Carolina the Explorina

Just so you know, explorina is just a word I made up to rhyme with Carolina.
Today was a really good day! I bought some allergy meds [Allegra, not some shady Ecuadorian brand] and I think it's helping whatever is happening with my nose, ears and head. The pollution is very bad here; Sometimes when buses go, the fumes make me cough. I think I'll get used to it (hopefully). Also, altitude sickness can occur up to two weeks after being in the city so my congestion could be from that too. It's not a cold because my benadryll/dayquill/nyquill regimen wasn't doing a thing.

So fun fact- there is a 24 hour Mexican restaurant next door [closed on Monday's] so I get a constant murmur of music and talking. So far it hasn't kept me from sleeping so no harm no foul. In my room I don't have a screen on my window so I believe that's how the cute [scary] spider wound up on my ceiling. I was talking with Ruth and BAM I look up and there it is. Nelson [host dad] squished it for me because I wasn't taking a chance of trying to kill that thing and have it fall on me... no way...

Classes were good today too. I only have ecology and tae kwon do. We just went over the syllabus in both classes [yeah I know, syllabus for tae kwon do... freaky]. Gotta love syllabus week :) In ecology we are going to have two field trips just like archaeology! We get to go to a cloud forest near the Amazon and some kind of humid mountain rainforest reserve (I haven't fully translated yet). After classes I bought my camera adapter thing and purchased it while speaking in all Spanish; It's a small victory but needed since I usually sound like an idiot trying to talk to locals.

When I got home I met up with two other students to explore the city. First we went to this place called La Plaza Foch where many foreigners go to eat, drink and be merry. We ate a late lunch at a restaurant that translates to sugar beach and did a lot of people watching. After that we walked about a mile to La Parque Carolina [My park] and we walked around. The park is probably two miles long and has many statues, a man made river, playground, skate park and some other things we didn't make it to by the time we had to leave. I went with a girl and guy. The guy has dread locks and when we passed a little boy in the park he kept yelling out "payaso, payaso" that word means clown. We all got a good laugh out of it [including the boys nanny].

Tonight dinner was broccoli and cream soup [amazing] with this cornbread-like bread that was wrapped and grilled inside of a leaf and hot chocolate. I don't think I'm going to climb the volcano this weekend anymore. I don't want to take a chance that I get too tired and out of breath since I'm still sickish. I will do it sometime while I'm here but just not now.

I got some important information about Ecuadorians from one of the program directors at the USFQ. He said that people from North America put a lot of meaning in their words. They'll tell you exactly how to do something or explain exactly what they want. Ecuadorians don't... they apparently read in to EVERYTHING. I think that is why when Ruth asks me if I'm hungry and I say "no thank you, I'm full," she thinks that I am really saying "I'm to shy and sweet to ask for food right now so make me something anyways" I think I'm getting better at explaining that I recently ate or that I will be hungry later but I still have to eat extra food from time to time. The food is awesome and always has so much flavor but I truly like my body the way it is and I don't want to come back as a gorditia (fat girl).