Feeling Independent

Quick update. Today turned out to be one of the best days I have had here yet. Definitely the best “normal” day. If those exist.

This morning, I got up early so that I could find a shop somewhere in the city from which I could buy yarn for my weaving class. One of the shops listed on my syllabus for the class is in Tumbaco, the next suburb out from Quito, passed Cumbaya. To get there, I only had to stay on the same bus I take to the university and get off a few stops later. Easy. As long as the bus-boy can tell me where to get off. It was easy to get to the bus stop, but the store I was looking for was a small hole in the wall place off of a side street. A side street that wasn’t quite where I was told it would be. Fortunately, the police officer I asked for directions, after wandering around for about 10 minutes, was not a typical Ecuadorian citizen and told me precisely where the yarn store was. So I went on my way, found the store, communicated what I wanted to the people working there, and bought yarn for my class. I even made it back to Cumbaya and on campus in time to get some homework done before class started. Classes went well.

Apparently I hadn’t been doing what we were supposed to be doing in my weaving class. I’d been doing the next step. Oops! So I spent the last 10 minutes of class learning something totally different from everyone else because my teacher felt like showing me how to do it.

Once classes were done, I hopped on the bus toward Tumbaco again. This time, my stop was a little earlier. I got off at the Ventura Mall, went inside, up to the third floor gym, and looked around for some circus. Hanging in the corner were two silks, one red, one orange, with absolutely no rigging whatsoever. The gym is apparently used for gymnastics classes as well, so there are plenty of safety mats around, which made me feel a little better about the rigging set-up.

The silks teacher eventually showed up, towing her daughter along (the daughter was probably less than 2 years old). Apparently the classes that I had seen the poster for were super basic-level classes because the other three students that she had there were under the age of 13 I’m sure. But I just wanted to get in the air, so I was ok with that. Most of the class was stretching and conditioning exercises, since the class was at such a basic level, but I was able to talk to the teacher, Camila, about circus opportunities in Quito in general. There doesn’t seem to be much, but I might be able to do my ICRP with an artsy school in southern Quito that Camila was affiliated with. At least she said she would check it out for me. I paid Camila for the class once it was over 9 it was not expensive in the least) and headed home feeling pretty satisfied, though I wish I would have been able to just play a little on my own and not feel confined to the activities of the class. I was looking for a place to practice more than a place to take conditioning classes. (Which isn’t to say that conditioning classes aren’t good for me, but I want to do more in the AIR and less on the ground!) I think I’ll go back sometime, but I’m not going to be going twice a week, which is when the lessons are offered.

Basically, today has been a wonderful day. I’ve been able to go out and accomplish things on my own, speak Spanish, and enjoy being here. Next on the list of things to do: see what surprises tomorrow holds.

All sorts of happenings.

So many things to say!

The first and most important though is that I THINK I FOUND A CIRCUS!! I have yet to go and talk to anyone, but I have a lead!!!!! There was a poster up in a café near the university with a picture of a girl doing silks that said there were aerial classes at a gym kind of close by. SO. I am going to go check it out tomorrow. I have already sent an email to the group, but I haven’t heard back.

I think my classes are finally settled for the semester. I kept changing them around, but I’m finally happy with my schedule. For the most part. I’m taking Oral Literature of Ecuador, Geology, Andean Anthropology, Basic Qichua, Weaving, a community service class for my ICRP (Intercultural Research Project), and Capoeira as a gym class. I’m really excited about the weaving class. We’ve already started our first projects and I can’t wait to do more. The Capoeira class is kicking my butt. After the first class my entire body was sore. But that’s a good thing! My Geology class hasn’t started yet. I think it starts Friday.

Of course, not everything has been about classes. I’ve been having all sorts of fun while I’ve been switching around my classes as well. Last week I went to my first Ecuadorian soccer game. It was quite the experience. It was a big game between the rival teams of the two biggest cities in the country: Quito (la Liga) and Guayaquil (Barcelona). Before the game started, there were people going around the outside of the field, kicking soccer balls into the stands. The group I was with ALMOST got a ball twice, but none of us managed to actually go home with one. When the game got started, there were people setting off fireworks, and what looked like flares, from the Barcelona section. They also had to delay the start of the game because there were a bunch of people climbing up on the fence surrounding the field. People here take their soccer seriously. It was fun watching all the fans being super excited about the game and everything that was happening. During the mid-game break, and before the game too, there were a few people out on the field who were driving around little motor-cars and flying a mini plane and mini helicopter around the field. At some point, per the suggestion of my host family, I bought some stadium food: empanadas de morocho. My family wasn’t kidding. They were delicious. The closer we were to the end of the game, the more intense it got, because no one was scoring. In the end, it was a tied game, though la Liga got close to making a goal multiple times and Barcelona only once. When the game finished, we all tried to get out of the stadium and home as fast as we could. The importance of doing so was amplified by the policemen who came out onto the field at the end of the game. In full riot gear, shields and all. The section of Barcelona fans, considerably smaller than that of Liga fans, was let out about 20 minutes later than everyone else as well, presumably to prevent fights. The group I left with was totally unable to find enough taxis to fit all of us, so we got on a bus (usually a no-no so late at night) that took us to the airport, where we were able to get into taxis to take us to our separate homes.

