Back to School, Back to School...

Hello loves! I am back in action and finally starting to feel much better. I still feel sick after I eat, but most of the other weird symptoms (fatigue/insomnia, aches and pains, shivering, tingly limbs, etc.) are gone! I can deal with a funny tummy, as I have most of my life, but I´m just glad I can stop worrying about it being something more serious.

We had a nice relaxing Sunday on Engleterra (England, the street I live on - odd coincidence?) Road. I started (and almost finished) a new book, studied español, and Dan and I went back to our favorite little British pub to use their wi-fi and hang out. I beat Dan in every card game we played, yet again. I don´t know what it is about Quito, but apparently I should start playing cards for money here!

Yesterday, it was time to get back to the grind of Spanish classes. We switch professors every week so I now study with Hipatia. I was nervous about switching because I had a feeling that my professor last week was pretty lenient in comparison to the others. However, I was looking forward to more of a challenge (I can´t believe I´m saying this...) and a more structured class. Hipatia definitely fits the bill! We spent 3.5 of the 4 hours yesterday just talking. Sounds nice and easy, right? I have come to realize in the last week that I understand, read, comprehend, and write Spanish much better than I speak it, so talking for that long was extremely challenging! She´s a nice lady though and I´ve already learned a lot from her. Either way, it´s my last week of class so I really have to make the best of it and learn as much as I can.

After class, we came home to eat lunch (tacos! my favorite meal here so far), then Dan and I went to CineMark - a huge complex with a movie theatre, restaurants, coffee shops, stores....and wireless internet! It was so nice to have semi-normal coffee. Most people here only drink instant coffee - surprising, considering Ecuador is one of the biggest coffee bean producers in the world. However, they export most of what they grow here to earn greater profit...so we´re stuck with the not very good instant crap. Last night, we met up with Stuart at a bar and played cards and hung out for a while (longer (and more beers) than we had intended! oops!).

Sorry, I feel ike this is just a day by day record of what I did - BORING. I´ll try to spice things up a little bit...

Lately, I´ve been dreading meals, especially breakfast, because I feel so sick all the time and eating is the last thing I want to do. This morning, I cannot begin to explain how excited I was to walk into the kitchen and find bread, peanut butter (that actually tasted similar to american PB!), normal colored juice (yesterday it was green), whole fruit on a communal plate (usually it´s cut up for us on our own plate and we HAVE to eat it all), and self-serve yogurt (again, usually breakfast is portioned for us and we have to eat what we´re given). Ruth left the kitchen for a minute and Dan and I had a flipping hay-day! We were so excited to be able to choose what and how much we wanted to eat....oh, the small joys of Ecua-life :)

We hopped in a taxi for our morning commute to school and for some reason the cab driver had no idea where he was going...we tried telling him, then just resorted to getting out and finding it ourselves by foot. We navigated quite well, considering we´ve only been going to Vida Verde for one week, and we weren´t even too late for class. Everyday is full of little adventures!

Tonight, we´re meeting a bunch of people from school at a bar. I´m looking forward to it because they´re all really cool people but we really only get a chance to chat during our 20 minute break from class. I have lots of homework to get done before then though so it´s probably time to head out.

As always, thanks for reading (sorry that this one was a little on the dry side)!

Keely