Let's Do Some Living

WARNING: About 80% of the things that I am about to mention are things that I want to do with my mother, one Petra Hothorn Amrein, when she gets here in just 9 days. I have asked her not to read this and I will ask you all who may contact her between now and then that you do not mention all the ridiculous things I am going to force her to do. Thanks!

That being said, I haven’t been able to write on here for a bit because this week has been an absolute whirlwind. Between eating an entire family-sized Hawaiian pizza which may have ruined Pizza Hut for me for good and taking Ecuadorians out for their first St. Patrick’s Day, lots has gone on here in Quito Quito.

The Competition: Before.

Little backstory: While in the jungle, I noticed that Jess Dever and I both eat more than your average girl. SO I decided that she and I should face off and see once and for all who can eat more. Nghiem somehow got in on it (somewhat unfair, we all noted), and we settled on pizza as our medium.

I may look nervous here but thanks to Brianna I ate that entire pizza you see there without crying (there were a couple rough spots along the way though). Nghiem, however, was able to eat a pie and a slice, reigning victorious.

...And after. Jess fared far worse than I and also violated one of the rules just after this picture was taken (I won't go into details but let's say there were only 2 rules and she didn't go over the time limit), and was automatically disqualified.

We met a little Ecua leprechaun!

Apart from that, last weekend a group of us went to a little town 2 hours from here called Mindo and absolutely fell in love with it. It was very small and not a lot of nightlife, but the things that are available during the day are just incredible.

When we first got there, after consuming far too much peanut butter as we tend to do on trips where we go grocery shopping beforehand, we headed off to a butterfly garden and hummingbird __________ (please insert word that is comparable to ‘garden’ but applies to hummingbirds, suggestions welcome). It was really phenomenal but somewhat daunting. I felt like Robbie or Christie who both have an irrational fear of ladybugs, but when something with huge wings starts flying toward you, you’re going to scream.

After that, we ended up white water tubing down a river which for sure should never have been traversed by humans. We had the time of our lives though. In the freezing water with our helmets on, I couldn’t stop dying laughing looking at the girls in the other raft, completely soaked and all rocking a wet-dog look that I won’t forget anytime soon.

Emily, me and Mateo, holding on for dear life.

We had an early night of tacos for dinner, Gabriel García Márquez as a bedtime story, and the never ending Boston College name game. The next morning we woke up and set off for the zip-lining adventure of our lives. Pictures speak louder than words in this case. Despite my slight fear due to the kindergarten broken left arm incident (and the lack of belief on the part of not one but both of my parents afterwards), I had an absolute ball on all 13 of the rides through the air, even the one where the guides thought it would be funny to bounce the ropes up and down.

Leila declared this Extreme Sports Weekend. True story.

Yes, I am pretty super.

All in all, life is pretty good. I fall more and more in love with the group with each day and my family could not be more perfect for me. The week ahead doesn't promise to be quite as exhilarating as the last but we'll see what happens, you never know around here.

That's all for now (General Mills I hope you're happy, I may have just sacrificed my Lit grade to write this).

Our Endless Numbered Days

I’m sorry to have been so inactive here for the past couple weeks, it’s hardly a reflection of my life here these days. Just the opposite, really. In my non-cyber life I have been so busy I’ve barely had time to keep you all up-to-date.

This will be explained much later.

Anyways, here are the highlights since the last time

My soccer team, Gasolina, is currently 2-0-0 and we hope to continue our winning streak for the next couple rounds of the girls tournament at the University. The games are really exciting and although we play in straight dirt and the fields are the size of the ones I used when I was part of teams like the Blue Sharks and the Red Devils, they’re quite intense.

Not so successful have been the salsa classes here for the Monday group (Jess, Emily, Brianna, Liz and I). We have seriously regressed and after skipping class two weeks ago because it was “too hot to walk”, we have now been prohibited from ever attending the Thursday class (the rest of the group) because they are so far ahead of us. Oh well.

Brianna, had 4 friends here from BC this past week and it was fabulous to visit with them, talk about what’s going on back at school and show them all of our favorite spots. We spent a night at Papallacta, a spa-type place with baths heated by a nearby volcano, with them as well. It was absolutely beautiful there and so relaxing. We spent the night in cabins and had three hot tubs all to ourselves, half the group got massages, and no one wanted to leave.

Peanut Butter Jelly time at Papallacta

Liz provides us with fire.

I'm sorry there aren't more pictures from our night there, it was a very water-based adventure, I hope you understand.