Though I think some of the fans at that game thought so, not everything in life is about soccer. This last weekend, I went with my family to the coast! The ocean here is amazingly warm. We left right after my classes finished on Friday. We had to pack up quickly because the plate on Marco’s car ends in a 9. Wait what? Apparently certain days of the week, at certain times, cars with plates that end in a particular number aren’t allowed to be on the roads in Quito. I got home at 3, Marco’s car couldn’t be on the road past 4. So we threw a bunch of clothing articles into bags, threw the bags into the car, and booked it out of Quito proper until the license plate no longer had the potential to be restricted. At Andres’ empanada shop, we met up with one of Susie’s sisters, Roque, and her 16 year old daughter, Sofy. From there, we set off on the 5 hour (ish) drive to the coast.

The first part of the trip seemed to be totally downhill. Which makes sense, since we had to go from 2 miles up to sea level, but did that ever make for some fun curves. There were signs before a lot of the curves that said “Slow down. NOW!” We definitely drove through both farmland and pure jungle. The first farms were on the steep hillsides, but after we had descended a bit more and passed through the cloud forest area (clouds everywhere, gorgeous mountains, full of extremely green vegetation) the farms became banana farms (I don’t want to call them plantations because they really weren’t big enough). I spent some of the ride listening to current American pop music with Sofy. She seemed to be really into American music for some reason. We arrived late in Esmeraldas, a city on the coast. Driving around trying to find what I thought was going to be a hotel was an adventure. We had to go a certain distance down one pot-hole filled dirt road, turn onto another, then turn back the way we came from on yet another super-sketchy looking road, until we got to a gate with a guard and the name of the “hotel.” Once inside the gate though, it was clear that this was a NICE place. There was a giant pool, everything was freshly painted in pretty colors, the flowers, plants, and grass were all well-kept, and each place for rent was like a mini apartment. Everyone, except the nocturnal teenager, was tired after being in the car for so long, so we stayed up just long enough to watch the end of a telenovela (these people know what is important in life…) and then prepared to crash. Except that Sofy wanted to stay up to watch the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show. Don’t ask me what is so intriguing about an underwear fashion show, but she wanted to watch it, and since the TV was in our room, I watched it too. It was a strange experience to be watching something sort-of in English, but occasionally dubbed in Spanish. I was never quite sure what to listen to.

The next morning, at breakfast in a neighboring town, I had the best thing I have tasted here yet: a coconut batida. A batida is sort of like a milkshake, and the coconut one was absolutely delicious. I want to go back to the coast just to be able to drink more coco juices and batidas. That good. Since we had a large and late breakfast, we spent the next chunk of the day walking of the beach. The tide was a little high, so there were people everywhere, but it was still enjoyable to see everything. There were all sorts of things that one could pay a bit to do. You could put on a life jacket and go tubing on a giant banana-shaped thing behind a boat, or a big triangular thing. OR you could hook yourself up to a parachute and be pulled along way up in the air behind a different boat. And there’s nothing in particular required in order to be able to do this. You just walk up to the guy, pay him, put on a life-jacket, and go. I didn’t try any of the interesting activities, but I think I will if I manage to go back.

We took a break from the beach to swim in the pool and eat something, but Roque was a magnet for walking on the beach, so we soon returned. After dinner though, the tied was out and Sofy and I spent the whole walk looking for snails at the edge of the water. They are extremely fun to dig up. As dusk was falling, Roque and Susie insisted that Sofy and I had to draw hearts in the sand with our names and those of our respective sweethearts. It’s always interesting to me what exactly my host-mom insists I do.

