Vamos a la playa

Oye. Thanks to my wonderful skype time with Helen, I’m writing this dangerously late at night… 9 PM, holy cow!!! I woke up to incessant beeping like so many other people in the western world and Z made me my banana batida and I had my peanut butter and jelly. I went out to the bus stop, thinking I might not be early for once. Milan was actually already there, hitting it up at a street food stand with some Ecuadorians, eating empanadas and drinking coffee. We were duly warned against the evils street of can wreak upon one’s stomach, so I can’t help but wonder how Milan is feeling right now ☺. He had a test today and used me as a study guide/dictionary/this-means-this-in-this-conjugation thing, but it’s not like I mind. Upon arrival at the U, I went pretty much straight to the library and explored a little bit. It’s a little nicer than Lau. I sat and did three diaries for two different classes, one on what I think about death, one on family, and one on culture/nature experiences. Fun fun fun… once I escaped, I met with a bunch of kids outside and Maddy begged me to take her to the bakery, so I did, and I bought what the girl said was a “suspire” but might have been merengue. I left and nearly ran to Survey, not that I needed to because our professor is almost always late. We talked García Márquez; I presented. Afterwards I went with my classmates to Wok, the campus’s chinese-style restaurant (chicken, orange-y sauce, rice, NesTea). Margoh had to leave to work on a project, so Andrew and I did the life-story thing… he knows Victor Ho from their cross country days. We met Rafael on our way out, but I had to go and submit a resumen so we didn’t really talk. I copied and pasted my blog to you guys and read the one my chicks on six have going… you girls are HILARIOUS; I tried to keep from laughing because I was in a public lab, but I ended up just making weird noises with my nose. Thanks, guys ;) Next I headed on down to the dungeon where we ironically have our nature class, and we talked about Indígena self-identification and the rejection of mestizaje. It was kind of nice because I got to complain how I HATE checking that I’m Caucasian on race forms because I am NOT from Caucasia. If I can’t specify that my ancestors immigrated from Europe, I may as well just say that I’m white. We had a nice bus ride back and a windy walk back to the apartment… where I read more Spanish literature! I was actually feeling pretty homesick so I struggled with my incooperative internet to try and get skype, but I ended up playing Solitaire instead. Dinner (chicken rice soup, chicken, rice, and garbanzo beans, plus juice made from naranjillas, wheat, and vanilla I think), shower… while I’m on the topic of hygiene and since I’m guessing that only females bother reading this anyway, I’m going to take this opportunity to announce that menstruation is REALLY awkward in Ecuador. They say tampons are nearly impossible to get, so I had to bring this huge box with me. You’re not supposed to throw toilet paper in the toilet because it messes up the system, you throw it in the trash. Now imagine what we have to do with tampons. On the bright side, I discovered a huge stash of tampons under my sink. YES!!! Anyway, ahem… I put down some thoughts for my survey essay AND managed to boss around the internet. Facebook, yay, email… then HELEN GOT ON SKYPE. Made my day. And finished my day… Time for bed. Let’s see if I can remember any fun facts…
Haven’t run yet… Maddy asked me to today, but homework rules on the weekdays and we pretty much only have one hour of daylight after getting off the bus. There were a bunch of noisy kids outside my window this afternoon. I’m going to the beach this weekend with a group of kids. I was going to go, then I wasn’t going to go, then Z encouraged me to go, so I’m going. I remember fun facts throughout the day, and then forget them by the time it’s time to blog.