Wesley's birthday was this past Monday, the 7th, but she wanted to have her big celebration Saturday because we're "responsible people who can't go out on Monday night because we have class on Tuesday." Haha. She's so cute. So we spend all day trying to get her birthday plans figured out and things are complicated by the fact that Wesley dropped her phone in a puddle of water. A puddle that only existed because some guy was washing his car. So, for a majority of Saturday her phone was sitting, nonfunctional, in a bowl of rice. Complication was augmented by the fact that my phone was out of saldo (I didn't have any money on my phone). It was difficult to say the least. We got it figured out, though, and around 5:30, Ashley and I headed over to Wesley's house. Then we hung out and charlamos (chatted). Wesley's host parents are SUPER nice and SUPER awesome. They joined in on our conversation for awhile and I found out that the world is small even when you're thousands of miles from home. It turns out that Wesley's host mom studied for a year in high school in Goshen, Indiana. What are the odds. She lived with Doris Keim and her husband (I can't remember his name). They lived very near an Amish community, and she had lots of Mennonite friends. Haha. Crazy. So we talked about Amish and Mennonites...in Ecuador. We left Wesley's house around 8:30 and headed to a restaurant in la mariscal called La Chacha. This restaurant is owned by Galo who is in charge of the soccer volunteering. This restaurant helps fund all the projects he is involved in. The restaurant was closed for some restorations, but they opened it just for us. The restaurant is pretty small, but it has a nice, relaxing atmosphere. The 9 of us just chilled and chatted until the pizza was ready. Then Galo and Andres came out with a homemade chocolate cake. So good. When we were done at the restaurant, we headed over to La Oceana, which is a club nearby. There were 8 of us girls and Vince (aka "Beans" because when Spanish people try to pronounce Vince, it comes out sounding like "Beans." haha). The club tried to make Vince pay $5 to get in while the rest of us would be free, but we refused to go in unless they let him in for free as well. Can't argue with that. It was a nice club. They played a good mix of American and Spanish songs.
This is the new hot song in Ecuador: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zp1TbLFPp8
I'm going to try to memorize it. It'll be hard though, because part of it is in Portuguese.
Dancing isn't really my scene, but I have fun when I'm with a lot of friends. It's kinda nerve-wracking here in Ecuador, though, because random guys will try and dance with you and it's not like you can pre-screen them. So I danced with Wesley and Milijana, but some of the guys that snagged other friends of mine looked pretty nice. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to dance with an Ecuadorian after all. Gotta do it once while I'm here.
Sunday was spent doing a load of homework the size of Pichincha itself. Had to write my first Spanish essay for Advanced Spanish. It was about the movie La fiesta del Chivo, which documented some of the actions of the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. In his lifetime he was responsible for killing over 50,000 people. Disgusting. He ended up being assassinated, which you think would be a happy event, something that the rest of the country would approve of, but the army ended up hunting down and killing all of the assassins. So yeah, I did a lot of homework on Sunday. I had assumed that this country wouldn't broadcast the Super Bowl, but after a few people from the States asked me if I was going to watch it, I thought I would pursue the idea. Daniel said Sports Planet, a restaurant/bar in la mariscal would be showing it. I had to go. My Packers were playing. So me, Beans, and Kandi headed downtown and got to the bar right as the coin toss was happening. There were only three seats together left in the restaurant, which was fortunate. There were a lot of gringos there and they were doing a lot of drinking. They had these beer towers that held 3 gallons. People were buying those up like collectible Beanie Babies. They didn't really seem to be taking sides in terms of the game. The just chugged a beer every time someone scored. Beans and Kandi are both Steelers fans, so I had to step up my smack talking game since I was the only Packers fan. I didn't have to do much talking in the first half. I mean the game did the talking for itself. 21-10 at half, Packers. Halftime show was visually impressive. It was hard to hear the music, but I know they played some good songs, the catchy ones. And you've gotta like it when Usher makes a guest appearance and pulls out some dance moves like he did that night. Second half, the Packers didn't score at all in the third and I got a little nervous. I almost started freaking out when the Steelers got it to within three at 28-25, but the Packers held them off and became Super Bowl Champs 2011!!!!!!! Man, did that feel good, or what? Unfortunately we didn't get to see any of the commercials here in Ecuador because they could only stream the game itself. But I watched them last night. There were some pretty good ones. The Ozzy-Bieber one was classic just for the sake that they called Justin Bieber a girl. I was also a big fan of the "Reply-All" one. Haha. But my favorite for the night was the Dr. House commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCB4YWPhNeI
Little twist Gregory House style on a classic commercial. Classic.
All in all it was a Super Bowl success. It was chevere to be able to feel some of that American atmosphere here in Quito and I'm glad I didn't miss out on seeing the Packer's victory.
We're headed out to the beach and then to an organic farm in Rio Muchacho. We leave tonight at midnight and come back Monday evening. I'm excited to take a little break from school.
Lizzie
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