Mi Mamma drove us to class this morning so we had time to play on the internet, but I had switched bags at the last minute and didn't have my flashdrive that contained my first e-mail so I just sent a quick e-mail to the parents and sister saying I was alive. Today you get more!
I way bombed out on the Spanish exam this morning because it was a formal written exam...shoot I'm bad at those in English!! I'm doing really well at understanding and getting my points across, so whatever I'm not as bad as the exam said and my teacher knows that. He is very nice and speaks almost no English so when I don't know a word or don't understand things get a little crazy with hand gestures and noises!
I will be spending 4 hours in the classroom everyday and 3 hours in the city going to museums and markets, etc to pratice Spanish. Valerie and I are separate for the classroom part and together in the city, it works out really well.
Mamma packed a sandwich and fruit (fresh pineapple and papaya) for our lunch. We sat down to eat and were thoooooroughly enjoying the fruit when I noticed a large mass of mold on the tupperware contaminating my fruit. I figured out later the cause...when they put dishes away they are not completely dry and they close the tupperware allowing moldage to happen. Awesome, I shared Valerie's after that.
We headed out to the historic part of town for our outdoor adventure today and toured several beautiful Catholic churches and part of the building where the presidents of the past have lived (we saw the president's motocade go by yesterday!!!!)
To get there we took the bus...this is where the fun starts. Drivers here are impatient, lots of honking going on. Our bus driver was cut off by a car at one point and slammed on his brakes, sending everyone flying (the bus was packed and most everyone was standing, holding on). Valerie fell into me, I fell into the people behind me (I fell backward about 8 feet), and the man in front of Valerie fell to the floor. Everyone was ok, I may have sprained my thumb because it is now swollen and a little tender, but it isn't bad. My teacher said that he has never seen that happen before, so of course we had to discuss it the rest of the day :)
After touring the historic stuff we got back on the bus (minus Valerie's teacher since she had to catch a different bus). Valerie and I managed to snag some seats and a skeezy older guy tried to pickpocket her, but she didn't have anything in her pockets so he went away...see, we are prepared! It was nice to sit, but we had trouble keeping an eye on my teacher to see when it was time to get off. Finally Valerie saw him wave, so we jumped up and got off the bus at the next stop only to find that my teacher had not gotten off with us....and we were at the wrong stop. We quickly caught the next bus thinking we would just ride until our stop where we'd see him waiting. We rode until we didn't recognize anything anymore, and then we got off because we thought we'd gone too far. Then we took the bus back a few stops because Valerie thought she recognized something...and got off again...at the wrong stop. Finally we realized that we have a map of the city, so we found the cross streets and got ourselves oriented and finally off at the right stop.
By the time we got back to the right stop it was too late to return to the school, so we started walking home (an hour walk). Aye!! The walk is very steep uphill the whole way home and Quito sits at over 9,000ft, so it was hard work (atleast the walk in the mornings will be easy!). We stopped at a shop for some emergency toilet paper and then finally made it home sweaty and out of breath...but finally in the right place :)
Tonight my family served broccoli again. I scooped it onto Valerie's plate again when a doctor showed up to have Mamma sign some paperwork out of the room. When she returned and asked us how we liked the broccoli, I told her I was allergic and now I don't have to eat it anymore...because my American moms says so ;) Bueno!!
After dinner I went into the bathroom and noticed the toilet hadn't been flushed in awhile. (everyone sees the danger here except for me at the time)...so I flushed it. It immediately headed straight for the seat. I managed to turn the water off before it flooded the bathroom (I can't flood the bathroom 2 days in a row!!) and ran to get Valerie. As it turns out, you are not supposed to flush toilet paper, which we didn't learn until we got to school today which was already too late. So we are waiting for the water to go down so we can plunge it, oh the fun I have!!
OH MY GOSH!!! Tonight is the night that the garbage trucks come to pick up the garbage in front of the houses (they come in the night which is interesting). I actually told my host family that in my KS family my dad sings a little song and I sang it for them and got very excited that it was garbage night (literally). I couldn't wait to tell Dad!!
Ok, well it is time for me to fix my bathroom and start my journal for my Spanish college credit thingy so I am going to head out.
I hope you all are having an equally fun time in the US (or whatever country you are in) :)
Lots of love,
Amber
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