I just wanted to put up some pics, too...

Rainbows over Loja

Mindo after party

You too can climb up the rock and jump off into the waterfall!

Ziplining in Mindo

Sneaky praying mantis, almost didn't see 'em.

Just for kicks...

My blog smatterings have been infrequent, to say the least. So hows about one more before I throw in the hat and hang up the towel?

At 6:35am on Thursday, August 19th, I left Quito. Sad. After some vexing seat shenanigans on the plane, I squeezed myself into the middle seat, neither window nor aisle, and cried a little bit. Probably more than I'd like to admit. As the plane sped down the runway, I looked out of the window and thought "So that's where the golf course is!! Damn!" Sure enough, it was right next to the airport the entire time and I never once made it out for a round.

I am back home now writing this from Chicagoland and enjoying things like home cooked food, driving and my sister's little dog, Chewy (I've taken a shine to calling him Chewish.) Although, there happens to be quite the list of things I'm not enjoying... things like American prices. I just dropped 70 bucks so I can have a functional cell phone for the next month. I find myself saying, "In Ecuador..." a lot. For example, "In Ecuador, I put $6 on my cell phone and this amount lasted me anywhere from 2-3 weeks." Sigh...

I've been compiling a list of reverse culture shock moments for your amusement:

1. Fighting urges to say (or at least attempt to say) everything in Spanish. But I still talk to Chewish in Spanish... I think he likes it.

2. Epic battles between the left side and the right side of my brain on the issues of throwing toilet paper in the toilet. I'm still looking around for the trash.

3. Not expecting cars to stop for me when I'm in the crosswalk and then genuinely confused/surprised when they do.

4. Getting carded for buying a beer. What's the drinking age here? Do you really care? Interesting. Where's my ID?

5. There's XM in my mom's car and I've noticed one of her favorites is the 24/7 Elvis station. That's not so much culture shock, but just annoying. Sorry, mom. Love you!

6. Forgetting to lock doors and being somewhat okay with it. (this may be a Midwest small town, thing...)

There will no doubt be more to report but I think I'll leave the list at 6 right now. For those of you in MI, I will see you in less than a week! Feel free to call me at my same ole number... preferably after 9pm when I get free nighttime and weekend minutes....

After I go take my clothes off the line, I think I'll go for a bike ride.

Un abrazo,

C

Twenty-Four Days

The first and most disheartening piece of news: the kitten is gone. Ella se fue. No se porque. Big bummer. Hypothesis 1 is that she climbed up the curtain (or really, any of the random fixtures on these walls) and escaped out of the window. There is no hypothesis 2. Just 1. I will attach a picture of her to this blog as a tribute to kitties who climb everywhere.

Next on the list of things to report, I'm about 90% sure that I'll be heading to an organic tea farm in the jungle near the city of Puyo. For at least a week, I'll be doing whatever needs to be done on this farm in exchange for free housing. I wasn't sure what I'd be doing during my last month in Ecuador, but this feels like a step in the right direction. There's a part of me that wants this month to fly by so I can be home and get on with my life, then there's another part that doesn't know how to say goodbye. To quote Will Ferrell post tranquilizer dart in the jugular in that memorable Old School moment "You're crazy, you're crazy man. You're crazy... I like you but you're crazy!"

Well, I'm off to grab some food, make some phone calls and enjoy this last day in July!

Hasta luego, teaching!

The teaching portion of my Ecuador experience is over! Tomorrow is the final exam and Monday is the final oral exam. I must admit it is a huge relief. I've been told that I'm a great teacher, but regardless of this praise (which is lovely), it was still something that felt outside of my comfort zone. That said, will I miss teaching? Probably. Or more aptly, I will miss having a job and a routine.

In my last post, I mentioned the possibility of changing my flight. However, that probably won't happen. I just spoke with my travel agent today and my only options are to change my flight to July 29th or August 22nd, both with a $400 fee and neither date really appeals to me. One is too soon and the other is only 2 days before my actual date. So... it looks like I'll be traveling and looking for things to do for an entire month. As most of my friends are leaving, this will either be very difficult or very rewarding. I'm hoping for the latter, obviously.

Other developments include having a new housemate. I don't know her name but she's itty bitty, hairy, and really cute. I just call her kitty or gatita or linda. (No, not Linda like my mother's name.) She's a kitten, in case you were still confused...

Well, that's all for now! I'm currently doing laundry and looking forward to a full weekend of despedidas (or good-bye parties). I miss you all and am looking forward to a beauteous return home in a month.

Chao!

Hey blog world!

It's a sunny Monday morning here in Quito. I just got back from my yoga class and had some time to scribble out some thoughts.

Yesterday some fellow CEC teachers and I celebrated the 4th of July together. It was a pretty great and typical 4th of July gathering, including things like meat, beer, pasta salads, potato salad and the ever-heavenly 7 Layer Dip.