We walked to breakfast the next morning and on the walk back sofy and I found more snails and a bunch of live sand-dollars. I’d never seen one alive before, but there they seemed to be all over the place. Breakfast consisted of one of my new favorite foods here and a shrimp omelet. This new favorite food is called a bolón. Bolónes are made of mashed up green plantains (like a banana, but hardier) rolled into baseball sized balls with cheese in the middle, and fried. They are delicious and nicely filling.

We couldn’t stay long though, because we didn’t want to have a rushed journey back to Quito. Everyone washed up and we all got ready to head out. My shower was comically interrupted by Roque, who didn’t seem to think that I needed privacy in the shower and proceded to fetch her shampoo out of it while I was in the middle of it, trying ineffectively to hide behind the shower curtain. In the end, everyone got clean and packed and off we went. Later, as usual, that planned. We stopped in a couple different places along the way, one to buy fruit, one to eat lunch, another to buy fruit, and one to buy cheese. The cheese place was right next to a candy shop, where I picked up some coconut candy, Marco bought me some sweet made of fruit (I have no idea which fruit), and the guy at the stand gave me a piece of taffy which he was stretching right there and then.

One of the interesting things about the trip was seeing the different interactions between people. According to Roque, I have great skin and legs and Sofy needs to drink more water and tan more and eat more and do more exercise so tha she can have skin and legs like mine. To which, of course, I have no idea what to say. I don’t think I would know what to say in English, but the whole language barrier thing makes it that much more awkward. Granted, Sofy is about as big around as a toothpick and very insistently contrary to absolutely everything, but it was still a weird experience to be complimented and compared so much. Another interaction that this trip really drove home was the amount of service (of certain kinds) there is in this country. As we were leaving, a young man came with a cart to push our luggage out to the car, and the guard at the gate opened it for us. We tipped them both. There’s just a culture of servant-like service here. Possibly it stems from the colonial history of the country, but that’s just speculation.

All in all, the trip was fantastic and I hope I can go back at some point to experience more, but for now I have school, and homework, to catch up on.

PERRITO!!!!

It seems that every time I write a post here, I turn around and something else I want to write about happens.

Sunday night, I was able to sit around the kitchen table and talk with my family. Somehow, my host-grandmother and I got onto the topic of blood types, which was a very interesting discussion to have in a foreign language. As we were sitting there, my host-brother came home and walked into the kitchen holding his newest birthday present in his arms. A wiggly little black and white puppy! My family now has TWO dogs on the roof! Since there’s now a puppy, I have played with the dogs. Toño likes to play fetch, and the puppy likes to follow people around. Apparently Toño is actually a hunting dog that Marco takes bird hunting over on the other side of “those mountains over there.” It makes me feel better to know that the dogs won’t have to live on the roof their entire lives but will also get to run around outside on the ground too.

One of the things I have noticed here is the street dogs. I expected to see them, but not so many varieties or quite so many in general. They seem to be about as common as squirrels are in the states. But then many people have pet dogs as well, and there are all sorts of pet stores around the city. It’s just such a different place.

The other morning, I was in the kitchen pouring some fresh bottled water into my water bottle (the tap water here is not drinkable unless boiled for at least 3 minutes) when a person walked up to the other side of the window. Which is weird considering I’m on the second floor of a building. But the building next-door is only one story high and the roof goes right up to our kitchen window. Go figure.

I made Marco laugh last night by imitating a puffed up turkey. He made me repeat it twice.  I was trying to describe the turkeys’ behavior to them since they don’t have them much here. Apparently turkey meat is really expensive and they just don’t have turkey farms. But Marco really liked my imitation of a male turkey making noise. I then tried to change the topic to deer, but I don’t think they understood what I was saying, (they might have thought I was talking about ostriches, I’m not sure) so I gave up.

These last couple days, Susie has asked me to help her with various computer things. Yesterday she wanted to save something that she got off of an email onto her computer. Today, something malfunctioned and we tried to fix it together. I don’t think I helped that much, the computer basically fixed itself, but it’s still fun to be the computer go-to person here. Even if trying to translate computer words is confusing. (Half of them are the same as in English, the other half are totally different.)

I’ve started my “real” classes now. Yesterday I had my Oral Ecuadorian Literature class and a photography class. I’m really excited about the Lit class. Apparently we actually have to get stories from people we know and meet here. I dropped the photography class though. It was supposed to be my easy stress-free class and I felt stressed out after the first day, so instead I think I’m switching to Weaving. At least I sat in on the weaving class today and the professor said I’ll probably get into it. I’m much more excited about the weaving class. It looks like it’s going to be a lot more fun than the photography class. Also, Kalamazoo (as far as I know) doesn’t offer a weaving class. I also started my Andean Anthropology, Quichua, and Colonial Art of Quito classes today. The Anthro and Art classes will be interesting, but not very exciting I think. Quichua on the other hand seems like it’s going to be awesome. Quichua is the native language of the indigenous Andean people. So far the language is difficult to follow, but I think it will get much easier as time goes on.

