Hey guys. Another LONG overdue update. Sorry. It’s just that I don’t really like taking the time to write, but I know I should. It just sucks to sit there writing for an hour and having to pay for it. So I’m trying a new technique that I should’ve started using a while back: I’m writing at home on my laptop and then I’m saving it to my jump drive and uploading it at the internet place. I know, I’m kind of a rock head for not thinking of that before…

On the plus side, this is going to be a really long update so you can just sit back, crack open a beer, and read for a while. Or not. If you want you could space out the joy of reading my blog over the next few days. Maybe while you’re at work. Seems like a good idea to me. What I’m trying to say here is that you can read my blog however and whenever works best for you! I’ll get on with it now…

Christmas

As most of you know, I spent the holidays here in Ecuador, and although I missed seeing everyone over break, I had an AMAZING time here! Christmas is an entire season here. Or, the holiday of Christmas is a whole week of get togethers here. It starts 9 days before Christmas day with the Novena, which is a 9 day prayer cycle in which we celebrate the 9 months Mary carried Jesus in her womb. EVERYONE here does it. There’s a little booklet they have with all the things you do and say each day, but it’s really confusing cuz you jump all around the book each day because some parts are used daily and some aren’t and it doesn’t seem to be very well organized. I know that it’s not very organized cuz my host aunts and uncles would get in mini-arguments about what part came next. Hahaha. I thought it was funny that no one really knew the order. And there’s not an index or a guide to what you’re supposed to do anywhere in the book. I thought that they should just spring an extra dollar to make them with each day printed out even though some parts would be repeated. Maybe that’s just me. It was actually a really nice tradition. We did it at my house with just my family some nights, and we went to my host uncles really nice pent house one night and all the extended family was there and we had a big dinner party and then did the Novena as a group. They also did it as a neighborhood in the little park next to my house, and they did it big. Mini-fireworks display at the end each night! They also have mini-fire places that you burn holy wood in during the Novena. It’s blessed. It’s also scented. Fancy. I actually bought some.

Anyway, backing up a bit, our house was GORGEOUS for Christmas! They know how to decorate here. The whole house! There was even a Snoopy stocking hung on my door! My first stocking ever, very exciting! We also had a fake tree in the living room. You can get real trees here, but they’re expensive and dry out fast causing a fire hazard. Actually I don’t think they care about the fire hazard portion as you’ll see during the x-mas eve section of the blog, when they blatantly flout fire codes in their homes… But the tree was great. We decorated it as a family. Well, sort of. Me and my host brother put up the tree, and I put on the lights cuz they just struggled with the light placing section. My host brother Esteban even said, “see, Adam knows how to put on the lights!” To which I said, “I’ve had a lot of practice, if I don’t my dad puts them up.” And we all know how that turns out… LOL!!! j/k dad, I think you’re very good at putting random lights on the bushes in the front lawn. Hahahaha! It’s funny cuz I can make fun of you and you can’t really do anything about it! Anyway, that’s really all I did with the tree. Then my host mom mostly just made me and Esteban put up things around the house that she and my sister couldn’t reach while they did the rest of the tree. Overall the house looked amazing! They even have a train that goes around the x-mas tree. It belongs to my host brother Esteban and he’s had it for about 9 years. He got it as a present back in the day when they were rich. Back then this toy train cost the same as 3 CARS! Ahhhhhhh!!

Right, onto Christmas Eve. Christmas eve was really fun. My oldest host brother’s (Adrian’s) half brother came over with his wife and mother in law. They were really nice. He’s a micro biologist just like Joe S! He works for the largest milk company in Ecuador doing some sciency thing. I didn’t really understand, too many complicated Spanish words in the same sentence to catch the context. But he was nice and agreed with me that the chocolate milk is the best. We had a deep convo about chocolate milk. It was sweet. (get it? Sweet? Chocolate milk? Haha) right, so I haven’t lost my ability to tell bad jokes since being here. Then it turned midnight. To celebrate we all did hugs and I thought that was it, yay it’s officially Christmas. Oh no, my host mom then broke out the sparkelers. Now I thought we were going to use them up on the patio or something, but oooooh no. We just lit em up right then and there in the formal living room! Then we ran around the living room with sparkelers! While they were all laughing and having a ball I was doing a nervous laugh and running around trying to avoid flammable objects. Didn’t seem like the safest way to celebrate and I thought that maybe I just had a crazy host family, but I told someone about it and I guess everyone does that at midnight. Then we had a giant formal turkey dinner. It was AMAZING!! Maybe the best turkey I’ve ever had. My host mom and been cooking it all day in wine. Delicious. Then for desert we had postre de las tres leches that my little sister made and fudge that I made! Mmmmmmmmmm. Jk, the fudge DID NOT TURN OUT. I couldn’t exactly find semi-sweet chocolate chips, or normal milk chocolate. Also, the recipe my mom gave me was all in ounces and everything here is marked in grams. So I kinda had to guess how many grams were in an ounce… right. Then it was too soft and I realized later that cuz of the altitude I should have boiled it for longer than exactly 8 min. It was really sweet and tasted too much like condensed milk. But they thought it was great. Said it tasted like a snickers or milky way. So they ate it. I thought it was gross.

