Sick, finally clicking in to Spanish, getting tired of Quito

Day 24

I´m sick.

With evident concentration on my stomach, it was almost certainly something I ate, however, I can´t figure out what it would have been. It isn´t antibiotics-kind of bad yet, but it sure doesn´t feel great.

So, as of this past wednesday, I´m back to doing morning Spanish classes, which made everythng considerably easier to understand. That afternoon, on a whim, I went with Hannah and Anna-Maria (one of the teachers), to La Mitad del Mundo, basically the tourist attraction of the Equatorial line. Ít isn´t worth my time to write about it. There is a big monument there, that actually isn´t on the Equator (420 m off), and that´s about it. My Zenit, which for those of you who unfamiliar with it, is my Soviet-built film SLR camera, was not winding properly, so all I have is a few digital pictures. Went up the museum that is actually on the Equator, but it was deemed too expensive, they´ve jacked up the price since our guidebooks were written. Nice bus ride to and from though. That evening, there was a major soccer game at the Estadio Olympico, the city´s football stadium, which basically meant that with everyone rushing there, and parking wherever they damn well please, I beat the bus home. Barcelona (from Guayaquil) vs. The Dept. of Quito. Apparently, despite assumptions, Quito whooped Barcelona, 4-0, despite Barcelona claiming to be the best team in the country.

With the election to the Constitutional Assembly this week, political campaigning was at it´s height, entire tour buses roam the streets, usually with full brass bands and at least 2 dozen flag wavers each, followed by about 8 more cars covered in campaign posters. For those not watching the Ecuadorian news, and really, with no major outlets in North America tracking it, why would you? The President´s political party, La Partido Patria, won with a whopping 65% of the vote, meaning that there will probably be big changes happening soon.

For thursday, with the ban on alcohol for the weekend, there was a big party, and we all (there were 10 of us) went out dancing. There are some really cool clubs here in Quito, with a mixture of Latin and Western music. Friday, after classes, I decided to do a bit of volunteering and worked on correcting the grammar of my school´s website, which is actually really time-consuming, as not only is it grammatically terrible, and frequently redundant, but also idiomatically awful. Saturday, the plan had been for 3 of us, Dan, Will and I, to go to Cotopaxi, but I found out after searching around, that Dan had left for Baños, and the Will had stayed out too late the night before and couldn´t even get out of bed. So, with nothing planned, I went back to the school and went at the website some more, and spent the afternoon wandering around the city market with Lucy, a girl from Essex, who was down here for a week so she has enough Spanish for when she leaves for the Galapagos. Sunday, I lay about and found time to do some writing, which I´ve found difficult since arriving here.

This brings me today, where I am sick.