Days 36 - 40: I am a beach bum

So I can't remember the specifics of everything over the past 5 days, but most of it consisted of laying on the beach, a lot. Thursday meant breakfast and dinner with our families again. After breakfast I went to school, had 3 hours of class with lots of presentations in it, then bummed on the beach. The sea lions here are so funny - sometimes they just decide that you are in their way and will walk right over your stuff. After dinner, there was a concert going on downtown that we all decided to check out. Turns out that it was more of a political rally, but wasn't really very successful. Mostly people just sat, listened to the band, and played futbol (soccer). That and Ecuavolley consume a lot of people's time here, but it's fun to watch. Since the "party" wasn't super exciting most of us went to Iguana Rock. It was happy hour, which meant 2 for 1 drinks. Rachel and both got caiparina's, another of my favorite new drinks. As a "welcome to Galapagos" gift, the owner, Marcos, gave us two pitchers of free drinks as well (vodka and orange juice). Then there was a lot of dancing, and lot of laughing and good times, and some pool playing as well. I was supposed to have met Pachon there, but he didn't come because he was studying for his Guide Exam coming up next week. Stephanie D introduced me to one of her friends on the island, Gabriel. He was a really nice guy and we chatted for a while. It got pretty late so I decided to walk home with Rachel - Gabriel asked me to meet him at Playa Mann tomorrow. After Pachon's no-show I said sure but didn't expect much...

Friday my class went biking. We loaded the trucks after breakfast and first went and toured the recycling center on the island. We learned about how they sort things, how they are recycled/where they go, etc. Although it was kind of interesting, it would have been much more so were it twice as short and half as smelly. Then we got back in the trucks and headed up to El Junco. El Junco is the freshwater lake on the island that was formed hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is an explosion crater, and is the only freshwater lake in the Galapagos. It was really misty and cloudy up there - reminiscent of being back in the cloudforest. We got on our bikes and started our 35-40 km journey back to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. It wasn't all easy-going: we stopped a lot so that Hugo could show us different plants and tell us about the flora of the island, and we also had quite a bit of up-hill biking to begin with. Then it was mostly downhill and was tons of fun because we got to bike really fast. Don't worry, we all got helmets AND biking gloves to protect us.

After hurrying back for lunch, we ate and I headed to the beach. I had a couple hours before scuba class at 4:30 that I wanted to take advantage of, plus Gabriel was supposed to meet me there at 2 pm. 2:30 rolled around and I had completely given up hope on all boys so I went in to get my book to read for class. When I was walking back out of the building, who came walking up but Gabriel...WITH Pachon, the guy I was supposed to meet the night before. They both said hello to me and I wasn't sure what to do next. Luckily they both got in the water to go for a swim. I did some snorkeling with Caroline and Forrest, then came back up to rest. I was getting worried because they two boys had been out for a long time, and finally I saw one of them coming back but not the other. I turned around to see that Pachon had gotten out at the other shore and walked back, while Gabriel swam back alone. He really enjoys swimming, and told me Micheal Phelps is his favorite athlete. I sat and talked with the two of them for a while, discovered that they were cousins (great), then we went our separate ways because they had to study for their exam and I had to go to scuba class.

Dinner was at Calypso and was delicious pizza. Afterwards we all layed in the square by the boarwalk digesting our food slowly and laughing a lot. I hung out with Chito, Emily, and Tatto. While talking with Chito I discovered that he was also cousins with Pachon and Gabriel - is everyone related here?! I was really tired from the night before so I went home early to sleep.