I have yet to get any homework, but I’m sure that is going to change. When it does, I don’t know if I will have as much free time as I do now (granted, I really have too much free time at the moment, so that’s not a bad thing) so I don’t know if blog posts will be very frequent. Never fear though! I will post as often as I can and have something to say!

Coming home from school on the bus today I met an interesting group of people. There were three guys who were clearly Latin American, all with long dread-locked hair, and one very pale redheaded girl. Two of the guys were from Chile, one from Ecuador, and the girl was from France. Apparently they are travelling across Latin America. For what reason, I do not know, but they were doing something with music too and started drumming and singing on the bus. Of course, once they were done singing, they collected money for their travels from anyone who was willing to give it up, but I’m used to that by now.

Something that has been very strange for me is all the places I keep encountering the English language here. Sometimes it’s because someone tries to speak English to me, thinking I won’t be able to understand their Spanish. Other times it’s a sign or a label that is entirely in English. Today, I noticed that the stove in my house has all English labels, but the microwave doesn’t. It’s just so strange to be jolted back out of the Spanish-speaking world, by a sign, or a set of labels, or something someone says, into the English-speaking world again.

One other thing I have started doing is watching a “telenovela” (soap opera) with my host-parents. Spanish soaps are notorious for being over-the-top and ridiculous. And that notoriety is well deserved. It’s difficult for me to understand what exactly is going on most of the time because the characters talk very quickly, but so far I’ve noticed lots of cultural things. There are a few phrases I’ve picked up that are characteristic of Ecuador and a few other actions and gestures that are familiar. I think the show might also be a good way to pick up on stereotypes here because each of the characters has a very distinct personality and fills a particular role to a T.

I think that’s it for now. Until next time!

Don't tell me a gringa can't dance

Well, I hope you all are ready for a good long post, because I have a lot to say!

I feel like I’m starting to settle in to the culture and language here. I’ve been able to go out and do things a little and I’m comfortable with it. I’m also getting to know the other Kzoo people here much better than I knew any of them before. It seems strange to talk about Kalamazoo here though, when we are so far away.

Wednesday, Hannah and I met up and walked to the supermarket that’s between our host families’ houses. The main supermarket here is Supermaxi. There are about twenty in the city, I swear. It was interesting to look around the store and see what they sell, and how much it costs. Most imported things (brand names that are the same in the states) are basically US prices. But then there are the foods that are from Ecuador, along with other Ecuadorian products, which are all really cheap. Sadly, chocolate, even the Ecuadorian kind, seems to be expensive no matter what. I had my first experience of someone not being able to make change at the Supermaxi. I paid for a $2 and something item with a five and the lady at the register had to go to a different register to get change. I think she didn’t have any pennies or something like that.

Thursday, we had our international student orientation. There were about 100 international students at the school, and they were doing another orientation the next day. There’s quite a few students from the states here, from Boston University, Boston College (they brought the rivalry with them), Michigan State, and a bunch of other schools across the country. There are a few students from other countries, but they are severely outnumbered. The staff here seem well prepared to be helpful if we need them, so I’m not really worried about anything at the school.

Trying to get home from the school, many of us discovered that the bus system isn’t exactly reliable. One of the connector busses between two of the bus stations many of us use wasn’t running that afternoon. No particular reason we could figure out, it just wasn’t running. So we had to figure out how to get to the next bus station on a different bus. The two bus-station workers we asked about alternatives were extremely vague about where to catch this mysterious bus that apparently went to the station we wanted, so we had no idea what to do. We ended up walking in the general direction that they had pointed until we saw a number of people running to get on a bus that had just pulled up to a stop outside the station. Assuming this was our bus, and per the confirmation of that suspicion by a helpful fellow bus-rider, we got on the over-full bus and eventually made it to our bus station.

After I finally got home, I spent some time getting to know my host family. After dinner, Susie put the radio on to a station with some good dancing music. Eventually, whatever we had been doing devolved into a basic dance lesson in the Kitchen and we spent a good amount of time dancing around to the music. Music which included the Spanish version of “Twist and Shout,” which is called “A Bailar.”

