Thanksgiving Dinner

 So this week was Thanksgiving week, and instead of being at home with my family, I'm here in Ecuador with an entirely different kind of family. However, this does not mean that I did not have an excellent Thanksgiving.

Because Thanksgiving is solely an American holiday, I had to work on Thursday. But, I got lucky, because I had a movie day scheduled for Thursday. (Yay!) By my second, 6 pm, class, the DVD player decided to not function at all. So after an hour of attempting to ignore it skipping every 5 seconds, I gave up and told my class they could go. Luckily, 6 pm is when I have my university students. Instead of simply leaving, they took me out and bought me "Thanksgiving dinner". Of course, turkeys here cost about $40, so dinner was actually chicken strips and fries from Tropi Burger. I really didn't care, though, because I got to hang out with some people for an hour and eat free chicken strips. :-)

On Saturday, the Quito volunteers had our own Thanksgiving dinner. Robert's host family graciously let us (or rather, Robert) terrorize their kitchen to make food. It should be noted that Robert made a ton of the food, and it was all delicious. (See list below) We had almost all the traditional Thanksgiving foods aside from cranberry sauce (difficult find cranberries, and if you do, they're expensive), sweet potatoes/yams, and pie. It really was a lot of fun spending time with (almost) all of us in the same place, plus some host family members. Of course, the 5 bottles of wine also made everyone pretty happy.

As promised, the food list:
- turkey (robert)
- blackberry sauce (robert, actually very delicious)
- mashed potatoes (megan)
- green bean casserole (robin)
- asparagus wrapped in bacon (elizabeth)
- gravy (robert)
- baked macaroni and cheese (robert)
- salad (combination of people)
- peanut butter brownies (robert)
- M&M cookies (me)
- wine (greg, chia-hsin, and I don't remember who else)

I have to admit, not being home for Thanksgiving did not make me particularly sad. I think this may be because I wasn't with family last year either; I stayed in Austin and ate Thanksgiving dinner at Jackie's house with her family while my family went to Wisconsin. So it may be because I've already missed Thanksgiving with family or because I was able - through the wonders of technology - to talk to my family on Facetime on Thanksgiving day. And, of course, any other day that they're available and my internet is working (which about 90% of the time).

Who knows what Christmas will be like; I hope to be somewhere with people I know for that holiday. I haven't decided, but I would like to travel down to Loja (very Southern tip of Ecuador) during my Christmas break. Loja is about 13 hours away, so it's definitely a trip I want to make during a long break. There is one volunteer placed there, and he has told me he'll be in town during December, so maybe I'll be there for Christmas. Or maybe I'll wait to travel until January and be at home with my host family for Christmas. I guess I should probably start looking at that so I can make sure I have all my travel plans solidified, but it still feels too early. We shall see.

And now, pictures:

Peanut butter brownies

Cookies

Chilling on the couches

Cutting the turkey

Waiting for food

This little girl looooved Greg. So much cute!

Baked mac & cheese

Megan with the 5 bottles of wine

Mora (blackberry) sauce and gravy

 Emily, Robert, and Robert's host family

Robert cooking

 Salad

Stuffing (made outside the turkey)

Turkey

5 bottles of wine

Also, if anyone remembers, I shut my finger in a car door 2 months ago. It's still bruised and the nail refuses to fall off and heal. :-(

Welcome to the Jungle

This weekend, I went on an adventure to Tena. Tena is located about 6 hours (by bus) to the East of Quito.  It's a small town in the Amazon jungle. On Saturday morning, at 6 am, a group of us took a bus there. We arrived around noon, where it was extremely humid. After finding a nice hostel and eating lunch, our hostel owner took us to las cavernas jumandy.

Of course, on the way there, we had no idea what was going on. We thought he was taking us to see some waterfalls. When we got there, we saw a pool with water slides. We were told we weren't allowed to wear our flip flops, but had to wear boots (like rain boots). We were also only allowed to wear our swimsuits, and not our clothes. At this point, everyone was extremely confused, but decided to go along with it. Finally, after everyone had stored their stuff, put on their puts, paid their $1, we found out. We were going to explore a series of caves in the dark. We were given some headlamps and a flashlight. Our guide took us through the caves - complete with bats, lots of water, and a mud bath. It was pretty exciting; definitely a good decision to just trust our hostel owner.