Saturday was the Ocean clean-up day. We met around 8:30am and cleaned from about 9 - 11am. Scuba divers bagged trash up and tied the bags to ropes, which people on the dock pulled up. I was one of the lucky few to not get gloves, so my hands were ripped to shreds from pulling up tireds and metal and other crazy things from the ocean. After we were done I went to rinse my hands and feet in the water, and Hiro decided it would be funny to throw me in the water. Then, as soon as I got out, he threw me in again. When ocean clean-up was done, I went and bummed at the school for a while, trying to read my scuba book but failed miserably and ended up sleeping on the sun deck of the school. Then Tom, Kaitlin, Danielle and I decided to get lunch. We at at Tongo Reef - which is a cute little restaurant on the malecon (boardwalk). It also gets bonus points because there is an adorable orange and white cat that lives there and is really friendly and loves being petted. I got a chicken sandwich, fries, and a Mora Batido. It was quite delicious. Afterwards, we all went back to the school to hang out and go to the beach. It was pretty much just chilling, scuba class at 4:30, and more bumming until our barbeque at 7:30pm. Victor, our scuba instructor, threw us a welcome party in his apartment. We squeezed about 30 people into the small place, ate lots of great food, listened to music, and just hung out. His dog, Chachi, is so adorable and is friends with all of us. He also has to two cats that are really cute and friendly, so you can imagine how I was in heaven.

After a while, some people went home to go to bed, and others went to Annies to hang out for a bit. I came and hung out for about 5 minutes, but my stomach was really bothering me and my entire body was aching. I barely made it home, collapsed into bed, and had one of the worst nights ever. I had a fever and chills and was sweaty, and to top it off my stomach was killing me. When I woke up sunday for breakfast I was feeling fine. I had a nice conversation with my family while eating scrambled eggs, bread, coffee, and some maize stuff that tasted like the Chi-chi's corn mush. Then I headed to school to do some studying and sunning on the beach. I got a decent amount of my scuba book read, but the water was so nice and the waves were so tempting that I shortly ended up in the water. Around 1pm several of us went to get lunch - most things were closed because it was Election day and lunch time on a sunday afternoon. We ended up eating at Casa Blanca and I got a delicious chocolate batitdo and cheeseburger. Unfortunatley, my stomach didn't think it was so awesome...

After lunch we went back to the school to do reading and homework, but ended up on the beach again. It was such a nice day, and the whole town comes out to the beach on Sunday afternoons. Everyone is happy, people play soccer, throw frisbee's around, swim in the waves, and sun themselves on the beach. We stayed there for a while, until Shawna S and I left to get food to make for dinner. We walked to the market to discover that it was closed, so we had to find somewhere else to buy the food. We ended up getting noodles, cookies for dessert, and some tomato sauce for the pasta. Then I went home, showered, and met everyone at Annie's place. Danielle, Stephanie D, Shawna S, Rachel, Sam, Annie, and me ate together. Annie really likes to cook, so she did most of the cooking. There was a nice salad that I couldn't eat because my stomach was still acting up. The pasta was kind of a weird texture/consistency, but the sauce was great because Annie mixed white wine and fresh garlic with the tomato sauce and then heated it all up. After dinner we pushed the beds together and all cuddled as we watched 27 Dresses. I absolutely love that movie, and all our hearts were bursting by the end. It was a very successful girls night out that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I walked back to my place to go to bed early, and my Dad told me that "Si" had won and there was a new consitution in place in Ecuador. Luckily I am not in Guayaquil or Quito right now because there are going to be a lot of unhappy people... I ended up having a worse night than the night before, with a fever and violent shaking and chills. I also went to the bathroom more than 8 times in 8 hours and thought that my body was going to fall apart it hurt so bad. When I woke up today, Monday, I was still feeling crappy. I made my way to school where I had some juice and a piece of bread, then got to sit through several hours of class. Luckily I really like my professor or I wouldn't have been able to sit still for 3 hours. By lunch time I was feeling better, so I ate all my food. Unfortunately, it all came out about 30 minutes later, leaving me feeling crappy and kind of hungry again. I hope this passes soon, because tomorrow is Forrest's 22nd and Stian's 23rd birthday, and Wednesday we go camping for 2 nights! (Should be interesting seeing as no-one has a sleeping bag...) Today I am spending doing mostly studying and homework, and probably napping at some point too. I must rest up because tomorrow is going to be a fiesta!