Ouch

There is this program called "Ecuabuddies" and I enrolled before I got here to get an ecuabuddy. The purpose of the buddy is to be an Ecuadorian friend and help you get acquainted to living in Quito. I never got a buddy and then I was "adopted by another group and that fell through too. I have been officially adopted by a great ecaubuddy! I met with him and the group of international students that he helps on Friday. His mom taught us how to make homemade empanadas and they were delicious. By the end I was decent at folding them so hopefully I can make them for everyone when I get back. They had just cheese on the inside and sugar on the outside. They are best eaten with hot chocolate!

After empanada making, I had a sleepover with some friends. We wanted to make some foods that we miss from the US; clearly I made chicken piccata. The chicken was yummy but I kinda messed up the sauce. It was nice to eat one of my most missed meals [aside from chipotle]. For breakfast my other friend made french toast and jello. I know that jello is odd but it was super good.

Today is the reason why I have the title "ouch," but I'll get in to that story in a little while. Breaking news- I found a chipotle copy cat restaurant. As many of you know, chipotle is the greatest food to ever be on this earth [minus home cooked food] and I have been missing it dearly. The restaurant is called jalapeño and they did a VERY good job at copying chipotle. It wasn't exactly like it, but darn close enough for me!

On to the awesome [not really] part of my day. A group of international students and I went to La Parque Carolina [Caroline Park] and we were going to watch a soccer game. The boys decided to rent bikes instead and ride around these big bike ramp hills in the park. Everyone took their turn on this really big hill with a huge bump at the bottom so I thought "why not, it could be fun." Little did I know, the brakes on my bike weren't good enough to slow me down going down the hill... I flew over the bump and got a lot of air. Surprisingly, I landed the jump only to go plummeting over the bump right behind the first. The bike turned and tossed me off. I'm not really sure what occurred during the fall but I opened my eyes with my friends crowded around and checking to make sure I wasn't dead. Good news- I'm not dead, just a little bruised.

My pride and my butt hurt about the same right now. I think I fell straight on my back side because that's where most of the pain ended up. I saw spots after standing about 10 minutes after the accident but I haven't had any head issues since then. I think I just stood up too quickly. Don't worry, I didn't cry. I did laugh A LOT, though mostly because of embarrassment. Everyone around was staring after I fell so I just wanted to get out of there. My shoes [flats] flew off when I crashed and a sweet girl brought them back to me. I know I shouldn't have ridden a bike in flats. The whole bike ramp idea was pretty stupid and I will NOT being doing it again.

Tomorrow I am going to do my last bird watching at Rio Pita [Pita River] and I am not looking forward to the bus ride. My booty is super sore right now and I bet it'll be worse tomorrow. Anyways, I'm happy to almost be done with my ecology project! It'll be one more thing out of the way.