Day 10

Now I have officially been here for a week!

So I guess there´s a lot to say. I´ll start with the buses which can be pretty funny. They don´t all come to a complete stop especially for the men. So men have to run alongside the bus and jump on while the guy who works on the bus (there´s one guy driving, and one guy who collects money and shouts at people on the street) yells ¨sube sube sube sube vaya vaya!¨ haha. pretty great. and all the buses cost only a quarter so thats pretty sweet.

soooo I live in the penthouse of this apartment building called Doral Almagro. or maybe it´s the reverse. not sure but its pretty sweet. I live with my host mom and host sister. there is a host dad too but i have yet to meet him because he´s travelling for his job. since I´ve been here already over a week and still havent met him I feel like its gonna be awkward when we do meet. My host mom talks a lot and has made me feel very comfortable. my host sister...i think she is a big partier. she invited me to go out to a club (discoteca) with her and her friends. it seemed like she knew everyone there. she didnt do a good job introducing me to her friends and I mostly felt awkward. by the end I was having a good time though. we don´t talk that much though in general. oh, and she´s 19. so its cool that we´re the same age (ish) and we get along.

what else is interesting so far...
I have only made friends with u.s. american students so far. I did not expect there to be so many! theres like at least 300. international students make up a major part of the student body. I really want to make ecuadorian friends though. The u.s. kids want to speak english and stuff. also, theres a place..it goes by a few different names, ¨la mariscal¨ ¨la zona¨ the zone and ¨gringolandia¨gringoland. apparently gringo isnt derrogatory here like it is in the states. it can be a term of endearment that just means foreigner. but anyway thats where all the gringos go to party. some ecuadorian students threw a party for us there on the first day, after orientation. So I had my first legal drink at an Irish pub in Ecuador. que chiste!

okay...i´m taking a class called gender and society and we´re only going to talk about male and female. I don´t even get it...how can you talk about the problems with having a binary system and then only talk about gender in binary terms?? that is upsetting.

love my dance class. love the scenery...beautiful mountains and volcanoes. love platanos but thats nothing new just now i get to eat them all the time. love how beautiful the university is. traffic is absolutely crazy. miss all my people back in the states, I hope you´re doing well and I´m looking forward to our reunion this summer.


<3