La Mitad del Mundo

This weekend was a blast. It started off with a futbol game at the estado nacional. Liga, Quito´s very own, was playing Cuenca. I called Leslie earlier in the day to see if she wanted to hang out since we had only seen each other briefly the other week. She invited me to the game with her friend Emily. Both of them are MSID students who have been here since September. Leslie and I went to high school together and we also work at Camp Echo. Emily applied to be an Senior counselor this summer. I digress, we went to the game and met up with Joslyn Broitman, another high school classmate of mine, and a ton of USFQ students. (Students who attend Universidad San Francisco in Cumbaya). Liga won and afterwards we headed to Mariscal to a place called Bungalow. It was a pretty cool bar-disco. So we danced and enjoyed ourselves and who did I see but Christian Goans, sticking out way above everybody on the dance floor. It was coincidental but not surprising because Mariscal is the place to go if you want to go out dancing and bar hopping in Quito. Needless to say, I had a good time and made friends with Emily, with whom I am really excited to work with this summer.

Saturday was even more eventful. Lindsay and I took the Teleferico up to the top of Pichincha to get the view of Quito. It is absolutely stunning and I bet it is even cooler at night. It is about 14000 feet so we were definitely huffing and puffing a bit as we walked around. On our way down we met a couple from Nevada that had hiked all the way to to the top which is about 15000 feet. Lindsay and I are not in good enough shape to do that hike yet. :P Later that evening, David, Fernando´s friend called me and asked if I wanted to go out with him and Topocho and if there was a girlfriend of mine for Topocho. I called Lindsay up and we all went out to the bar that we went to on the second night in Quito called Tequila. When we were there Shachie, Hannah, and Dan met up with us and we danced a lot. One thing I love here is that there is dancing and music everywhere. I am obsessed with Salsa and bachata. They are fantastic.

Sunday was going to be my reading day but my cousins came over and we had crab for lunch and that took about 2 hours. My cousin Diego is a matador and he had a friend with him who is a Mexican matador. Both of them had just done a show in Ambato for Carnaval. Alfredo, the Mexican matador, had never seen the Equator and neither had I so we took the 20 minute ride to la Mitad del Mundo to see the pretty line they have drawn that marks 0´ 0´ 0´. It was pretty cool and I took some pictures, that will hopefully be up tomorrow if my friend remembers to bring her USB cord. When we got back we decided to go bowling so we headed to Quicentro and bowled a few games. 113 best score of the night for me. Since everyone was hungry we head to Ch´ Farina, a 24 hour pizza place for food. I didn´t get home til 12:45 and I didn´t get any of my reading done but it was worth it. I had a great time and I was able to spend some good bonding time with my sister Marce.

That is all for now. This week is Valentines Day and I think I am going to get some chocolates and what not for the fam. I bet my mom would like it if I bought her flowers. :)