Classes start...

So I’ve been in classes for almost a week now, and I think I’m getting close to finally figuring out my schedule – its been such a mess. But now that its more set, I feel a lot better about everything: though I think it’ll be more work than I had hoped. My classes are mostly Americans, with a few Ecuadorians here and there, but I guess that’s ok, though its not what I was hoping for. My volleyball class is all Ecuadorian though, so that should be good.

I love exploring Ecuador, there’s always so many cool things going on, and the weather has been absolutely perfect every day here. The first weekend here, we rode this Teleferico (like a skilift) to the top of the mountain overlooking Quito, and there were beautiful views (I’ve got to figure out how to post my pictures!). Last weekend, we finally went out the La Mariscal, the touristy district where all the bars and discotecas are, and we made some Ecuadorian friends so that was fun. Then we went to La Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Earth, the Ecuator), which was really cool: all those myths about water going down the drain in opposite ways on either side of the Ecuator is actually true – we saw it happen! It was really cool. Then all 10 of us jumped in the back of this pickup truck that our waitress called (For $.25 each) and he drove us up this mountain to the top of this volcanic crater. It was supposed to have really beautiful views, but it was late afternoon, so instead we were literally in the middle of a cloud. If you looked 10 feet out, it looked like you were staring into this blank white abyss. It was really cool. We walked partway down the trail into the crater, and you could hear the animals of the indigenous community that lived in the bottom of the crater – can you imagine living in that? That was a shocking realization.

My family’s great, though they still don’t understand why I don’t eat more and why I don’t eat meat. (The grandma talked extensively yesterday about how it was bad to be vegetarian, because God put all animals on Earth so that people could eat them…?) But the family’s very welcoming, and definitely want me to do everything with them, so that part is definitely a full immersion experience, and I’m learning a lot from them: about language and about culture. Sunday, I spent all day with them at my host brother’s futbol game, went to Mass in a fancy colonial church (still in our sweatpants from the futbol game?), went and played in the beautiful Parque Metropolitano all afternoon, and then played futbol in the park by their grandma’s house. It was a lot of fun.

Off to get ready for school now… PS: I have skype now too, so if you have it, find me on there! I think my name is sara.gibbs.