si ves

Loja is boring. Usually anyway. But occasionally, we find something to do. This past weekend, I went to the botanical gardens on the very south side of the city, which was interesting. There were some cool plants there, but mostly it was just something to do on an otherwise boring day. Life is so boring without TV. I realize that's completely ridiculous to say, but it's true. Try to go 5 months without watching TV and tell me what you think. I suppose it depends where you live though definitely because if you lived in a booming metropolis, there would be tons of stuff to do on weekends. On the other hand, if you live in Loja, you'd feel differently.

I'm coming home in 30 days. I am really happy about that because I have had it up to *here* with the bed in my bedroom. It's probably the most uncomfortable bed ever.... It seems that most beds here, unless you're richy rich, have a frame, and boards that fit on the frame, and a foam mattress that's about three inches thick. Because the mattress is foam, it gets flat and stays that way, so honestly, the part of the mattress that I sleep on it maybe a half inch thick...so I wake up with a sore back and if I sleep on my side if feels like I have bruises in the morning. Awesome, I know. So I can't wait to get home for that reason, among others, but I'm pretty glad about leaving this horrible bed behind.

I would have liked to travel more while in Ecuador. I may still go to Quito before I leave, but I guess it would have been nice to see more of Ecuador and even other countries. However, traveling on a 4 dollar an hour salary is pretty much out of the question and the school I work at requires that if you want to take a vacation, you have to get someone to cover all your classes. Soooooo.... yeah. Some day I will come back to South America so I can see Macchu Pichu, Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Patagonia, and the Galapagos Islands (when I'm super rich. ha!) Plus, traveling in Ecuador requires that you sit on a bus for long periods of time and I've always hated buses so I just don't want to travel to avoid a several hour bus ride. The ride to Quito is 14 hours, and I think I might do it just because I want to see Quito for sure and stand on the equator. Plus, I've heard that if you take a night bus, it's not so bad. We'll see about that.

I have four weeks left of classes. I think I'm really going to miss some of my students. Of course, they are not even close to me age-wise, but I've become attached to some of my junior tweens, tweens, and teens. They're pretty awesome people and I wish I could stay here to see how much they change and how much more English they learn as they grow older, but alas, I won't be doing that so I'll just enjoy the last weeks classes I have with all of them.

Hope everyone reading this is well! See you in a month, USA.


PS. here are couple pictures from at the botanical gardens. gigantic leaves, fake swinging and real swinging from vines, and a bonsai garden. Click on them to enlarge.

fireworks are cool. anywhere.

Tonight after class, Annabel and I went out to dinner at El Sendero, which we go to abouuuut once a week. As in, the people who voluntarily work there recognize us when we come in and we often see people we recognize when we go. It's a restaurant owned by American missionaries so the food is pretty good, pretty home-y, and it's very well....American. They have hamburgers, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, chicken wraps, cappucinos, mochas, sandwiches etc etc. Yes, several Mexican menu items, but the food is hardly Mexican and is very delicious. And their limonada so good. Anyway, usually when we go, I get papas y carne which consists of what the restaurant call "rustic potatoes", which are little cubes of roasted potatoes, a hamburger patty, a small salad of lettuce, tomato, and vinegarette, and a sunny side up fried egg. 1) before coming here, I hated fried eggs. Now, I eat them about 4 to 5 times a week for breakfast. 2) Papas y carne, in every other restaurant is called papi carne, and in every other restaurant I've tried it, is not as good. 3) I will be making papas y carne when I get home because it, along with hamburgers (moreso burgers), as bad as that is, has become kind of a staple for us foreigners here.

After dinner, we went across the street to the plaza of San Sebastian because as we were eating I noticed people were walking past carrying cellos in cases so I was curious. There was a concert set up outside in the square. I think it was the Loja Symphony Orchestra. Pretty cool. We didn't stay for the whole concert because after a couple pieces, there were people singing with the orchestra, which I don't love sooooo we left. But the music was cool, very Latin American, which was weird for me to hear especially because I grew up playing the cello and playing and hearing primarily classical pieces...never once something you could salsa to. Regardless, it was cool.

Then after we stopped at a pharmacy and I picked up some ivy extract syrup to suppress my what seems to be neverending cough slash sickness in general, we went home. And let me tell you, it is convenient to have a 5th floor bedroom with a wall of windows because I just watched a 15 minute fireworks display while sitting on my bed. I'm assuming the fireworks started after the concert ended. It was pretty cool. I kind of felt like it was the 4th of July and then I got excited that I will be home by the 4th of July this year. Fireworks are pretty spectacular wherever you see them, don't you think? I'd post some pictures that I took, but I think we all pretty much understand what a fireworks display looks like.

By the way, thanks to the people who have either commented here or mentioned that they read my blog. I appreciate it.

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday AND we don't have class on Monday because it 's the 24th of May which is a national holiday celebrating the Battle of Pinchincha. Our favorite pizza place is on the street called 24 (veinticuartro) de Mayo. I'll look up some information on the Batalla de Pinchincha on Monday when I'm bored to learn more about the holiday. I'm realizing that even though I majored in Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies, I know next to nothing about Ecuadorian history. Speaking of that, two days ago my teen students asked what I studied in college and I explained that I double majored in Spanish and the aforementioned six-word major and their prompt response was, of course in Spanish, "So.... what can you do with that major?" Typical. My response was "Anything I want to do." ....I should have listened to my sister when she told me to pick a more practical major. If only we could all go back and change our lives. Oh well, I'm here now. Living in the moment and trying to enjoy it as much as I can. I'm glad to be able to speak and understand Spanish so well. I hardly remember anything now about the culture, history, or politics of hispanic countries, but whatever man. Enough with the stream-of-consciousness writing.

