español, español, español!

Hola!

My life is now consumed by spanish. Classes are going much better than they did the first two days, and I have learned more in 4 days than I did in my entire semester of college spanish. I still have a long, long way to go, but I can pretty much understand (or get the gist) of anything I hear. I could also probably say most things that I want to say, but I´m not quite confident or comfortable enough yet. Dan keeps telling me that I will only get there if I try...and he´s right, as much as I hate to admit it! It´s strange...as I learn more spanish, I seem to forget english, little by little! The line separating english from spanish is becoming fuzzy...for example, when I think, about every 4th or 5th word is in spanish. As I´m writing this, quite often the spanish word for something enters my head before the english word does. This is a very good thing, but it´s also very odd - spanish is taking over!

We´ve been playing cards the past few nights with our host family. It´s really neat because we teach them a game, then they teach us a game. It´s very difficult to explain (and understand)rules in a foreign language, so we all engage in a jumble of english-spanish explanations and translations (ie. Ruth and Esefan need explanations in spanish, Dan and I need enlgish explanations, and Dayla often goes back and forth for all of us). I love nothing more than this exchange of teaching and learning across languages, no matter what the topic at hand may be.

Ok, enough about spanish...Last night, Estefan took Dan and I to the Ecuador v. Bolivia National futbol (soccer) game! It was such a cool experience - one I´ve been looking forward to since I knew I´d be living in Quito for a year. Soccer is very different in other countries (especially S. America and Europe) than it is in America. It is a significant part of their culture, history, and daily life. Ecuadorians take it very seriously and get very involved in the sport on all levels. Being at the game was like being at a playoff baseball game and the MN state fair at the same time. The place was packed and people just go crazy! Qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup start next month here, so I am super excited about that...I can´t wait to go to another game!

After the game, Estefan gave us a great tour of "gringolandia" - the part of town where all the bars and clubs are. He owns a club there, so we´ll have some great connections. We stopped at one club where every shot in the house is 1.25! We weren´t really out to party last night, but it was fun to see what it´s like down there and it makes me very excited for this weekend!

A few random tidbits you might enjoy:
-it takes 5 keys, 2 codes, and 1 phone call to get in and out of our house. can you say, security?! When Dan and I left to come to the internet cafe, it took us 10 minutes to get from the front door out to the sidewalk!
-on our way here, i got hit on for the first time since I´ve been in Ecuador...and it´s because Dan was walking on the upper level of the sidewalk (about 5 feet away from me), rather than right next to me like usual! We got a good laugh out of that.
-ever since Ruth found out that I studied nutrition in college, she takes the opportunity at every meal to tell me that everything we´re eating is organic and "muy sano!" (very healthy). haha, I love it!
-Last night, we were asking Estefan about weather changes here...He said "weather is same as girls in Quito: sunny in the morning and cloudy by the afternoon, all year round." and he was completely serious. haha.
-Janet Jackson "i will always love you" is playing in the internet cafe right now. I don´t think I´ve heard this song since I was obsessed with it in 5th grade after I saw "The Bodyguard" (is that correct spelling??)!

I don´t know if you can tell, but I´m struggling to find the words to write somewhat eloquently right now, so I think I´m going to call it a blog entry and peace out :). Either my brain is still fried from 4 hours of class this morning, or I haven´t quite woken up from the nap I took earlier, or I really am forgetting english! Thank you so much for reading though (the 3 of you who do ;)), and I will be back again soon!

Hugs and Kisses,
Keely

p.s. when you comment on a blog entry, make sure to check back later (click on commentarios at the bottom of the entry you commented on) to see if\what i comment back! I love the comments, so I want to respond and I can´t really think of a better way to do it.