Christmas day we got up and did presents at my house. I gave my host family a new printer cuz theirs has been broken ever since I got here and they can’t really afford a new one. So I got them that, and they gave me a scarf, a sweater (I’ll never wear it…) and a book from the museum my host mom works at. So that was really nice. Then we went to my other host uncle’s house and had Christmas with the extended family and another turkey dinner. Really fun. My extended host family is really funny and welcoming, so I had a good time.

Well, that wraps up Christmas. We’ve got a little more than a month to catch you up on.

Lindsay and Joe!!

To make up for the fact that I wasn’t home for Christmas my sister Lindsay and brother Joe came down to Ecuador for two weeks to hang out with me and travel around the country! They arrived on the evening of the 28th and I SWEAR they were the last ones off the plane. I was waiting to pick them up and like 900 people got off the same flight from Miami and they were no where to be seen. I was freakin out, but they finally came through the gates and looked really white and not tan!

So we said hello and did some yelling and then went to grab a cab to my house. Well, as a mark of how cheap I’ve gotten since being here I argued with a cabbie because I only wanted to pay 2 dollars to go to my house and he wanted 4. Well, 4 dollars to take a taxi to my house from the airport is REDICULOUS!! So I wasn’t going to pay it and Lindsay and Joe were like Adam, you’re fighting over 2 dollars for a cab ride that’s only going to cost 4, we’ll pay those two extra dollars, get in the cab. Apparently cabs cost more in the states. Anyway, we only paid 2 dollars. I was happy.

So we got to my house and I introduced my family to my other family! I have 2 now. So that was really fun. My host mom and host sister thought Joe was gorgeous, a nice white gringo with enough meat on his bones to be a real man. I’m too skinny apparently. Or so my host mom says. Then we went out to Tapas y Vinos for a first night on the town. It’s an upscale restaurant in Quito. It’s unlimited wine or beer plus unlimited appetizers (gourmet appetizers mind you) for $16. Well, if you want nicer wine it costs more. But they serve you for a minimum of four hours and if you’re not terribly drunk by then they’ll keep serving alcohol and food all night. It’s great.

The next day we went to Papallacta. Papallacta is the name of a village on the side of a volcano with the same name about two hours away from Quito. My friend Kali and her brother Nick, who was visiting her as well, came with us. So we spent the day in the hot springs and went for a hike the next day and then back to the hot springs before heading back to Quito.

We spent the next few days in Quito, including new years. Which was an adventure. On new years there’re two important traditions in Ecuador. The first involves one male member of each family (extended family) cross dressing and walking around the city harassing people and asking for pennies. A bit disturbing, but very funny! No one seemed to know the roots of this tradition. We decided that in our family, on the Richards side, it would probably Uncle Matt or Brian, and on the Eberlein side probably Uncle John. LOL! The other interesting tradition revolves around burning giant puppets. They make all these piñata like puppets that look like real people or tv characters and then they put lists inside them of all the bad things that happened the past year and all their wishes for the coming year. Then they take them outside and burn them. Also, everyone wears masks around all day. We saw a parade and some impromptu street theatre in the old town done by some transvestites. And there were lots of bon fires on the streets and little kids selling roman candles at midnight. Overall a very interesting night ending in some very interesting video diaries on our digital cameras… I think that was the beginning of the video diaries during our trip. Let’s just say the camera LOVES US. Or maybe we love the camera a little too much…
After New Year’s in Quito we started our real trip around Ecuador. Well, first a quick story from Quito. We were in old town looking at colonial stuff and we happened to be sitting outside la Catedral de San Fransisco, the largest cathedral and oldest cathedral in Quito, also the site of the oldest monastery in the new world, and this middle-aged woman comes up to us and starts talking to us. Lindsay and Joe don’t really speak Spanish so I’m doing all the talking…
“oh hello, where are you all from?”
“We’re from the United States, Minnesota if that means anything to you.”
Ok, enough conversation format, I’m just going to tell you what happened. So this lady is just kind of making small talk with us and she seems harmless enough so we (I) keep talking to her. Well now she wants to know how old I am. When I say 20, she of course says, “but you have so much gray hair!” yup, I know. Then she wanted to know how to say gray hair in English, just so that my brother and sister would understand that she was making fun of me I think. So then she asks how old Lindsay is and I tell her and she goes, is she your girlfriend? And I say no, she’s my sister. And then she asks if she’s Joe’s girlfriend and I tell her, no, we’re all family. And she goes, “Where’s her boyfriend?” Basicly implying that Lindsay is, by latin American standards, a bit of an old spinster. Hahaha! Then she asks if Lindsay prefers latin men or American men, to which Lindsay smartly said, men who speak English. Well, now she turns her attention to Joe, which is, I’m quite sure, really the entire reason she came over to talk to us. First she commented that he had gorgeous skin, the perfect color. I’m too dark, Lindsay is in the middle, but Joe, Joe is perfect. Then she wanted to know if his eyes were blue so she made him take off his sun glasses to see. Then she commented that he had beautiful hair. So we’re like great, but this lady won’t walk away. She’s just kind of standing there. So I ask, are you in Quito for the new year? And she is. So I ask if her family is from Quito, and she says no, she’s here by herself. Than she goes, but wait! I have a picture in my purse! So, naturally I think that it’s a picture of her family. Oh no. even better, she pulls out a Bay Watch DVD and points madly to David Hasselhoff and then to Joe, and then the picture, and then Joe. And I’m like, great, you came over here to tell me that you think my brother looks like the Hoff. Then she left. WHAT THE HELL LADY?!?! Overall, very entertaining. Then Lindsay and I called Joe DH randomly.

