He terminado el primer semana

It's amazing how quickly things are becoming more comfortable here! My Spanish is improving at the same time that my family is becoming more patient with me and more able to sense when I am not understanding them :) I suppose I could tell you about my family! My papá is José, and he does some sort of journalism for a medical college in Quito. He is very kind and funny, and I can tell he just loves having a daughter (there have been three or four American daughters before me). He and my mamá refer to me as "mi hija" (my daughter) or "mi reina" (my queen) because Ecuadorians are very affectionate. It might also have to do with the fact that Ecuadorians can't pronounce my name. I've never had the weird name of the group before, but I definitely have the hardest one now! Anyways, back to introducing my familia. My mamá is Martha and she generally stays at home, but is somewhat of a landlady of the conjunto of 100+ apartments that we live in. I think she collects rent and hears about problems, and communicates it all to some higher-up person. She is nice, but very intense and has a somewhat forceful personality. The last one I live with is my brother Jonathan. He is 20 and is studying psychology at a university somewhere in Quito. He is very sweet and a little quirky. He helps me with my Spanish, and the few words he knows in English are the most anyone in the family knows! Lastly, I have a 40-year-old brother named Dorian, but he doesn't live with us. He has a wife and two kids (my niece and nephew!). They are a teenage daughter and a 7-year-old son, named Shirley and Jusue (I think). Hopefully I can see them a few more times to remember their names! My home here is nice and very well-decorated. We live in a conjunto of 100+ apartments, and ours is the first and second floor of our little section. I have my own bedroom and share a bathroom with my parents (for some reason Jonathan is the one that gets the room with the bathroom in it, not his parents). Three other girls from my program live in my conjunto: Sara, Alexa and Jessica. Sara is my next-door neighbor, and she has two cute dogs, Oddie and Ocita!

My bedroom!

On Friday at 6:30am we arrived at CIMAS for our weekend trip to San Jose de Minas! This is about two hours north of Quito, though the ride there took nearly four since apparently there was a landslide blocking the route we were supposed to take. The alternate route was NOT meant for a coach bus. Not only were we squeezing around mountain passes and having to back up around the mountain when we met other cars head-first, but we slid through some little paths in the woods in this bus. It was a pretty unbelievable route that our bus driver pulled off. One of the first things we loved about our hostería, Hostería la Calera, in San Jose de Minas were the three ADORABLE puppies that lived there! We were all in love with them. So not sorry about the millions of pictures I have of them, but I'll try not to but them all here. There are surely more on my facebook!

Tarzan, the dad! The mom lived elsewhere in the pueblo.

Right after dropping our bags in our rooms and eating breakfast, we got to learn about how the hostería trains and raises their horses, then got to spend some time with the horses! We didn't ride them because that cost extra and we didn't have the time, but it was nice petting them. After leaving the horses, we were given a tour/explanation of the distillery. They use sugarcane to make an alcohol called Agua Diente! After the tour, some of us were given a taste of this alcohol, and it definitely burned more than any other shot I have taken. Next on our adventure was "las cascadas," or a waterfall of mineral water, with a mineral bath next to it. We got to hang out there for a while, and it was quite peaceful! There was a big mineral pool closer to the hostería that we swam in, but that was a lot colder because of its size. The mineral water is apparently really good for your skin, and it felt a little weird and slimy! Some other activities we did that day included rowing what I like to call "mario boats" and ziplining. After dinner, we ended the day at a campfire, which was a fun bonding experience! Our next day was more laid-back, consisting only of a session where we wrote letters to our future selves about our hopes/fears (to be read by ourselves when the program ends) and attending a procession for some catholic holiday for one of the virgins (I was not aware that there was more than Mary... or maybe different types of Mary? I don't know...) After this procession we headed home - thankfully a shorter ride since the road got cleared up from the landslide!

Hanging out with/being eaten by the horses. 

Quick tour of the distillery.

Sara and I on the bridge by the waterfall! Sara is the one that lives next door to me, and we bond over how bad at Spanish we are :)

Allison, me, Kat and Sara 

Jessica on the zipline!

Can't get enough of these mountain views...

My "mario boats" team, Charlie and Julia! I call it that because the pond is in a figure-8 shape like a racetrack and the four boats are red, yellow, green and blue. There wasn't enough room to race, unfortunately.

Chaneen and I spent a while trying to catch the chickens, but we each only were able to touch them as they ran away. 

The CIMAS group (minus 3) sitting outside the distillery!

Dancing to the community band while we wait for the procession to start.

Procession of the virgin. It was a big deal in this town, though I had no idea what it was about.

Immediately after returning home I headed off with my papá to a family party. It was at my tía's house, who just returned from a two-month vacation visiting her son and touring the US! It was neat to meet family members, though I don't think I remember anyone's names! I listened to conversation at the dinner table for a while, and actually understood a decent amount, then went outside to play soccer on the deck with my brother and nephew! The conversation was actually pretty funny since they were talking about how expensive things in America are (since the aunt just got back). One woman kept repeating that hamburgers are $14-$16 in the US, which I thought was funny since I make those for my job. And if she has ever been charged that much for a burger, she has been sorely ripped off. They also were wondering amongst themselves about how much dinner costs and kept saying prices around $50-$70. I just found it entertaining that they didn't ask the American at the table if any of this was accurate or normal. After all of this fun, my brother and nephew taught me a couple of card games, which were simple, fortunately, since I don't really know any Spanish card game vocabulary!

Today, Sunday, a couple friends and I had planned to go explore Quito a little bit, including finding the Chic Berry we heard about for some fro-yo! Instead, family things came up for some of us, and I did homework/hung out with my nephew Jusue again! As fun as little kids are, it was exhausting, especially because he speaks his Spanish very fast. Hopefully later this afternoon I'll be able to meet up with some of my CIMAS friends, but if not, I guess I'll just finish my homework. It's hard to make myself remember I'm still in school, and an intensive program at that!

My cute little nephew :)