Un poco mas de Quito

So the canary who was nameless died yesterday. Boohoo. At least we still have Mozart and his friends to serenade us as we dine.

Rachel and I planned to go visit the old town, el centro historico, the other day, but somehow we ended up spending 2 hours on the internet trying to upload pictures unsuccessfully (it took about 5 minutes per picture, which is why I only posted a few ), then I got ripped off on the price and paid $3 extra for someones phone bill. We were starving by the time we left and thought, hey, lets go eat at that wonderfully cheap and delicious El Maple restaurant that Juliet took us to the other day! Good idea in theory, except that we got lost for about 40 minutes walking in circles trying to find it. Everyone we asked either said, ¨EL Maple?!!¨, as if it were entirely crazy that it started with ¨el¨, or they told us it was ¨very, very far away¨. We later found out from Juliet that we had walked right past it. Oops.

We wandered into a tour company office after our adventure getting lost and got some information on a cheap 8 day tour of the Galapagos from April 2 -9. When we walked in, it seemed that we were interrupting a party and about 6 people got up and left to go next door when we came in. I think they all then proceeded to get drunk and started to sing karaoke at the top of their lungs in really terrible off key voices, and we could hardly hear the travel agent over their singing.

Dinner that night was even more silent than before, if that is possible. Those who did speak a sentence or two did so in a whisper because it was so awkward to be the one to break the silence. We finished our food and then there was at least 2 full minutes of silence. Our plates didnt have a speck of food left on them and we{d drank all of our tea. We sat staring at our empty plates and I finally decided the silence was so unbearable I just had to say something to Rachel. I turned towards her to speak, and the second our eyes met we burst out laughing. I hope we didnt offend Cecilia too much, but really, I feel that she should be initiating conversation with us since we dont really know what is going on! (Sorry for the lack of apostrophes but I cant figure out how to type them on this keyboard.)

We went to another dance performance celebrating the day of women at the Casa de la Cultura that night with Juliet and her Fulbright and Ecuadorian friends. It was the opening gala celebration, which we didnt realize meant that we would have to sit through an entire hour of speeches in Spanish before we actually saw any dancing. I just about fell asleep because to me, all I could comprehend was that I was in a dark theatre, there were some women and men taking turns giving speeches, and everyone clapped every now and then. At one point they helped a man (who I think was some sort of ambassador from Colombia) onto the stage as if he couldnt walk, but then suddenly he was able to walk fine. Solidarity perhaps? Then everyone stood and sang the national anthem, they raised a big white sheet from the floor to the ceiling (apparently it was symbolizing peace?), and yes!... finally the dancing was about to begin! But no! it didnt. Instead a projector turned on and we watched a power point presentation with all the advertisers on it. Oddly enough, one of them was Applebees. By this time Rachel and I couldnt keep a straight face because our night had been so ridiculous so far beginning with our uncomfortable (but delicious) dinner. The dance group performing that night was from Israel and they were pretty good... once we finally got to see them. Their dancing was a mix of modern and ballet.

Later we went out with Juliets friends to a bar named after the musical Cats, though it was decorated with posters of ACDC and Fiona Apple. Makes perfect sense. We played foosball for the rest of the evening. From what I have seen it seems to be a really popular game here.

Hilarious story time... yesterday morning, Rachel and I did something very authentic. No, we did not eat guinea pig, nor did we take a salsa dancing lesson... no, instead we went to a step aerobics class in the park. There were a couple hundred people of all ages flapping their arms and jumping side to side to the beat of the loud techno music... grandpas, grandmas, little 3 year old girls, a puppy, even teenagers... all following the directions of the older male teacher who was wearing tight, bright blue spandex shorts and bouncing around on stage with the two other aerobics leaders who were wearing matching blue outfits. We took video, don´t worry.

After we were thoroughly worn out from exercising in the high altitude, we went back to Juliet´s apartment and made the most delicious tacos I´ve ever had the pleasure of eating, then a teeny tiny little car pulled up out front driven by Juliet´s Ecuadorian friend Fernando, we all piled in, and he drove us to the hills overlooking old town to visit the incredibly popular water museum. The museum itself was pretty cool, from what I could understand of our tour... we got to make bubbles in the bubble room, slide down some slides representing condensation, and then learn about water crystal formation in response to positive and negative sounds, phrases, and music. I was really surprised they included that in their museum. But the really wonderful part about the museum is that it has the most amazing view of all of Quito, plus all the other valleys and volcanoes around it. I took about 40 pictures of the same view. We all crammed back in the car again to go down the mountain into old town, where we ate an early pre-dinner (since Cecilia´s are kind of small) at a cute cafe and tried some interesting food and chocolate drinks that had some weird grains that you were supposed to pour into it. Then we wandered around old town in the rain... it´s really an entirely different world than new town. The buildings are so old and cute, the roads are all cobblestone and quite narrow. We peeked into a few of the churches but couldn´t go into the oldest one because it was Sunday and mass was going on. The guy who was driving us around that day acted as our unofficial guide and was really excited to tell us all about the history of his hometown.

As soon as we crammed into the car again, the clouds opened up and it just POURED rain... we had to take a taxi back home since it was raining so hard even our umbrellas wouldn´t protect us on our walk home. Good thing taxi rides are only about $1.50-3 here!

Last night all 8 of us at the house gathered as a ¨family¨ after dinner (which actually involved some talking this time) and watched.... wait for it... Sound of Music. Dubbed in Spanish. Cecilia knitted some socks for her daughter while we watched and made us some popcorn while the rain poured outside.

Random fun fact... people keep their dogs on the roof because they often don´t have yards. This becomes scary when you are walking down the street and think you see a giant dog statue, only to realize it´s actually a huge, living doberman pinscher when it starts barking at you like it wants to kill you.

Also, I told you how cold it was last time I wrote. Well, it somehow got colder. Rachel wore two pairs of socks, gloves, a beanie, 3 shirts, and her sweat pants to bed last night. And she was covered by five blankets. And she was still cold. How is that possible?

Besos,
Kerri