It'll be a slightly boring weekend surely because I am sick so I don't want to travel and now Annabel is sick too, same cold surely. eeeeeeeeeyuck!

dead or dying

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything in here. Mainly because I'm convinced that barely anyone reads it and partly because there's never really much to write except silly stories about my various students or trips to local stores or restaurants. Speaking of restaurants... Annabel, Lainey, and I stumbled upon this AMAZING restaurat yesterday called Mar Roja. They have mostly seafood and also some chicken and steak dishes. I had breaded corvina and it was seriously one of the top three fish dishes I've ever had in my life. SO GOOD! Lainey had a kind of soup/stew with shrimp in it. I tasted a bit of it and the shrimp seemed so fresh I felt like I was eating straight out of whatever body of water it came from. Anyway, yes, it was fantastic. We always complain about how Loja really lacks in terms of dining options. We always go to the same maybe 4 or 5 places so it is always a treat to find a new place.

The weather is so unpredictable here, which I may have said already. For a couple weeks it will rain every day, then be sunny a couple days, then rainy again. It's been sunny here since Wednesday and even though winter was supposed to have started at the beginning of may, it is HOT here when it's sunny. I guess I'm not complaining because I hate rain, but because I'm from Wisconsin, I always wish it was a little bit cooler here during the day.

Teaching is still going fine, though I'm pretty sure that if I ever have children, I will be paying someone to take them off my hands from the age of 6 through 8. Nine years old or more, fine, but earlier, I can't take it. Is taking care of small children as hard as being their English teacher? It's like I have an hour a day of sheer torture. Those little brats are malicious. Some of them, of course, aren't bad. And they are all cute when they're sitting still and listening to you teach the differences between prepositions of place such as next to, between, and in front of. But the second you turn your back, forget it. Oh well, I think I can handle six more weeks of those little buggers. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my teen class. My students are AWESOME. They are hilarious, they respect me, and just in general have really fantastic personalities. They asked me the other day how to say "I will miss you" and "I miss you" in terms of me leaving at the end of June. I will really miss those kids. I am still angry that I'm five and a half years older than the oldest student in that class because I wish that either I was younger or they were older so we could hang out outside of class. Oh wellllllllllllll.

I'll be home in 44 days. June 30th. I like Ecuador, but every day I feel a little more ready to go home. Most of that excitement has to do with the apartment I live in. The place is a pig sty, made exponentially worse by the fact that the men working in other parts of the building sawing tiles and wall apart send their dust into our apartment. There is literally a layer of dust on everything in the living room, kitchen, and guest bathroom. When I open my bedroom door in the morning to go make breakfast, the whole apartment is cloudy with dust. It's the dust, and the fact that my roommate's cat has (well, had) fleas. Thankfully, after she had him neutered, she got him so flea medication so the fleas are no longer on him, but they are all around our apartment. There were seemingly hundreds in my room. They are tiny, but you can feel when they are on you because their bite stings. And they are hard to kill by just squeezing them between your fingers. I bought some flea killing RAID insecticide spray today and since I sprayed every square inch of my bedroom, bedding, and bathroom earlier this afternoon, the only fleas I've seen are the ones that are dead or dying on my bathroom floor. None whatsoever on my bed, thank goodness! Fleas are gross and because I knew they were crawling around my room, I constantly felt itchy when I was in here.

I am grateful for lazy Sundays.

Hope you are all doing well!

Vilcabamba

This weekend, I went to Vilcabamba with some fellow teachers. Vilcabamba is a hazardus 45 minute drive through the mountains from Loja. It's a tiny town of only 4,000 people and only one main square, but the hostel we stayed at, Hosteria Izcayluma is outside the city and is pretty much a jungle sanctuary. It was such a beautiful place. There was tons of flora and awesome views since the hostel is on a mountain outside of the valley. So beautiful. Hammocks all over, a lagoon style pool, a covered outdoor restaurant where I ate stroganoff with chicken and homemade pasta. The hostel is owned by two german brothers I guess. They have their own bar and pool and ping pong and a giant chess set. It was pretty cool. I would have liked to stay longer, but we only went from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon since we all have to work today. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Vilcabamba on Sunday. Even though it was Sunday, most places in town were open and people were walking around everywhere. Vilcabamba is pretty famous because it is known as the valley of longevity because people supposedly live to be 140 years old there. Of course, it's not true, but the bottled water there advertises longevity as do some of the businesses, like the ice cream shop across the street from the restaurant we ate at. Ice cream of longevity. If only... haha.

Anyway, it was a great trip. I have some bug bites that itch like crazy, but it could certainly be worse.

Here is a link to my pictures on google in case you don't have facebook. Vilcabamba All the flower pictures are mostly for my mom and grandpa to see because I'm sure they will love them. The flowers are all from the grounds of the hotel.