So it's been a while and I have a little catching up to do.

Before I started working at CEC, Theresa, Meadhbh and I went to Atacames. Its a beach by Esmeraldas. The bus rides up there wasn't too bad. Our hostel was close to the beach but far enough away that we didn't hear all the noise from the clubs from our room.
We were hungry so after we dropped our stuff of at our room, we went to eat. I ordered shrimp because we were right on the coast and fish was the main thing on the menu. Unfortunately the shrimp didn't really agree with my stomach and I spent the rest of the weekend dealing with "digestive issues".
Meadhbh and Theresa had fun though. They went out on Friday, then went to the beach on Saturday. I joined them for about an hour, but I wasn't feeling so hot. But it was ok, because in that hour I realized that I really don't like laying out in the sun, or on the sand, or going in the ocean. So being sick wasn't really all that much of a disappointment.
Atacames is really cool. Its completely touristy, but for Ecuadorians. I saw maybe 4 other Gringos there. And all of the restaurants were traditional Ecuadorian food and were AMAZING! all except the one I ate at on Friday night. The beach is also super loud because all the clubs that are right on the beach blast their music. So no matter where you go you can hear about three different club songs, even at 10 in the morning.


As for my job at CEC, I teach 3 classes of Intermediate II. I really like my students, they are all really smart. Most of them are students from la Escuala Politechnic Nacional, which is pretty much the best Univeristy in Ecuador. CEC is the English department of the University but its also opened to the public.
My schedule isn't that great because I teach from 7-9 then 2-4 and 5-7. But I'm ok with that because I'm pretty sure the next cycle will be better.
At first I didn't really like teaching just because it was so exhausting, but then I got used to it, and my students are turning out to be really cool. So now I really like it. They are at just the right level too. They can speak well enough that we can have conversations, but not so well that they are asking really difficult grammar questions. But they do know more English grammar than me. I guess that's ok because I can talk circles around them about Spanish grammar.
Their first exam was on October 27. That was nice because I didn't actually have to plan anything - CEC writes the tests because they are the same for each level. Grading actually wasn't that bad either.
Things are going pretty well but I'm cool with this continuous improvement deal too. We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, October 8.

Claire, Theresa and I went to a basilica in Quito. This basilica- which I also can’t remember the name of, has one of the best views of Quito. I honestly felt like I was at the top of the world. I mean Quito already is pretty high up and then this was the tallest spot in the city, so it kind of is. To get to the top of the towers you have to climb all these really creepy stairs and ladders and while you are climbing you can see the view of the whole city so it looks like you are literally climbing the outside of the church. I discovered my fear of heights today. In truth I actually didn’t make it all the way to the top of the towers. The ladder rungs were really far apart at the top and seeing as how I have really short legs, I actually couldn’t make it up. I’m sure I could have made it up if I really tried, but when I was about to I realized that I would have had to come back down eventually, so I decided that it was probably better not to climb. Theresa, the daredevil climbed all the way to the top and said it wasn’t really much better of a view, so that made me feel better.

After the basilica we went to the best ice cream place in Quito. For $1.40 we got two scoops of ice cream. I ordered chocolate and taxo. I didn’t know what taxo was so I was being super adventurous. After google search I found out taxo is a fruit that I’m not really a fan of.

Taxo cut longitudinally. The chocolate was delicious though, so it was a total loss.

But all in all it was a pretty touristy day. Probably the last one in Quito until December because I’ll be starting work next week and I think I’m going to the beach on Friday but we’ll see.

October 7

The weather was horrible on Tuesday so Phillip, Laura, Theresa, Claire and I decided that to be touristy we had to go to a museum. I don’t remember exactly the name of the museum but it had something to do with Ecuadorian culture. Either way, the first half of the museum was dedicated to pre-Spanish Ecuadorian culture and all the artifacts that go with it. Think 1,000 b.c. until about 1532 when the Spanish showed up. The other half was clearly the Spanish influence on Ecuadorian art and then the super modern stuff that was not my style at all.

October 3 - Banos and Ultimate Creek Hikes

As a celebration for completing the TESOL course the Language Corp group went to Baños. We left Friday evening, took a 4 hour bus, and arrived at like 10:00. Since we arrived so late and we were all exhausted we just went to bed. But on Saturday we went on a little adventure.

To preface this story I have to say I love creek hikes. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to be nature director at camp. I also love swimming. Baños has lots of creeks, and we decided to go sort of an ultimate creek hike. The “ultimate” part was because the creek was located on the mountain side and had many waterfalls. Some of these falls we could just jump down. They weren’t as high as the ones in Mindo, and so when I landed on my butt, I was fine. Like I said, we were able to jump down some of the waterfalls. As for the rest, we had to rappel down them. It was soooooo sweet. Unfortunately because of the water nobody brought their cameras……except for the guide, who put all the pictures on C.D. Jenny has those pictures now, but I should have them in a week or so.

After the creek hike I went for a walk around the town to see what it was all about. Apparently Baños is famous for taffy. There were stores everywhere, and each one had some one pulling the taffy outside and offering free samples. I of course took advantage of this and gorged myself on taffy, then bought about a pound of taffy that I’m pretty sure I’ll never eat. But its ok it was only 75 cents.

The rest of the group went out to experience the night life of Baños after dinner, but I stayed in and read a book ( I know, boring, but it was a good book).

The next morning we all went on a hike to see this really awesome waterfall, but on the way we took a detour so that Phillip could bungee jump off a bridge. I wanted to, but chickened out. Maybe on my next trip. The hike that we went on was pretty short but it was down a really steep hill. The waterfall was amazing. We got to get really close to it by crawling through this semi cave type thing. It was a really small crawlway and I’m pretty sure it was only so small because Ecuadorians are so small. It was a little spooking, but pretty exciting.

So for the past few days Claire and I have been alone in our apartment. Phillip, Laura and Theresa went to the beach and Lisa and Colleen started their job at Liga (the highschool).
Yesterday Somer, a girl from our TESOL course went home. She originally came down here as a volunteer teaching English, but then she hurt her ankle and had to quit her volunteer job and move to Quito for physical therapy. So while she was finishing up her physical therapy she took the TESOL course. It was sad to see her go, because she isn't sure when she'd come back. But hopefully it will be soon.
Right now I'm making cookies, hopefully they'll work out. The oven doesn't really say temperatures and I'm not quite sure what to do for such a high altitude, but I'm sure if I keep an eye on them they'll be fine. I bought the eggs for them this morning and at the supermarket and whats funny is that they don't refrigerate eggs here. Another weird thing is that they put the expiration date right on the eggs. Its weird that every egg has some writing on it.
This weekend I'm going to Banos. Its about 4 hours away. The whole language corp group is going. I'm not quite sure what exactly we are going to do except that we are "canyoning down waterfalls" I'm not sure exactly what that means but hopefully I'll have more luck with these waterfalls than I did in Mindo.