But now it's Monday and I have a full work week to look forward to. Sigh... which bring me to my next thought:

I think I'm ready to be done with this teaching/Ecuador experience. I feel like I'm winded and dragging my feet to the finish line. It has been an epic year, full of ups and downs. But I am tired and craving familiar things and people and missing my good friends from home. I'm even contemplating moving my flight to an earlier date. I have 9 actual teaching days left and I will make it...

If you have any words of encouragement, I will gladly take them.

An Eclectic Sampling of Thoughts (but this time about Ecuador):

What I thought was the alarming sound of women screaming in the street just now is actually a rooster. Good, good. Good to know.

I hate it when roommates take the last of something. I don't mind sharing, but leave me at least one. Eff.

But, I will miss my roommate, Katrien, who is moving out on Tuesday. She sojourns to the lovely isles of Galapagos for "x" amount of time. She'll be managing this and taking care of that. A visit is surely in order end of July or August.

I did some figurin' and I think I only have about 15 actual teaching days left (the rest consist of exam days, oral exam days, movie days and review days... and maybe a sick **cough cough** day or two).

__________________ . Humph. [This thought just left me.]

Many of the friends I've made in the WT program have left or will be leaving this week. Sad day. Their schools in their respective cities are finished for the summer so off they go. It's pretty surreal. It doesn't seem like that long ago we all met up in the Miami airport and played some stellar glass-breakers in the bar/lounge.... er, I mean ice-breakers.

I can think of about 3 people who will get the above reference, none of which read this blog, I'm fairly certain.

I'm diggin' Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" right now. Ten bucks for the first person who can tell me what modern-day singer emulates this song in one of his/her tracks.

_____________.... op. [This thought just left me, too.]

I keep forgetting that it's June. It has been so cold in Quito these past few weeks. Based off of my uneducated climatomoligical opinion, this is because the sun is hanging out in the northern hemisphere for what I usually call "summer." I miss you sun!

[Spell checker has no guesses for the above word... you know which one I'm talking about]

In two weeks, my family will be heading north to a little place I like to call Wisconsin. It's an annual trip that I can't remember ever not taking. (Lies: I missed it once when I was in India and I'll miss it again this summer.) Lakes, cabins, water skiing, bonfires, toasting "things" on bonfires, beer, Philipe. This is a tradition that not only courses through my earliest memories but also courses through my veins. It's practically part of my genetic make-up. My parents and their friends started this 4th of July tradition long before I was born. In any event, I will be missing that vacation this year but I am thankful for the "highlight reel" of last year's week up north which was sent to me about two months ago. It really captures the essence of this trip.... :)

Thank you for reading my thoughts!

G'night!

Deep Thoughts

Well that was a fun two hours of lying in my bed wide awake. Time to get up at make a sandwich and drink some tea, I s'pose.

It's interesting because in the dark, I have all these thoughts that seem so fluid and beautiful and poignant. But now that I'm sitting in my kitchen I think I want to write about floods. Firstly, water is good. However, too much water is bad. A playful puddle may turn out to be a deadly sink hole. Bummer, huh? I was just day-dreaming (or laying awake thinking?) about the Great Flood of '08 which rocked western Michigan. It was June, I think, and I was welcoming the summer scene good and proper at my BFF Rhys' house. This was when she still dwelt on 21st Street. We all congregated on the cement front stoop, watched the light show across the sky and mused at how fast the water was climbing her driveway. So high it became that it began to graze the undercarriage of Ruby, my VW Passat, which sat parallel to that stoop. That was a fun and electric evening. Adrenaline invoked, we all danced in the rain, I'm pretty sure. Or maybe I didn't because I was wearing a white tee-shirt... or maybe I did. Not to mention I had some good beer... sigh... good beer... an IPA called Two Hearted to be exact.

Now the Great Flood of '09 was a different story. Same water, same rain but the power was out for days completely ruining the Pad Kee Mao leftovers I had in the fridge - a tremendous loss to be assured! On the night of the storm, there was no party in the street. I had to work a 3rd shift that evening, 8pm-6am, and watch helplessly as over $250,000 of damage crippled Hope College. The phones were ringing, the alarms were alarming, the science building no longer had an operational 1st floor, and every available custodian that ever existed was on-campus. The joys of working in a 24/7/365 office are endless, let me tell you. Nearly every single road was submerged in at least a foot of water, even at the center line, and some roads were just completely washed out. Our quaint little Holland community was literally at a stand-still because Mother Nature lost her shit. In the days that followed, I did order more Thai food carry-out, but the trip to pick it up took at least twice as a long, causing all kinds of headaches.

Well, those are my thoughts on flooding. I can't imagine you read my blog because you want to know what goes through my mind at all hours of the night. But there it is.