Una dia fantastic: moutains, mansions and masks!

If my family says “ya vamos” we go, I go. No questions. It’s kind of like I’m dog. They put food out. I eat. They talk. I sit and stare. Sometimes I even stick my head out the window and stare at the buildings while we drive… But they still love me. So Anyways, ya vamos. I get in the car. We drop off my sister at the “U” (she calls her school the U just like us) I stay with mom and pop… and where do we go but home depot ish store.. lovely… dad you know how much I love home improvement stores... I had decided to stay in Quito this weekend cause I was gone last weekend and I just kind of wanted to get to know the city, I was very much starting to regret it… anyway after finally stopping at a little store I was able to buy some minutes for my phone so I could call people in my program…

After a HUGE lunch, I decided to meet up with Kelly and Erin ( there’s three Erins on this trip, no I am not talking about myself in third person) we met at intersection about 2 miles from my house and by the time I got there I was dripping in sweat, Quito is quite hot in the middle of day, ( but whenever I feel at all uncomfortably warm I simply think of Minnesota!) We hailed a taxi and headed to the TeleferiQo. The TeleferiQo is a sky tram that takes passengers on a 2.5km ride up the flanks of Volcan Pichincha to the top Cruz Loma (4100m, I don’t even know what that is in feet but is HIGH).

We began to hike once we got to the top… you can hike for hours to the top of Cruz Loma… with amazing views of Quito, the Andes and Volcanoes! BEAUTIFUL! We met all sorts of people on our hike… some guy from the cities, a guy from Illinois that just finished teaching English for a year on the coast ( my new post graduation plan) and my favorite was a group of three Ecuadorians; Fernando, Juan and Maria. All three from Quito, they knew a little bit of English (probably equivalent to what we sounded like in Spanish) and we hiked for a while, they trying to speak English, us trying to speak Spanish… it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about Ecuador as well.

As the sun set, we headed down and took a taxi home, I was a little nervous because my house is the furthest north so I had to be dropped off last and be in the taxi by myself, which we’ve all heard horror stories of the what happens to the last one dropped off. It was fine though, I had a nice convo with the cab driver in Spanish, by the end of the ride he even corrected me when I told him to turn at the “luz” which is not used for traffic lights.
By the time I got home it was already getting close to 8 and I was getting picked up at 9 for a costume fiesta! I quickly showered and ate dinner with my fam and then got ready… my mom was so cute and helpful because I didn’t really have anything for a party… she leant me some beautiful pointy gold high heels and a bright pink and gold mask…

Tanya and her brother picked Taylor and I up around 9… the fiesta we were going to was of Tanya’s host cousins 28th birthday… I really had no idea what to expect as Tanya only called a few hours before to invite me…

The FIESTA:

Ok let me begin with this house was a MANSION… it had tennis courts, a small soccer field and mini golf course… talk about a large gap between the rich and the poor..
Everyone there was all out in costumes… a lot of super heroes.. I am so bummed I didn’t bring my camera.. I don’t bring it out a lot for fear of getting it stolen or lost but this would have been a great opportunity… o well…
Anyways… we were the only three non-Ecuadorians at the party and I think people were kind of confused why we were there but everyone was so nice and greeted us with kisses on the cheeks..

There was a whole dance room with DJ, bar you name it… so we begin to dance and compared to the Ecuadorians we must have looked ridiculous but everyone told us we were catching on fast, then after about 20 minutes these crazy people one on stilts spring things came in (hired party starters: my future job) and gave us whistles, sprayed us with silly string, lead the Macarena! (one I knew) It was SO fun! Then, the uncle, who’s house it was came home, he’s the head of Ecuadorian air force! He greeted us with a kiss and made sure we had everything we wanted, every so often he would come find us three, and ask if we were enjoying ourselves… so kind! Ha and quite the dancer too!

Most of time we just danced kind of crazy to American and latin beats but when the salsa came on some guys found us and begin to dance, I protested and said I was terrible but the thing with salsa is you can be terrible and be a girl cause if the guy is good, he leads and it makes you look like you know what you’re doing… So we danced (I got batman for a while) and it was so fun!
Finally, sometime after two we decided to head home, I can honestly say that was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in Ecuador and it costs nothing too! We kissed everyone good bye hit the hay! Of course I still don’t have keys and my family forgot so my poor farther had to get up at 2:30 to let me in…
Cheverismo!
We’ll I’m about to go meet my grandparents! I’m super excited I’ve never had a grandpa before!
Chao
Erin