School

This week went by really fast and it was the classroom portion was quite unremarkable. Monday night was pretty fun though! I went with my brother Santiago to play soccer with some of his friends at the south part of Quito. It was a small field with walls on the sides and it was 5 vs. 5. I got extremely tired and could barely breathe. My lungs felt like they were on fire and I played the whole time. It was the first time I felt the full effects of the elevation here in Quito, which is over 1,000 meters higher in elevation than Denver. I had a great time though and may be going back again Monday night!

On Friday instead of having classes our teachers took all the students on a “tour” of Quito. The tour was basically to become familiar with the bus system and learn how to get to the bus terminals so that we can go on trips to other parts of the country. It was a lot of fun, especially walking around the colonial part of the city. For lunch we ate at a restaurant in the center of the historical center that serves traditional Ecuadorian food. I had already had everything in the past few weeks, but never all at the same time. Ecuadorian food includes a large variety of corn prepared in many different ways and rice. I’ve had rice and/or corn everyday since I’ve arrived. The food is a lot more different from Colombian food than I expected. I can’t wait to be in Colombia in a couple of months to eat all of the amazing food! After lunch our group walked by the political center of the city, where the president lives and works. It was weird being able to basically walk inside the palace since even thinking about getting that close to the White House is probably a punishable offense. After taking a few photographs around the city we headed back towards to buses and made our way back to school!