Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Ecuadorean Christmas
So last night I celebrated my first Ecuadorean Christmas and it also happened to be my first Christmas away from my family. It's been a pretty strange experience due to the lack of snow among the lack of americans and english. So basically we went downstairs around 10 PM and started talking and hanging out. I got peed on by their dog so i had to go back upstairs and change haha. Afterwards more people started arriving. Then eventually we ate dinner, which was turkey with some pig thing that had olives in it, some potato or yuca thing with pineapple and cheese in it, rice, and something that I still have no idea what it was, vino, and some dessert type thing. Overall it was pretty fun. Then afterwards around one we started exchanging secret santa gifts and i got my second ecuadorean soccer jersey shirt as a gift. It was a pretty good time though. I didn't fall asleep til way too late cause I had a bunch of coffee. So yeah, merry christmas and/or happy holidays to anyone back home.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Well hello there
So clearly this blog has been put on the back burner for a while. I bet you guys are all assuming I've been doing great things and blah blah blah blah. But you'd be pretty wrong. I finished up exams and whatnot for the semester at USFQ. I finished that last Monday and immediately afterwards I hopped on a bus to go to the coast. What better way to pass the time in mid-December than on a beach in 80 degree weather with your friends and some waves. The sun was shining and we just hungout for like 3 days and came back. It was pretty fun. Other than that, I've been relaxing and hanging out. I'm just enjoying that I don't have to go back to school til April. So yeah, that's about it for now. Merry Christmas.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
December
What's up December?
Just got home from banos. We left thursday night and stayed there til early this morning. It was roughly a 5 hour bus ride there. We had to take the bus from north quito to the big central bus station in the south, which takes an hour then another bus to banos which is roughly 3-4 hours away. We woke up early and went on a 20 km bike ride stopping off at a few waterfalls and whatnot. We went swimming in the freezing cold and had a lot of fun even though I had a flat tire that took forever to change cause our air pump was broken. But we had lunch and got some sunshine. Then we got dinner afterwards and met up with bret and rachel.
Saturday we woke up pretty early once again and went rafting. We were in some 3,4 and 5 rapids. It was so much fun, we had to wear wetsuits and helmets which was completely new to me cause I've never been rafting. After that we grabbed a classic Ecuadorean lunch, rice meat and beans. we laid in bed for 5 minutes then went up for a hike the la casa del arbol (the tree house). this is roughly a 2-3 hour hike all uphill. it was so awesome though, definitely worth it. then when we finally got up there, there's this view from the tree house and swing that goes over a little cliff. it was so fun to swing on that and have no cares in the world. you literally see mountains and a volcano and you're so high in the air that you can't focus on homework or that your legs feel dead and your arms from rafting and that you're covered in sweat, or finals. it was such a great trip. then we met up with our friends from oregon cause they happened to be there too. mom feel free to stop reading haha. but we went out had a few beers and just walked around the streets meeting people and hanging out and then we got a free shot that was on fire. that was one of the strangest nights in the ecuador thus far.
yesterday was one of the longest days, but it went by so fast cause it was so much fun and so crazy. I'm still recovering from my lack of sleep this weekend, but i don't regret it at all. but now it's december, and there is no snow on the ground. what is this all about? it feels so strange. i can't explain it. i have three days of class left, then finals. i still feel like i just got off an airplane in august being a little naive gringo. i'm still that same naive gringo but almost 4 months have passed. this trip is nothing like i ever pictured it. i still feel somewhat jejune, but my life isn't really the same as it used to be. i don't know how i'll react when i have to go home. happy december all.
quick anecdote, i think i've finally conquered my fear of heights.
here's some photos. i'll have another post with all photos from the trip soon.
family photo with frosty
lake
end of the world
hiking photos
picture from the hike, this is a top view of banos (the city we were in)
Just got home from banos. We left thursday night and stayed there til early this morning. It was roughly a 5 hour bus ride there. We had to take the bus from north quito to the big central bus station in the south, which takes an hour then another bus to banos which is roughly 3-4 hours away. We woke up early and went on a 20 km bike ride stopping off at a few waterfalls and whatnot. We went swimming in the freezing cold and had a lot of fun even though I had a flat tire that took forever to change cause our air pump was broken. But we had lunch and got some sunshine. Then we got dinner afterwards and met up with bret and rachel.