On Saturday, while five people went white water rafting, I went on a jungle tour with two other girls. Our guide took us climbing up waterfalls and swimming in our clothes. It wasn't the heart of the jungle or anything, but it was still pretty exciting. I did get some bug bites - because the water from the waterfalls washed off my bug spray - but none of them itch. :-)

Finally, we took a bus back to Quito at 5 pm, and I got home around 10 pm. Unfortunately, the next day, I was really tired from traveling, but it was still a ton of fun. :-)

Another week, another adventure.

This week's adventure is brought to you by my host family, but indirectly. As you may have guessed by now from my posts, I have the best host family ever. They are always giving me little presents, taking me places, and making sure I'm happy. Well, weeks ago I mentioned to my host dad that I wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate my year in Ecuador. When I told him, I was thinking I'd wait until I got back to the States because I didn't know what I wanted and because I was afraid of the cleanliness of tattoo parlors here. However, it turns out that, among all the other connections my family seems to have, there is also a tattoo artist in the family.

Another volunteer and I went to meet him about a month ago. Emily had a vague idea of what she wanted, but I didn't. I knew I wanted something Ecuadorian, but I hadn't really found a symbol that I liked. Andres suggested a couple different things, and I decided on an indigenous cross. Emily and I had to leave pretty soon after that, since I had to get to work at 4, but we planned to come back in a week or so to see the drawing and for Emily to get her tattoo.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally got time to go back on Wednesday to get my tattoo done. (Finances and long holidays prevented me from going earlier.) I really like my new tattoo, and am happy I got it done here. It's on my back, across from my chalice too. I'm considering asking Andres to touch up my chalice one, since I don't like how it healed with some light spots. But that will have to wait, again for monetary reasons. (For those of you wondering, this new one was $70.)

As for the rest of the week, I've pretty much just been teaching. There was a power outage for a few hours yesterday, but CEC has a generator so we still had classes. However, I had about half of my students because there was a big soccer game in Quito. (I'm going to be honest: I can't remember if it was against Peru or Paraguay.) I was also planning on going to Ambato this weekend, but I'm simply too tired, and decided it would be better to just stay and chill in Quito. But next weekend, I hope to visit Tena in the Oriente, so I figure it's a good idea to just relax this weekend. :-)

Is this real life?

So last week, the whole country took a long break from class and work, Wednesday through Sunday. During this break, I traveled to the coast where 16 WorldTeach volunteers were gathered to chill and have fun. We went to a town called Montanita; a small little tourist town with a pretty beach, tons of hostels, clubs, and cocktail stands lining the streets. Needless to say, it was madness. So of course, I don't have a lot of pictures, but I'm still going to use those to show what it was like, rather than explaining everything. (Mostly because I don't really have time to try to describe everything.)

There trip to Montanita took 14.5 hours (10 hours in a bus, an hour for dinner, and then 3 hours in a taxi), so this was quite necessary.

 Chilling on the beach the first day. :-)

 Check out all the rainbow umbrellas. Literally, they were everywhere, as was the blasting pop & salsa music.

 My first hostel was down at this end of the beach.

Iris and I love WorldTeach.

Out in the waves. The water was actually pretty warm, since it's the Pacific Ocean. However, when the sun went away, it got chilly.

Frisbee on the beach, with a local 3-legged dog.

 Robert and Jessica went surfing. Jessica's board was too heavy for her to carry, though. (It was twice her size, after all.)

 Parasailing! I really wish I'd gone. :-(

 James goes out to teach Jessica how to surf while Robert got pulled down the shore line by the tide.

So that's what the beach part of Montanita looks like. I didn't take any of the little town or the 2 hostels I was in, but they were very colorful and full of rainbow umbrellas and tiki decorations. As for why I was in 2 hostels: I stayed with Iris and Jessica in Casa del Sol for the first 2 nights. On Friday, they went to Manta, and I decided to stay, so I went to Elizabeth, Johanna, and Grace's hostel for Friday night. On Saturday, the 10 of us remaining headed back to Guayaquil. I spent Saturday night in Guayaquil at a hostel with Elizabeth, Johanna, and Robert. We got to hang out with Jorge and CJ for a few hours, which was fun since I haven't seen either of them in a month. On Sunday, Robert, Elizabeth, and I flew back to Quito.

It was a fun vacation, but I'm happy to be back in Quito. I love the sun, but I don't like having sand everywhere, all the time. I also like having access to water 24/7. The second hostel I stayed in did not always have running water. Also, if I have a choice (which I do), I prefer the mountains.