During the day on Friday Beto from CIMAS took us on a city tour, very similar to the tour of fall quarter. But all of the other students are new, so it was definitely very helpful for them! On Friday night almost all of the other students from CIMAS and I took the bus down to "La Ronda", a recently refurbished street on the south end of the Historical District. At night it is lit up and all of the balconies have flags and flowers hanging from them. There is live music in nearly every cafe and bar on the street and street performers also dispersed among the crowd. We went specifically to see a traditional Andean Dance Performance and it was a treat! For only $2, I got to sit in the first row and watch a spectacular display by the Ballet Andino Humanizarte Foundation. It was so fabulous that I might just try to go again another Friday night! Afterwards we grabbed some warm drinks in a cafe and walked up and down the street, admiring the architecture and watching people.
Jenean (Physical Therapy grad student from MN) and me in front of the start of La Ronda
(Photo Credit for the following three: our classmate Mark)
Michael, Jenean and me with San Francisco Church in the background
Our tour guide from CIMAS Beto with Olga, Maya and Vanessa at lunch
At the beginning of the traditional dance performance
On Saturday I met up with friends from school again and we treked up the hill on the east side of Quito to "La Capilla del Hombre", a museum with a collection of the works by Oswaldo Guayasamin, a famous Ecuadorian painter. He specialized in illustrating the fight of the poor in South America and also seemed to be close buddies with people like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. The art was incredible and the building that he designed and constructed to put all of it in was equally impressive. We also got to take a tour of the place in Spanish, which was super interesting.
"El Mestizo"
Painting symbolizing the deaths in Bolivian mines
Condor vs. Bull
My favorite!
On Sunday, I visited my old host family from last quarter in Quito to see how my host dad is recovering from two recent eye surgeries. He seemed a little down and not 100% himself because he still has a few more weeks of recover ahead of him. It was still really fun talking with my former host mom and three older siblings about my Peru adventures and about a trip my host sister took to New York in December!
I hurried back to host family #2 to eat a nice big Sunday lunch with almost the whole family and in the afternoon, my dad, mom, brother Diego (10), sister Erica (6) and I went to "El Panecillo" (the little bread hill), a giant virgin statue in the South end of Quito. The view from up there was impressive, and I was so thankful that they took me because it is a bit dangerous to get there without a private car and it´s something that I had been wanting to do for a while!
Besides the above listed four members of the family, I also have two more host siblings; Santiago (25) and Isabel (20), and there is a maid named Marta that works for them and lives in a separate part of the house. There are also always other people filtering in to say hello or hang out. It is has been a drastic change for me because I´ve never really had siblings before and the house can get so hectic, yet it´s also really fun all the time!
After El Panecillo, we drove back home and then my host mom proceeded to get all the ingredients ready for me to make some Chocolate Chip Cookies! I whipped up about 50 that afternoon, but unfortunately because of the altitude they looked like they were run over by a car! They were quite tasty all the same, though.
At night, after a light dinner, I played Hearts (the card game) with some family members and of course, I won!
The Virgin of the Panecillo from below
Approximately half of the family with the city of Quito behind!
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