Saturday we woke up pretty early once again and went rafting. We were in some 3,4 and 5 rapids. It was so much fun, we had to wear wetsuits and helmets which was completely new to me cause I've never been rafting. After that we grabbed a classic Ecuadorean lunch, rice meat and beans. we laid in bed for 5 minutes then went up for a hike the la casa del arbol (the tree house). this is roughly a 2-3 hour hike all uphill. it was so awesome though, definitely worth it. then when we finally got up there, there's this view from the tree house and swing that goes over a little cliff. it was so fun to swing on that and have no cares in the world. you literally see mountains and a volcano and you're so high in the air that you can't focus on homework or that your legs feel dead and your arms from rafting and that you're covered in sweat, or finals. it was such a great trip. then we met up with our friends from oregon cause they happened to be there too. mom feel free to stop reading haha. but we went out had a few beers and just walked around the streets meeting people and hanging out and then we got a free shot that was on fire. that was one of the strangest nights in the ecuador thus far.
yesterday was one of the longest days, but it went by so fast cause it was so much fun and so crazy. I'm still recovering from my lack of sleep this weekend, but i don't regret it at all. but now it's december, and there is no snow on the ground. what is this all about? it feels so strange. i can't explain it. i have three days of class left, then finals. i still feel like i just got off an airplane in august being a little naive gringo. i'm still that same naive gringo but almost 4 months have passed. this trip is nothing like i ever pictured it. i still feel somewhat jejune, but my life isn't really the same as it used to be. i don't know how i'll react when i have to go home. happy december all.
quick anecdote, i think i've finally conquered my fear of heights.
here's some photos. i'll have another post with all photos from the trip soon.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Thanksgiving and shenanigans
Woot woot, another blog post. So here we go!
Where did we leave off? So last time we talked I was off at the coast and the paramo. Where are we now? That'd be Thanksgiving, and some volcano trips.
First things first, so thanksgiving this year had a different feel obviously. I wasn't stressed out from finals at K, I didn't see leaves falling on the ground or the off chance of snow, I didn't have a 7 week winter break in the waiting, nor lastly did I have my american family. Nobody cooking spaghetti for thanksgiving (i'm looking at your mom amongst the ones that thought it'd be a good idea [emily jack and dad]). No friends from back home. This was weird. Knowing I had to go back to school the following monday. I can't really explain it, but it didn't really feel like thanksgiving til around 5 pm last friday. Last Friday we did the unthinkable. Adam Theo and I didn't mess up thanksgiving. We went shopping with austin last thursday to get all of our supplies and that was atrocious. We had some janked up Ecuadorean turkey recipe that made no sense so with a cart quarterfull we scratched it and went off Adam's mom's recipe. We woke up 'early' aka 10am more or less. I woke up only because I was sleeping on some nice hardwood floor in adam's room. Adam and I had to pull theo's sleeping bag off of him just to get him up. We finally get upstairs and start cooking quite groggily might i add. We argued over the ambiguous recipe but we figured it out. We started just going with whatever sounds good. This includes cutting up onion and garlic and just tossing big pieces on the turkey. We all just kind of did whatever, including cutting up bread and making some realll good stuffing. The only let down on that was that we ran out pretty quickly. We finally get the turkey into the oven at 1130 after stuffing the bird and using chopsticks to keep the legs in place cause we didnt have string. We did whatever it took haha. People start filing in around 2 or so to come hang out and watch the turkey cook. Then one of the pans breaks so we have to dump the bird into the one that is covering it with all the juices and then cover it with tinfoil. This really thanksgiving really couldn't have been sketchier. We all had a good time though and we finally had people get there around 5 or 6, the bird still wasn't done so we sent them downstairs cause adam's house is huge. Our program directors finally show up around 8 or so and the turkey just gets to 180 so it worked out beautiful. We cut up the turkey and get everyone seated and everyone gets food and has a great time. We got compliments for the turkey for the next 2 to three days. It was overall a really successful thanksgiving and a pretty fun time.
Moving onto the saturday. We went to Cotopaxi which is a huge volcano about an hour or so south of here. This was relatively boring. We were all exhausted and were in a bus for like 10 hours of the day cause its too big to walk it. At least for the parts we were examining. So I came home and passed out when I got home.
Then sunday we went to a volcano called pululahua. This was pretty fun but still pointless. We hiked down a huge hill and then up another one just to look at the dome of the potentially active volcano. Then we turned around, went down to eat lunch. Then climbed back up the huge first section again and went home. It was a really good hike, but I'm not sure it was too necessary.
