Today was my last day at the hospital and again, it was fairly slow this morning. Marie was suppose to come in today in order to say goodbye to me. She called one of the other volunteers requesting to speak with me to say sorry for not making it in to say goodbye and wishing me a good trip! That was very sweet of her. We played Uno and tons of foozeball today. I actually won several times, which was nice after being such a big loser in the beginning of the week. :) I ate lunch with Auria, and she gave me more details about the history of Quito explaining that 8 years ago Ecuador was bad financially. Since the current president, conditions have greatly improved throughout the entire country and he is trying to give people access to more healthcare and other resources by building smaller cities in remote areas. This particular president is on his third term even though technically, presidents are only supposed to be elected twice here. She said many families travel to Quito for this hospital because care is a little better in the bigger city. The hospital had a lot of people from the jungle since medical care is poor in that area.

One of the little boys who I hung out with for the week, Nixon, was leaving today after being in the hospital 15 days. I was very excited for him! I stayed til about 3:00 pm after Auria and I went to all the floors to invite the kids. A lot of the kids went home and most were watching the World Cup game on TV when we poked our heads in. I felt sad to leave. Auria said Gladis, one of the volunteers who doesn't speak English, said that I was a big help and they will miss me when I'm gone. She said I had a wonderful personality even though she and I could barley communicate. The hospital program was a wonderful experience and I'm extremely glad they were able to let me volunteer for that week.

After my last day volunteering, I met with Lauren(from Washington) at Plaza Foch, to take a Taxi to La Mitad Del Mundo and Museo Solar Inti Nan which was about 40 minutes away by taxi. We first went to Museo Solar as it closed at 5 and we were pushing it to get there! The tour was very interesting about the different cultures and tribes in Ecuador. A few cool facts: when the chief of a tribe passed away, it was tradition for the rest of the family to be buried with him. The family would take a hallucination drink and then the tribe would bury them alive or they would overdose from the drink they had. It was also typical for the tribes to shrink their enemies heads and wear them as a necklace. Gross! One of the pictures I took is actually a real shrunken head of a chief's son who passed away because of medical issues. We stood in the middle of the earth which is supposedly the site of the true equator, but it's really not (we went to the true equator line at La Mitad del Mundo). We saw several demonstrations....one with a sink where the guide placed it to the North, south and then directly on the equator. If you stood on the Northern Hemisphere, the water would go counterclockwise and if you stood in the Southern Hemisphere, the water would go clockwise. If you stood directly on the equator line, the water wouldn't spin at all. We also walked the equator line where there is more pressure and because of that, you would lose your balance very easily. So crazy...and I really did lose my balance. Lastly, there was an egg we balanced on the head of a nail on the equator too. Some people had more of a difficult time, but I was able to get it!! We then walked down the street to the ACTUAL equator and they were about to close, but we were able to take some awesome pictures. This is the place where Charles Marie de La Condamine made a measurement in 1736 showing this was the actual equatorial line. At the center, there is a 30m high stone trapezoidal monument topped by a brass globe. We weren't able to check out the museum or take a hike around the crater rim of nearby Pululahua (cone of volcano collapsed, leaving a 400m deep and 5km across crater.) I loved this park and I wished we had more time. My roommates and I had a final dinner at Cosa Nostra an Italian restaurant down the street and ate pizza and mozzarella and tomatoes.

The streets were extremely busy because of the Spain vs Netherlands game. I could hear the screams from
All the bars surrounding our house. Too funny. It will be interesting to see the game Sunday when Ecuador plays Swish at 12. I'm excited for my next adventure in Galapagos, but am going to miss Quito. It's such a beautiful city despite all of the warnings about danger etc.