Yesterday two important events happened here in my Ecua house.

1. One of our two dogs, Lisa, died. She was 13 and died in her sleep and everyone was very sad. This is terrible to say but I was rather ambivalent. Lisa had cataracts so her eyes were bright white which always terrified me and any guests I brought back. In any case, may she rest in peace.

2. We had a crab feast. It was one of the most fun meals I have ever had in this country or any other. My family was shocked that I knew how to eat crab and I tried to explain to them the annual Carla and Amy dinner but my Spanish isn’t quite proficient enough to describe how much my actual family is able consume in one night.

Oh, also 3. I think one of my brothers here just got engaged. When and how this happened I am not quite sure (I feel like Robbie here), but lately there has been a lot of discussion about location for the wedding so…I’m slowly getting the picture.

In other news, Jackie Draper in Chile is a-okay, yesterday a group of us went to a soccer game of the two rival teams here in Quito (so much fun, fútbol fans go crazy from the get-go here, as evidenced by groups of them busting down doors to enter before the game had even started), and although I have a somewhat tough week coming up at school, things are going really well!

Matt, Leila, Ryann and me at the Liga game

Due to the lack of exciting pictures I'll add this one of Leila and I with Jess' host brothers, whom we love.

I know pictures of flowers are boring but my host mom and I just came back from the botanic gardens here and they were just too gorgeous not to include.

¡Hasta la próxima!

This River is Wild

So, as many of you know, I spent last weekend in the rainforest. What many of you don’t know (and I only have myself to blame on this one), was how much I loved it. As I told the MG, it was an experience so far removed from my life back home, which is exactly why I came to this country.

We left Saturday morning and after a quick stop at Papallacta, a volcanic hot springs where Liz enjoyed her first warm shower in this country, we arrived at a small town where we traded in our sneakers for rainboots and hopped into the canoe that would be our main mode of transportation for the weekend as we were staying on a river (not the Amazon…we asked). We stayed in cabins that were far more luxurious than we had imagined and ate like kings, two things that we had not expected given the preparation of our program director, who had led us to believe that the great outdoors would be our bathroom and that we may have to kill our own food.

Nghiem and I at the hot springs

The crew on the canoe.

Ryanncita outside the girls cabaña

The days in the jungle were jam-packed with activities so I’ll just give you some of the highlights. We had a spirit-cleansing performed by the villages Shaman and the next day went to see where he lives with his family and while there we were treated to a typical meal (I’ll explain this shortly). There was a night hike in which we saw a mondo tarantula and I almost cried. Not really, but I did run away which is hard in the dark when your flashlight is borderline dead. We also visited an animal rescue site where we saw monkeys strange birds. It was also Matt's 21st while we were there so we celebrated with cake and wine.

Here's the group inside one of the biggest trees I have ever seen

I’m really just trying to rush through these highlights to get to the following: While there we played Survivor because, honestly, conditions were too perfect not to. It didn’t last that long (we voted out the creator in the second tribal counsel and things were downhill from there), but it was one of the funniest things I have ever been a part of. The threat of being voted out became the motivation behind everything we did. Therefore, we did not question:

- eating ants we had found in leaf stems and that tasted like lemon

- building a raft together and rowing said raft back to our campsite

- participating in a blow dart gun competition (in which Brianna won immunity)

- painting tribal figures on our faces while visiting the indigenous family

- forming alliances and backstabbing friends

Ten minutes later, once cooked, these were part of our lunch (Mom - remember when I boycotted sandwiches for a year after finding a worm in the bread?)

Game faces.

Our river bath. By Day 3 cohabitation was becoming difficult with the amount of dirt that was clinging to us.

So although the game didn’t last long and I was/still am more bug-bitten than I ever have been in my life (Mom I’m taking the Malaria pills, have no fear), I loved the jungle and the four days we spent there and think it was one of the most hilarious and amazing weekends of my life.

Who Knew? Volcanoes

This weekend the group was pretty split up for different reasons (3 to the Galapagos, 2 on a trip for their hiking class) so 6 of us decided to visit the gorgeous volcanic crater, Quilotoa, about 4 hours from Quito by car. We left Saturday morning and got there around noon, it was colder than we were used to and raining slightly but we suited up and set out down the crater toward the lagoon by foot, practically sliding down the sand at times we had a good time posing for pictures and acting like we knew what we were doing.

Here we are at the top. Note: this is around the time that I decide I no longer want to smile in pictures.

