¿sí o no?

quito is voting on a new constituion this sunday. its been a big deal around here. everything is sì or no. right now there are parades of sí and no going on. a huge bus full of sí people just past..and there is the police dudes whistle. its all thats on tv. image obama is the sí and mccain is the no side. a little more complicated tha that but yeah..

in ecuador it is mandatory to vote. if you dont you cant travel, cant have a bank account or own anything really. also quito is dry for the weekend. no selling or drinking alcohol. if you get caught drunk ya go to jail. they take voting seriously here..i wish we did in the US.

so there is the update on ecuador.

slow day

we have today off of clases to write three papers for monday. that is why i am sitting in an internet cafe in the well named gringolandia (we are everywhere...). i actaully think im sitting next to a kid from minnesota. i would stay in my nieghborhood, but internet is faster here... a lot faster. the keyboard doesnt work that well, but whatever. i have been here for an hour no and have not done anything productive. i do plan on starting my homework at some point, but i would rather avoid it for now. my spanih speaking has improved greatly in my 3 weeks here, but not my writing or reading speed.
havent done much of anything today. walked around gringolandia a bit and went to a fybeca, which is basically a walgreens. like i said, slow day. will probably be a pretty slow weekend. no traveling because we all have these stupid papers to write.
next weekend i will be going to tena to check out a possible intership near the amazon. i am really excited about that. i love traveling in ecuador. it is a very beautiful country from what little i have seen. quito i am not a big fan of, but i really like the smaller cities. well guess i should start those papers. hopefully i will not get too bored this weekend.
(another perk of gringolandia is that they serve real coffee hmmm...)

trip to baños

hey to all those who read this,

so i have been here 16 days now. seems longer. really I've barely even begun my experience here. Already i have had some extremely amazing days, as well as some rather not so amazing days.
One of the best days I have had was this passed Saturday. I decided, rather last minute, to go with some other students to Baños. It is a cute little town snuggled in the mountains. You can do so much there that a weekend was not nearly long enough. You can go rafting, mountain biking, rent avts or horses, swim in natural hot springs, or go bungee jumping. It has a fair amount of tourists, but they aren't like the super annoying American tourists. they tourist in these parts are mostly the weathered backpackers and exchange students from both Europe and the states.
anyways...arrived in banos Friday night around 10pm. 5 students had gotten there early that morning so they had already done a few activities and had a few suggestions. The main one was a tour of the waterfalls in a chiva, which is this crazy little painted bus/truck you can sit on top of. Part of this tour included a stop t a 45 meter bridge you could bungee jump off of, which they had earlier that day and highly recommend it. Us late comers decided to follow suit, (cause if all your friends jump off a bridge you should too) and bought tickets for the 10am tour.
The bus ride alone was exciting. crowded, fast, crazy turns, step drop off on one side. all this while sitting on top as the sights fly by. one of the guys that works the tour climbs around the outside to tell people what we are passing while the bus is moving. we made many awesome stops on the 4 hour journey. we hiked don to this huge waterfall that once you got close to it felt like you were on the edge of a hurricane because the water hit with such force it was almost painful to stand in the mist. we also took this basket between two mountains that went really freakin fast, and was made even more fun because it was raining at the time. this best stop of all of these though was that 45 meter bridge. I had woken up scared that morning in anticipation of the jump. When we got off the bus there was a lower bridge from which you could watch people jump. watching people i got really excited about jumping. I was the first in our group to jump. Once i was standing on the ledge of the bridge my excitement turned to pure terror. I was standing up there, i could feel thee weight of the rope pulling me, and i could not move. i could not bring myself to jump. so, instead of jumping forward i turned around so i could not see all the people looking at me or the distance i was about to fall and went off backwards instead. the free fall was a crazy sensation that i am not necessarily eager to duplicate, but after that it just felt like i was on a giant swing. to get down a dude tossed me a rope and i pulled myself to shore. it was all in all an insane experience. i am so happy i actually did it, i can not believe i actually did. but now i can say i bungee jumped in Ecuador. if any of you ever come visit me in the next 9 months we are definitely going to banos! and if you want to bungee jump its only 10 to 15 dollars depending on your bargaining skills.

some photos of quito

tough morning

when they say dont drink the water.... they mean it...

pics from last weekend

all 29 of us kids hanging out at el ecanto. say whiskey!
beautiful!
me sitting on the ecuator with random dog

random pic taken while riding the bus

a weekend out and a long bike ride.

hmmm, where to start? its 545 here, meaning the sunsets soon, meaning i have to be home. my life is controlled by the setting sun. it is the same with every girl here.
anyway...this weekend was a busy one, thank god. i need to keep busy or i might freak out. just how i am in the begining of an exchange i guess.
friday and saturday the whole group of us went to this amazing eco-friendly resort on the side of a mountain in the jungle. the resort had a pool, hot tub, and steam room. living the rough life huh? unfortunately we were only there for one night. this place was pretty remote. not like a grand hotal mind you. a couple cabins and big dining area. beautiful though.
our first day there we went on a walk through the jungle to a river and waterfall where we went siwming for an hour or so. our guide was fernando, who we now refer to as a god. he was halarious! he hung is clothes on his machete (spelling), ripped off his shirt for swimming and was ripped. to get the place on the river that was safe for swimming we had to climb up a rope on the side of this small cliff-like incline. when he was helping the girls in our group`he was like ¨put your foot on my thiegh, my fabulous thiegh!¨...ok maybe not quiet like that but close enough. i was awesome climbing through the tropical forest barefoot in a bikini. i felt like jane (thats tarzans girl right?)
that night we had a dance and karoke at the place. but everyone had to be in thier cabin by 10pm. boring right? instead about 20 of us met up in the biggest cabin, which was pretty much my dream house to play an amazing game of never-have-i-ever. yep, we are that cool. was a really good game, we all know way too much about eachother.
the next we had a talk with a professor on the history of the area and hung out on the equator, thats right the equator. made an egg stand a nail...pretty cool..pretty cool.

later that night i had my first night out on the town. i would say about a dozen of us met up in gringolandia (touristy area) to go bar hoping. we ended up satying at one disco called vertigo because they had a promotion; girls got in free, and open bar. can´t beat that right? dancing was such a needed realize, so was the beer. got home around 2am and got up at 9am the next day to go on a bike ride with my host dad.
every other sunday they sut down roads to make a bike route from the north to the south of the city. there were a ton of people riding. they had water stands, first aid stands, theater in certain parts, and a few snack stands. its planned like a marathon, but it happens every other week. it loved seeing so much of the city. we biked past 5 or so parks, through old quito with its coble stone street and 500 year old churches, and up many hills with fabulous views of the whole city. all in all it was 15-20 miles. think closer to 15. i hurt today...a lot. but i am doing it every time they have it. truly an unbelieveable experience.
well thats all i got for now. hope it made sense, i do love to ramble. ok spell check doesnt work... deal with my stupity.

ím here

so, i arrrived in quito on monday. right now i am in an internet cafe. it is very difficult for me to find time to get to one of these. my host famisly does not have internet.
thus far things are going well. my host fam is good. i have my own room with a bathroom in it, which is cool. i go to school all day in la foundacion cimas with 29 other students. we get an hour for lunch, which gives us time to explore the city in a freshmen-bus-type fashion. hahaha my host fam just tracked me down. its dark and i need to go home. i cant go anywhere bymyself at night because i am female. its annoying really. well hopefully someday i will have time to make this a little more interesting and maybe add some pics.