So it has been a long time, but I have been busy. Mostly though, I got bored just listing off everything I did here. I felt like my blog posts were just that, a list, and it wasn't fun to write and I doubt it was fun to read. So from now on, I'm going to just post with fun little anecdotes. It may not give you all as thorough a view of what I'm doing here, but you will get a sense and it will be more fun for all of us (hopefully.) So here goes. We went to the ...

Best birthday ever! It wasn't mine, but this weekend was my friend, Garrett's, 20th birthday. Friday night we went out for dinner and ate a lot of cake before hitting a few clubs. Saturday was when the real fun started, however. Ecuador played Uruguay on Saturday, in Quito- a World Cup qualifying game. It was a HUGE deal. The entire city was decked out in yellow jerseys (the color of Ecuador's team), and there were parades, bands, free stuff, and stilt-walkers....

Fun Facts about Ecuador #3: 9. Greetings! Whenever anyone sees a friend, or walks up to a group of people, they say hello by exchanging a kiss - a friendly kiss to the side. It mostly happens when guys greet girls, but girls do greet girls in this way too. I really like this custom. In the US, no one is going to shake the hand of everyone in a group, or hug everyone hello. The Ecuadorian way causes guys to personally acknowledge everyone in the group. The ki...

September 27th: L-I-G-A! Campeón! Sunday we went to a fútbol game- soccer, as you Americans call it. Quito's club team, Liga, played against Guayaquil's club team (3rd largest city in Ecuador, I believe), Barcelona. Liga won 4-0, but the two teams are rivals so the fans were still intense. There were SO many policemen at the game, and throughout the whole thing they were stationed in between the different fan sections (I'm assuming so that people didn't hurt...

Fun Facts about Ecuador #2: 5. Cilantro. Everything here is cooked with cilantro, lots of cilantro. I don't remember eating much with cilantro at home, but fortunately I do like it. Apparently, though, people are genetically predisposed to either liking cilantro or to being almost physically unable to put it in their mouths. A few people in my group DETEST cilantro, which is difficult because, as I said, it's in everything. 6. The professors at USFQ (Univer...