Friday, we got out of class earlier than the other days, so I thought I might try to do something interesting in the city. Adrianna and I decided to meet up and go to the Centro Historico (Historical Center) to see the sights, but the buses weren’t being very cooperative. We asked around and were apparently told to get on the wrong bus. Fortunately we figured it out pretty quickly, so we got OFF the bus and ended up wandering La Prensa (big street that goes near my house) instead of the Centro Historico since it was really too late to go and come back at a decent time. After that, Adrianna took the bus home and I stayed on it to meet up with some other Kzoo students in the Mariscal. The bus was absolutely jammed since it was basically the time of day when everyone is going home from work. I managed to get off at the right stop though, and to the part of town I wanted to be in. The Mariscal is the area of Quito that is geared towards tourists and the party scene. There’s always a bunch of people there, and the streets are lined with clubs and bars. We met up in the very center at a place that had “Gringo” prices on everything and was playing American music. We decided to ditch that and found a place that seemed like it would have a few more locals instead, a club on a street off the Mariscal. There we all got our first instruction in Ecuadorian club dancing from a couple of young Ecuadorian guys who seemed to enjoy dancing with the gringas. At the end of the night (we were all too tired to stay very late) I shared a taxi home, my first Ecuadorian taxi. Apparently no one here knows where anything is. Even taxi drivers. It’s sort of characteristic of people to give faulty or vague directions here, but I thought at least the taxi driver would know where my street was. He didn’t, but I made it home anyway. And I got to see a picture of the taxi driver’s youngest son and here the story of his life, so that was pretty cool.

Yesterday was the biggest day I’ve had so far though. We had our last day of intensive Spanish classes and took the test. No one is entirely sure what the purpose of the test was, but we all took it anyway. After the test, we had some time to kill before we were supposed to meet up to go to lunch, so Emily and I decided to explore Cumbaya and look for a post office. We ended up walking around the block, which took about an hour, including some exploration time, some picture taking time, some stamp-buying time (the lady didn’t have change again), and some “stupid gringas” time (we asked a guard where the post office was and got a blank stare as a response. We said it right too, we looked it up!).

The whole Kalamazoo program then got on a (private) bus and headed out to a restaurant in the “country” (basically that means everyone who lives there can have a yard and maybe a few animals) that is situated on the bank of a river at the bottom of a canyon. The bus couldn’t actually take us all the way to the restaurant because the road was too steep, so we walked down the road. I’m still super excited about all of the plants here, so I was taking pictures the whole way down and the entire rest of the time we were there. (I’ll post some pictures soon, I promise!) The food they served us at the restaurant was wonderful, and it conveniently rained while we were eating so we could walk around once we were done eating. There was a playground next to the restaurant that had some great monkey bars for hanging upside-down, so I was able to reduce my circus cravings for a little while. Most of the group decided to go down to the river to see what it was like for a while. The banks were almost entirely made up of rounded rocks and boulders and the river was crossable in many places if one wasn’t afraid to jump from rock to rock a bit (It was a small river). A number of us decided to cross the river, go downstream a bit, and cross back over, only to continue going downstream exploring even more. We all managed to get up on a big rock in the middle of the river and finally decided we should head back.

We made it back to the restaurant just as everyone was ready to leave, so we hopped in the back of one of our program director’s trucks and went for a ride up the hill. As it started to rain. The further up the hill we got the more people we were trying to cram into the back of the truck, until we finally just started taking backpacks since there was no way we could get any more people into the back of the truck. We all made it back and the bus dropped us off in town were we could all get taxis to go home.

