It's been awhile...

For the past two weeks, since the beach, I've mostly been spending my time at the Universidad dealing with my studies and the like. I definitely have felt the "W curve" ... where around the third week you get home sick and I called my parents on Monday because of that. It was a rough day though because I started off by slipping and falling in the shower, landing pretty hard on my right wrist and smacking my right shoulder blade against the wall...Then on top of that, my art class isn't going so well and I was (still am) worried about it... I had the midterm this morning but who knows how that went.

This past weekend, I chose to stay in Quito and run around the city -- it's basically a city that never ends... Friday I went to central Quito (to the Old Town) and saw el Convento de San Diego with my art history class. Afterwards my friends and I walked around and went into the San Francisco church as well. Like I probably said before, these convents and churches are GORGEOUS! They're all built sometime between the 15th and 18th centuries, and they are just remarkable -- all of the barroque decorations and the paintings are just magnificent.

After spending the day downtown, I came back and took a nap and went out with two of my new Ecuadorian friends to La Mariscal -- we ate dinner at a restaurant called the ChaCha and had pizza and Pilseners (Ecuadorian beer)... and then went to a discoteque to dance the night away.

Most of the others decided to head back to Otavalo Saturday morning around 6am, and I missed my alarm, so I wasn't able to go... so I ended up going to El Mercado Mayorista in South Quito (an area which my university here tells me not to go because it's "so dangerous," but it's really not that bad). I went with my host mom and her brother and we walked around and bargained for better prices on fruits and vegetables. I also got to see a lot of dead pigs heads and cows hoofs... which made me think about becoming a vegetarian haha.

There, I got to meet my host mom's maid, Jessica and her family and we drove them back to their house in the South. And then I went to Panecillo, which is one of the mountains in Quito that has the statue of the Virgen de Panecillo. The Virgen sits on top of a serpiente, which signifies something like crushing of the demons. It's said that the Virgen looks over all of Quito and protects the Quitenos from evil.

After Panecillo, we ended up back at the house and had lunch and then my host mom's brother, Julio, took me to TeleferiQo where I went up to the top of Mt. Pinchincha and got to see an amazing view of the ENTIRE city of Quito. We go up on the TeleferiQo, in little cable cars that are suspended from heavy wires.... so yea... let's just say I got over my fear of heights quickly.

Anyways, I don't know what else to say... I've just been running around Quito, going to school and spending time with friends ... oh yea and making some Ecuadorian friends as well.

I hope all is well back in the States! Tomorrow I leave for Riobamba in the Sierra... also known as Friobamba, because it's so cold... We're going to check out the other campus of USFQ and possibly take a train around the Nariz del Diablo... which is a volcano, I believe.

I am currently updating my flickr with pictures, so check it out when you can... the link is in previous posts!

Ciao mis amores!