar/hookah place. It was really nice and some other people showed up later on. Today Lily came over at like noon because none of us ever have anything to do on Fridays. We did some homework but mostly wasted a lot of time talking. Liz came with us for dinner and we got Indian food in La Mariscal. We all got different dishes and split them.. it was delicious. Like I want to go back... now. Carlos joined us after dinner again and we all got ice cream and talked about our amazing camping trip for.... tomorrow! We're going (along with Andres, Milton, Felipe, Diego, and Kristen) to Cotopaxi- the tallest active volcano IN THE WORLD! I'm so excited. SO EXCITED! I don't think I've gone real camping-in-a-tent-and-everything since senior year of high school. I wish I had Mad Libs.

Oh Tuesday I got 2 old Spanish quizzes back and got a 19.5/20 and a 20/20 on the other, which I'm really excited about because I think I failed the quiz we actually took on Tuesday so that will help compensate. ALSO on Tuesday I got my leadership essay back and got a 96%! Granted it was in English but this professor is super tough. He speaks 4 languages fluently and studied/worked at Yale and Harvard, so I'm ecstatic. And in front of the whole class he congratulated me on my "superb" reflections and writing ability (muahahaha) causing GORGEOUS boy in my class, who absolutely never notices my existence, to look at me so it was a fantastic day. Que mas... on Tuesday I finished my first ring in jewelry-making and started a pair of earrings, so I finally don't completely hate that class since I have a finished product. Actually, with the exception of the teacher.. no as a result of the teacher I love all the people in my class. They've all taken me under their wings, even the brooding "cool" boy in my class. Tomorrow we have a test.. in jewelry making.. and it's just an in-class essay about what we've been doing but I'm really nervous because I don't really retain any of the words for the tools. Everything is just maquina to me... I think it's because I don't know the words in English even so I never have any idea what he's talking about.

My internship is still going really well.. challenging at times. Wednesday while the kids were at recess I was writing these reports for the parents with the teacher I work with and she just started telling me how pleased everyone there is with me, how they weren't sure if they were going to allow students to keep volunteering, I always show up and am so enthusiastic. It was really nice to hear buuuut I don't think she realizes I'm taking the internship for 6 credits so I'm sort of cheating. It's not just an at-will volunteer job like with a lot of the other students.

So clearly I did not finish this post. On to camping!!
Overall it was probably one of the best weekends of my life. Top-ten definitely. We left around noon for the 2 hour car ride. We were separated between 3 cars; I rode with Lily, Carlos, and Milton. We had the best Glee, Wicked, Beatles sing-along ever! When we got there Andres, Diego, and Felipe stayed at the site to set-up the tents and the rest of us went to climb part of Cotopaxi (the world's tallest active volcano). We only climbed to 15,780 feet but even that was so tough! I wasn't getting altitude sick but just breathing was so difficult. The view was definitely worth it though. That took a couple hours and then we met up with the other guys at this look-out by a lake to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous :) and the cheap boxed wine really heightened the experience.

Once the sun went down we went back to the campsite to eat. It took between 2-3 hours to start the fire, SERIOUSLY. The wood was definitely not dry enough but finally it started. We just finished eating hotdogs and sausages when Felipe brought out this like 50 lb. piece of steak. mmmmm Oh! And Andres made canelazo, which usually I hate but I really liked the kind he made. It's this fruity alcoholic drink. It's served warm, which combined with the thick consistency is what throws me off I think but Andres' version wasn't thick and I really liked it! It was naranjilla flavored.

After dinner we started to drink/make s'mores and just talked around the fire for hours. At some point we started playing music from someone's car and dancing in the field and it was just amazzzzzzing. Milton finally accepted that I can't dance and settled for jumping/running around the field with me. Felipe bodyslammed Lily into a car while trying to pull-off their infamous "figure-8"... just a lot of stuff I guess you had to be there to appreciate. Around 1 or 2am some of us decided to climb this hill to see the stars, even though it was completely cloudy and raining a little. We finally gave up but then couldn't find the path so we just had to machete our way down this mountain. Also, I guess it was the fog or something playing tricks but the campfire looked like it was 5 miles away until we were literally 100m from the site. It was the weirdest optical illusion ever and we were all miserable and crying that we were going to die. Oh yeah also there were wild cows around us all night so we went on some adventures trying to capture them and ride them... I guess it seemed a lot cooler after so many rum & cokes at a high altitude.

Oh I almost forgot! So my mom gave me 3 sleeping bags for me, Lily, and Liz to use. I also brought 2 pillows- the only person to bring a pillow. When we decided to go to bed around 3:30ish I had no sleeping bag OR pillow. And no one would let me go look in the other tent or cars because they were being annoying and I was drunk. I have never been so frustrated in my life but also couldn't stop laughing to truly express my anger. Ahhh. So finally Lily and I "went to sleep" sharing a sleeping bag. It was the longest, WORST night's sleep of my life. At the best points during the night up to my thighs were in the sleeping bag. We had to sleep on our sides but I had no pillow so my head was at this god awful angle but I had all my clothes on because it was freezing so there was nothing to put under my head. Every 10 minutes or so throughout the whole night I had to flip to the other side... it was just terrible. When we woke up we discovered that Milton was in my sleeping bag, using his as a pillow in the other tent which no one would let me search. Liz was using one of my pillows(even though she had her own sleeping bag) and the other was in Milton's trunk. I could've killed someone. BUT it was all too much fun so I decided to spare lives.

Despite sleeping for MAYBE an hour and only having a 2 hour nap I forced myself to go to Nikki's on Sunday. Her mom offered to teach us how to make guaguas de pan y colada morada. Since we'll be in the Galapagos during Ecuador's version of the day of the dead we'll miss having those 2 things. Part of the tradition is to make these little breads shaped like dolls with manjar inside(I really don't know what a translation for that would be)and colada morada, a hot, fruity drink with a lot of chunks of fresh fruit floating in it = delicious! Then you eat these 2 things in the tombs of your dead ancestors... we skipped that part.

Today after my internship I continued to catch up on lost sleep with a 3 hour nap. Oh! And Pancho invited me to a party for this Ecuadorian magazine next Wednesday! I'm so excited to be able to dress up :) Even though I know everyone we meet through school, etc are super upper class it still feels weird to be invited to such a party.. Anyway that's all I can remember and I really never want to leave. Time is going too fast I can't stand it.