Oh my gosh, this is the longest blog ever! I’ve already written 3 ¾ pages in word! Woops! Guess I have a lot to say!

Then we went to Cuenca, the capital of colonial Ecuador. The entire city is like a big museum. And we went to Inga Pirca and then to Cajas National Park and hiked around a mountain lake. Then we got lost on some busses trying to get to Guayaquil but ended up there eventually that night. Got a hotel, and the following morning went to Montanita and learned to surf. Hung out at the beach. Good times. Then we went to Puerto Lopez and hung out on a different beach. Had some “budgeting issues” solved by Joe and the trusty journal. Then we had a fight with the laundry guy, but got out alive. Headed back to Quito to see my University, Lindsay said, and I agree, that it looks like something from the OC or 90210. Headed to Mindo to do some hiking, but it was raining so we went to a butterfly garden and humming bird refuge instead, followed by some more interesting videos involving a gold umbrella and a trick dog… riiiiiiiiight. And the last day we spent in Otavalo, a city about an hour and a half from Quito famous for it’s artisans markets. So we bought some nice “wears” and headed back to Quito for the last night. Then following morning they left for home, the 12th of January. Sad. It was reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaally fun though and it was really nice to see someone from home.

That was a very abridged version of our trip. Just so you know, a lot more things happened during all these travels.

Since Then

Well, since than I’ve just been going to school. Second semester, seems like it’s going to be more difficult than last semester. I like my classes so far. I have History of Ecuador, which seems good, the prof is a bit crazy. Rearranges where we sit everyday even though there’s no seating chart. But good. And I have Andinian Anthropology which is also very interesting. We get a 5 min. break everyday halfway through class. The teacher is really young but smart and fun. I also have advanced conversation. I like that class, we just sit around and talk really. And I have siglo de oro (literally century of gold) literature. I don’t really like that one. We just read a bunch of poetry from the 1600’s. Teacher is really soft spoken and it’s a HUGE room even though there aren’t that many of us. I have to sit in the front so that I can hear. I’m also in basic weaving cuz I need an art credit. It’s difficult, I’m not a great weaver as it turns out. surprise surprise… and I have a 0 credit volley ball class. It’s fun.

I also got really sick and was out for about a week. But I went to the doctor and now I’m alright. The doctor was very good, don’t worry. It was all very clean and well done. So that’s good. Although, you can just go into a pharmacy and buy whatever prescription drugs you want whenever you want. Strange.

Well, I think that’s about it. well, one more quick thing…

Saddest TV show ever…

One of Ecuador’s top tv shows right now is called “Dancing for a Dream,” and I think it’s got to be THE saddest television show of all time. It’s like dancing with the stars in that there a bunch of couples, but it’s one famous person and one “dreamer” that’s not famous, and then there’s a panel of overly critical judges. There’s this one judge who used to be in the Russian ballet and is particularly mean. Anyway, the idea is that the winner gets a dream fulfilled by the TV station. Which seems really nice except the dreams are things like, my dad’s leg was amputated after a freak accident and now he needs a new prosthetic leg so that he can work, or my 900 year old mother lives in a tin shanty and I’m working as a police officer but I don’t make enough money and I want to buy my mom a house, or my favorite, there’s one person who’s dancing so that her friend’s little girl who has leukemia can get treatment. But than one couple gets eliminated each week and they of course sooob cuz now their dad can’t have a leg or something horrible like that. As if this show wasn’t already winning the award for most depressing reality show of all time, it assured its place in history last night when they announced that one of the contest’s mothers died the previous night from cancer. WHAT?! So I’m not sure what happens now, does that girl get a new dream? I don’t know. But I bet if that leg guy wins he’s gonna feel terrible that while his daughter was dancing around for a few weeks on tv to win him a leg someone else’s mother died cuz the money for chemo didn’t come thought in time.

The show is such a hit that they’re going to start it up in Mexico.