And this is when we made it to the bottom and thought that our mules were leaving without us

On the way up we rode mules. This is not something about which I want to go into further detail (Dad, please note that I did not put the preposition at the end of this sentence), because I absolutely hated my mule and it was mutual. Let’s just say that for every 5 steps we took I probably had to wait 10 seconds to start back up again. Also, knees were buckling and I don’t mean mine. That’s alright, we survived.

The rest of the afternoon was kind of quiet as it was raining and cold and we had to snuggle by the fire to keep warm. Not all was a bust, though, because Emily and Jess decided to rescue the cutest dog of all time. We played Go Fish with the kids whose parents run the hostel and were in bed (we had booked two rooms but ended up just using one and having everyone share beds we were so cold) by 9.

The next morning was beautiful and our guide, Milton, took us on an incredible hike through the tops of the mountains that really can’t be captured by camera, but I tried. Milton didn’t think that we were going to be able to handle the 3 hour round-trip hike but we sure showed him.

Ryann, Brianna and I looking royal in an ancient Incan cave

Miss Yoga wanted to kill me for photographing her during this.

Brianna, Emily, Ryann and I on the hike

Anyways, I’m off to school in a minute but other updates real quick:

- Today is one of the girl’s birthdays so we made her a cake yesterday and tonight we’re going out to karaoke in Spanish which should be interesting

- Salsa lessons are going swimmingly. By that I mean I have not progressed in the two weeks we’ve been taking them but this past class I got to be the girl instead of the boy so things are looking up.

- This weekend we are headed for 4 days in the Amazon Jungle. Spiders and monkeys and anacondas, oh my.

- Shirts in English I have seen people wearing this past week:

• An 80-year-old man’s that says “Cage Fighter in Training”
• A son walking with his mother, her shirt read “I only go to school for the girls”

That’s all for now, un beso!

Living For the Weekend

This weekend was just fabulous. I’ll let the pictures do the talking as I haven’t had any in quite some time.

So we didn’t go out Friday night because we had to be up bright and early (6:30am) to go to Otavalo on Saturday. It was totally worth it though because it turned out to be one of my favorite days here so far.

On the way there we stopped at one of the many equator lines in the area.

Otavalo is a huge market where you can find anything you would ever want and then some (eg. blow-dart guns, indigenous masks, guitars made from armadillos)

Ryann and I in the market. She didn't end up getting that hat despite strong persuasion by me and the vendedora.

After the market we stopped for an indigenous lunch that left us all ridiculously full and may or may not have also left Ryann and Jungen slightly ill.

Sunday some of the girls decided to climb the Basilica, one of Quito's largest and most beautiful churches. Here's Leila crossing over, more than a little nervous.

And here's Emily, oh so excited about climbing the steepest and scariest ladders of all time.

Girls at the top of one end. We later climbed up the clock towers you can almost see in the back (I would apologize for the blurry quality of this one but that's what you get when you ask an 8-year-old Ecuadorian to photograph you).

Bueno, this week I have a very important list to leave you with.

Things I wish my best of friends Drin (who turned 21 yesterday!) could have been here for:

• The world of scarves, shoes and purses that is the indigenous market.
• We visited a waterfall after Otavalo and were already running behind on time but our bus driver, Santiago, persuaded us to literally sprint away from our screaming director, Amanda, and hike up to the top of the waterfall. Very vale la pena (that’s for you, Daddio).
• As soon as we got to the bell-tower of the Basilica I rang the bell as hard as I could, scaring the other girls a bit and perhaps misinforming some local residents of the hour.
• Catching up on Grey’s Anatomy in my bed. Erin Marie MacNeil would have been, without a doubt, the perfect person to cuddle with. Miss you baby girl.

Know Better, Learn Faster (dedicated to J. Draper)

I’m sorry it’s been so long. Too long, really, to do a detailed update about the past week and a half, SO:

The Good:

• My literature class. We are reading short stories by some of Latin America’s most famous authors AND I spoke three times in class this past week (Jackie knows how monumental this is).
• Volunteering. After a huge lunch (salmon, I almost cried I was so happy) at the BC director’s house, I started my mandatory volunteer hours last week at an orphanage run by nuns here in Quito. The kids are the absolute sweetest and I just helped them with their homework and played soccer with them forever and loved it.
• Exercise, or attempts at it. This morning I went for my second walk/jog around the Parque Carolina with Ryann and Leila. It’s more than difficult running here because the altitude makes for less oxygen, but it’s really nice to be up and active early. Or that’s what I tell myself when my alarm goes off at 6:30.
• Movie night this weekend. A bunch of us headed to Brianna’s casa this past weekend to make brownies (we were craving chocolate big time) and popcorn and watch a movie. It was so nice to relax and feel like we were in real college for a second.
• Futbol. I love it. Actually, one of the Ecuadorian girls asked me to be on her actual team at the university. I was shocked and appalled and am sure she’s going to regret it.
• Family gatherings. My dad’s side of the family came here for a 5-hour lunch on Sunday which I was more than nervous for, but I held my own even in the company of two other ‘Laurita’s’ which isn’t the easiest.
• Jackie might be visiting next month. This would be better than good, it would be amazing and I’m mainly putting it here so that it comes true.

The Bad:

• I left the cell phone I have here in a cab last Thursday and, despite the cab driver calling and saying he would return it for $15, never got it back.
• Traffic. It’s horrible here and crossing the street is always a struggle (sidenote for my just my father: remember that wintry level in Mario where you have to get past something that wants to blow your hat off and in order to do it you have to walk next to a huge waddling penguin and mimic its steps? I find a different “penguin” every time I attempt to cross.)
• Lack of pictures once again. So sorry, it’s just not the safest to bring my brand new, super cute and teal camera around with me always. Next time, though, you have my word.

The hysterical:

• Brianna and I decided to walk from the Parque Carolina to the Mariscal this weekend here in Quito. We aren’t sure how far this is but let me tell you it’s a lot of kilometers. We were slightly lost on the way and I stopped to ask two 5-year-olds selling ice cream. They told us to stay straight and walk forever. Turns out they were right.
• Surveys. Mateo and I got to school yesterday to find tables set up and people basically accosting us so that we would try all different types of drinks and answer questions about them. Chocolate milk, coffee, Gatorade, Red Bull, you name it. At 10am the beer line was rather impressive.
• Amanda, our director here in Ecuador, calls Jungen’s dress “sexi” in class.
• As I sung along to Michael Jackson in one of my cab rides this weekend the driver asked me what ‘Billie’ meant and was quick to jump to the conclusion that ‘Thriller’ is a name as well.

Round Here

Things have been pretty normal around here. I was waiting for something terribly exciting to happen so that I could astound and amaze you all, but the fact that I’m adjusting well and getting into a routine here is pretty exciting in itself…kind of.

Last week I had dinner with my former Ecuadorian mother and her family, as well as Ryann and Emily, which was really nice. It was great to see all the grandkids and talk about the last time I was here. My Spanish has come a long way since then, which they were very quick to note, not sure whether this should be a compliment to me now or a dig at me back then. Either way.

This weekend we went out to ‘Gringo-landia’ as the Ecuas call the hip place to go out, La Mariscal. It was a funny night filled with Cubans who claimed they were whatever age we were (braces + stilted dance movements = probably 16), standing on street corners trying our best not to look like we had no idea where we were going, and reggaeton.

Saturday I spent the day with my family. Laura, Mafe and I went to the park where they have paintings and crafts every weekend and looked around at those as we ate ice cream and enjoyed the sun. Later that night I went out to a jazz concert with Mafe and her friends which I loved. I was incredibly tired, too much so to fully appreciate how hilarious her friends are, but all the same I enjoyed myself.

Sunday I slept in and went movie shopping with Mateo (500 Days of Summer as well as Father of the Bride) and then had lunch out with the family. “Lunch out” consisted of a mall food court and a ton of options as to what to eat. I decided on a turkey sandwich, I guess I miss American cuisine more than I thought I would. Sunday night I watched a movie with my parents as well as ‘Quien quiere ser millonario’ with the rest of the family (I was wondering how, exactly, in a country as poor as this, a program could be giving away millions of dollars until I realized that this only happens once in a blue moon because the questions become near impossible around $1200).

So that brings me to today. Nothing new to report, honestly, but my adoring fans were clamoring for more. Not really, but Emily does have double the amount of entries I do. BC goes back into session tomorrow and to quell any oncoming homesickness…

Things Ecuador has over the US:

• 60-70 degree weather daily
• Kisses on the cheek at every greeting/goodbye
• Movies 3 for $5
• An empleada (I know this is terrible but it’s really nice not having to do laundry)
• Expressions like “age of the bull” to describe teenagers, and “agua fiesta” to reference party poopers
• My own room (see video below…sorry Jackie and Christie)

My dad wanted a "slow pan" of my room so, here you go pops.

¡Chao chao!