So for now, I'm just going to put up a few pictures from thanksgiving. Nothing too special. I'm sure I'll get to the volcano pictures soon. But for update of me. I've just got some homework to finish up, a few papers and whatnot. No exams during exam week. They all got pushed forward so now I might be going to patagonia from dec. 11 til the 24th which would be so rad. then come here and spend christmas with my familia ecuatoriana and then go get my parents from the airport the next day! I'm also going to banos with the group this weekend for like 3-4 days so that should be pretty fun.
So anyways, I'm going to finish this art history paper and work on some more work so i can relax this weekend. Goodnight all!
curking tookey
supplies
austin making gravy. bonita looking nervous
apparently theo felt this was a necessary to picture to take. i won't question him.
finished products, kind of.
killing the game
Where did we leave off? So last time we talked I was off at the coast and the paramo. Where are we now? That'd be Thanksgiving, and some volcano trips.
First things first, so thanksgiving this year had a different feel obviously. I wasn't stressed out from finals at K, I didn't see leaves falling on the ground or the off chance of snow, I didn't have a 7 week winter break in the waiting, nor lastly did I have my american family. Nobody cooking spaghetti for thanksgiving (i'm looking at your mom amongst the ones that thought it'd be a good idea [emily jack and dad]). No friends from back home. This was weird. Knowing I had to go back to school the following monday. I can't really explain it, but it didn't really feel like thanksgiving til around 5 pm last friday. Last Friday we did the unthinkable. Adam Theo and I didn't mess up thanksgiving. We went shopping with austin last thursday to get all of our supplies and that was atrocious. We had some janked up Ecuadorean turkey recipe that made no sense so with a cart quarterfull we scratched it and went off Adam's mom's recipe. We woke up 'early' aka 10am more or less. I woke up only because I was sleeping on some nice hardwood floor in adam's room. Adam and I had to pull theo's sleeping bag off of him just to get him up. We finally get upstairs and start cooking quite groggily might i add. We argued over the ambiguous recipe but we figured it out. We started just going with whatever sounds good. This includes cutting up onion and garlic and just tossing big pieces on the turkey. We all just kind of did whatever, including cutting up bread and making some realll good stuffing. The only let down on that was that we ran out pretty quickly. We finally get the turkey into the oven at 1130 after stuffing the bird and using chopsticks to keep the legs in place cause we didnt have string. We did whatever it took haha. People start filing in around 2 or so to come hang out and watch the turkey cook. Then one of the pans breaks so we have to dump the bird into the one that is covering it with all the juices and then cover it with tinfoil. This really thanksgiving really couldn't have been sketchier. We all had a good time though and we finally had people get there around 5 or 6, the bird still wasn't done so we sent them downstairs cause adam's house is huge. Our program directors finally show up around 8 or so and the turkey just gets to 180 so it worked out beautiful. We cut up the turkey and get everyone seated and everyone gets food and has a great time. We got compliments for the turkey for the next 2 to three days. It was overall a really successful thanksgiving and a pretty fun time.
Moving onto the saturday. We went to Cotopaxi which is a huge volcano about an hour or so south of here. This was relatively boring. We were all exhausted and were in a bus for like 10 hours of the day cause its too big to walk it. At least for the parts we were examining. So I came home and passed out when I got home.
Then sunday we went to a volcano called pululahua. This was pretty fun but still pointless. We hiked down a huge hill and then up another one just to look at the dome of the potentially active volcano. Then we turned around, went down to eat lunch. Then climbed back up the huge first section again and went home. It was a really good hike, but I'm not sure it was too necessary.
So for now, I'm just going to put up a few pictures from thanksgiving. Nothing too special. I'm sure I'll get to the volcano pictures soon. But for update of me. I've just got some homework to finish up, a few papers and whatnot. No exams during exam week. They all got pushed forward so now I might be going to patagonia from dec. 11 til the 24th which would be so rad. then come here and spend christmas with my familia ecuatoriana and then go get my parents from the airport the next day! I'm also going to banos with the group this weekend for like 3-4 days so that should be pretty fun.
So anyways, I'm going to finish this art history paper and work on some more work so i can relax this weekend. Goodnight all!
Sunday, November 17, 2013
One quick sec
Just a quick anecdote, my host uncle called me the kid from home alone today. Never thought I would get that in my entire life.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
This is probably overdue
Here are some pictures (50 to be exact) of my last 3 weeks or so in Ecuador. They are very out of order. But I just threw this together. Ignore some of the captions, I was starting to get very bored while doing this. So uh, have fun. PS if you click the pictures it zooms in better and is faster to go through them.
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