Days 27 and 28: USFQ and Salsa

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I had a really hard time getting up today because I was up late last night, so school was very long and tiring. After class ended I had to get my Censo. That required going and getting carnet photos taken, getting lunch somewhere (we ate at Shwarmas and it was soooooooo good!), taking a bus to the Rio Coco Station in Quito, then taking a taxi to the Policia Migracion building. The process of getting there took the most time for sure, and when we arrived we had to wait for 45 minutes because they were closed for lunch.

Around 2:30 we finally got in. The process of getting out actual censo was really pretty fast - and it required yet another picture. (I have had my picture taken 4 times now just to come to Ecuador...) Of course this one couldn't get rid of my red-eye so I look like the devil. Just call me Lucifer...

For some odd reason they don't laminate them there - they just handed me my paper and a sleeve with a hologram in it. We stood in line for 20 mintues waiting to get our censos laminated only to find out that we had to go outside and pay some guy 80 cents to laminate our censos in the most ghetto way possible.

When we finally finished, Stephanie and Caroline took a taxi back to the hotel, while Tom, Lindsey, and I went back to the bus station and went back to campus. Lindsey has been sick for several days so she needed to go to the clinic. I figured I would go with her, however, Katie D and I decided we should probably go to Payless and buy some cute shoes. It was buy one get one half-off, so of course we both had to get shoes. My extremely productive afternoon ended when we caught the bus back to the hotel at 5pm. I played on facebook until dinner at 6, had dinner, then got ready for salsa dancing lessons.

Katie D, Sam, Rachel, and I wanted to get movies before salsa so we took a taxi early to La Mariscal. When we got there, however, all the power was out. It was the creepiest place I have ever been - La Mariscal is not an area you want to walk around when there are no lights. Some cops turned their sirens on at us, then hung out the window talking to us and following us. We turned away from them as soon as we could because cops here can be very corrupt. Some restaurants were still open, using candles as lights, but everything else was closed. Since we didn't want to wander on the streets in the dark the four of us walked to the salsa place a little early. Luckily Johnathon and his friends were there and they saw us and let us in right away. We sat in the dark with just a few candles for a while. Right around 8pm, which was when our lesson was supposed to start, the power came back on. It was very nice to be able to see again, and right about that time Annie showed up as well.

We got started on our lesson a little late, and only 6 of us came. It was nice though because we got more personalized attention/help. My feet and calves were a lot more sore than I thought so dancing was hard. My new shoes, however, did make it easier to turn on the floor. Before, I was going barefoot and my feet kept sticking to the floor and I got several splinters. We all had a really good time, and at the end we watched each person do their own kind of dance: I did tap, Caroline did belly dancing, Jon did swing, Louis and Stian did swing, Johnathon did cairabon (?), and Lianne sat on a stool and watched.

Once we got back to the hotel, I was planning on showering. Unfortunately, the water was not coming out, and if it did come out it spat brown stuff at us. We also no longer had hot water, so a shower was definitly out of the question. With the matter of showering settled, I started the editing of my group's paramo ecosystem paper. Danielle and Tom and I were up until about 1am working on our groups' papers. Finally I finished and was able to hit the sack.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Morning came much too early, and I hit snooze about 5 times before getting out of bed. The water was still not working so that meant I couldn't shower before school. Oh well, everyone I have class with has been stinky with me before in Tiputini! Class started off really slow because we had no projector. Andrea gave us all our grades thus-far, and we turned in our final papers to her as well. Since we did individual grades, I got to do some sudoku while waiting for class to officially start.

Once class started it seemed like it went on forever. When we got our break I went to talk to Haruna and David about the water situation. David talked to the hotel and found out the city was doing water work and it should be fixed by this afternoon. I went back to class to learn more about rivers and their ecosystems - all this stuff I pretty much learned in Ecology this past spring though so it was kind of boring... After class ended I got some money from the ATM since I want to be able to travel with some to the Galapagos, then hung out until lunch. Lunch was pretty good - better than most days at least, and dessert was delicious chocolate mousse. I thought about being productive so I headed to the lawn when I was done eating to get some reading done. The reading turned into talking which turned into laying on the grass listening to my Ipod.

At 2 most of us hopped on the bus to go back to the hotel. Once there I got my laundry together and took it to the lavandaria. Then Caroline, Lianne, and I went shopping for a while. We looked for one-piece bathing suits for them. Caroline was successful at one of the first stores, but Lianne wasn't having much luck. The three of us wandered around the mall for a while, looking at shoes and clothes. In the end all we came back with was one bathing suit, wart remover, and tissues. Now I am just waiting for dinner so I can eat, get some reading done, go to salsa, and then hopefully go out tonight.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day of class, studying, errands, studying, visiting Vatsal and watching the planes land in Quito from his roof, studying, and more studying. Only 3 more days in Quito then it's off to the Galapagos!