As if that weren’t enough for one day, my family then got all ready to go to my host-brother’s 30^th birthday party. And what a party that was. I have learned that my host-family, at least on my mother’s side, practically looks white, which almost makes the fact that they are speaking Spanish strange to me. When we got to the party, I helped set up a bit while the DJ they had hired played all American music, also strange. Once I found myself with nothing to do, I said so, and was immediately roped into learning, once again, how to dance. Apparently this time however, I had the best teacher I could possibly have. According to Susie. My teacher was my host-brother’s mother-in-law. She put the DJ in line and got him to play some good salsa and merengue music and proceeded to show me exactly what I should be doing with my feet (and legs and hips and shoulders and arms and every other part me). Once I had the hang of salsa, she switched over to teaching me the more traditional dances of Ecuador. So traditional, in fact, that they played what she said was the national song of Ecuador (that could be TYPE of song, I’m not sure) and my host-grandmother got up to dance with all the rest of us. I spent the rest of the night being forced to eat by all the grandmothers if I dared to sit down at their table and dragged back onto my feet every time the song changed by my personal dance instructors (all of the middle-aged women seemed to think I had to dance ALL night and it was their responsibility to make sure I did). By the end of the night I had danced with Susie, Andres, all of my dance instructors, and One of Andres’ friends who turned out to be an Italian who played Spanish guitar extremely well. The party ended with the Italian friend and some relative passing the guitar back and forth, singing boleros (ballads) and other songs. I got to try a completely new type of cake, made from some sort of black corn and chock full of raisins and another unidentified dried fruit. I also experienced, more clearly than before, the typical form of saying hello and goodbye here. Whenever anyone enters or leaves a room, no matter how many people are there, they are required to say hello and kiss everyone on the cheek. It is an absolute necessity. Which means I’ve now kissed the cheek of about 30 people whose names I do not remember, but who are somehow related to my host-family.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed a lot of differences in the way things work here, particularly in the transportation system. First off, one of the surest ways to know you are in another country is to look at the street signs. They are all in a different language, look different, and are often placed in very different places. For example, street signs here are all posted on the outer walls of buildings, along with one way and two way signs. The ones that I noticed right away as different were the no parking signs. They are exactly the same as the ones in the US, except that instead of a crossed our P, they have a crossed out E, because the Spanish word for to park is “estacionar.” Secondly, a ride in a car here would not be good for the health of anyone concerned about the health of their heart. The drivers don’t worry at all about the people behind them, only those in front. If you are in a car behind someone, and they cut you off, it’s not their fault; it’s just your problem. The roads are also much bumpier than in the US (for the most part) so that a smooth ride is totally unheard of. Drivers here use their horns a lot. Not just to yell at someone who did something they don’t like, but also as a way to say, “I’m here, and I’m doing this, so don’t hit me.” Most of what I have noticed has been in relation to the buses however, since I ride 6 of them every day I go to school (it still only costs a dollar though, how great is that?).  Being passed on the street by a bus is a very unpleasant experience here because of the exhaust that spews out from under their sides. Air pollution is pretty rampant here, but it’s still at a bearable level (i.e. you can’t see it hanging in the air). Taking the bus back from Cumbaya, I just imagine the amount of gas that the trip is burning up since the whole ride is steeply uphill. Of course, that means the ride there is really fast and, in a way, kind of fun because it is all downhill. That is not an exaggeration. It is ALL downhill, and it is ALL steep. We drop enough elevation between the bus station and the school that my ears pop going both ways. Another thing that is interesting about the buses, and very different from buses in the US, is the vendors and other people who get on them to sell things or spread some sort of message. There is a man who gets on at one of the corners I go by every day selling caramels and a young boy who gets on selling copies of the paper. There was a man on one of the buses I took recently who had a flute and played it for the entire bus to listen to until we arrived at the station. These people sell or play on the buses for money, but I have also experienced someone getting on the bus to spread some sort of idea or message. On the way to Cumbaya the other day, a man got up to tell the world that he used to be a horrible man, but now he had changed his ways and believed in god. He continued to proclaim the benefits of Christianity and why he was Christian for the entire 20 minute trip to Cumbaya. He hadn’t finished by the time I got off the bus. There are vendors like those on the buses who also sell to people in cars at street lights. Some have a bottle of soapy water and will wash your windshield for you. I’ve even seen a couple of people who juggle amongst the cars and take tips from the people in the cars.

A few other small things I have noticed here are just general uses of common household things, or the existence of certain things that we just don’t have in the US. Here, people don’t seem to be as concerned about refrigeration. We had cheese and bread for a quick dinner last night, and we left the cheese out to use this morning for breakfast. No one here refrigerates eggs. Before they open the bag of mayonnaise, they keep it in the cupboard, not the fridge. I’ve also noticed that everyone here seems to use a lot of salt. If I ask for just a little salt, I get what I consider plenty. If I didn’t specify, I don’t think I would be able to eat anything because of the salt. They put salt on lettuce for a salad instead of dressing. Sugar is also used more I think. My family was nearly shocked when I said I didn’t put sugar in my tea or coffee, they just didn’t get it. I’ve also noticed that frequently a man will walk by and smell strongly of cologne. Apparently it is fashionable to be smell-able from the other side of the room.

Well, I think that is just about it for now. I’m sure that by the end of today I’ll think of more stories to tell, but they will have to wait until next time. My actual classes start tomorrow, so I’ll see what my weekly schedule ends up being. I may not have a lot of time to be writing, but I hope I’ll be able to post at least once a week.

Keep in touch!