Boring! Don't Read

Dear Chris Kwon,

Nothing exciting has happened to me in the past two days. I completely forgot that I was here to study and now I am loaded with homework each night. Some people in my group wanted to go to Baños this weekend. Baños is this beautiful nature area that has bungee jumping, hiking, canoeing, river rafting, and nature watching. It's about 4 hours away. I decided I didn't want to spend only two days there, so I am postponing that trip for another time- a time when I can do it all. With the advice of Sam Phillips, I became set on the idea of going to Mindo this weekend. Mindo is another nature area, but it's only 2 hours away and it's smaller than Baños. It's definitely worth checking out though. I somehow managed to convince all of the girls (4 others) in my 7 person class to go with me to Mindo instead of Baños. Yes!

My host mom heard from another host mom that people in my group were going to Baños. She asked if I was going. I told her about my concerns for the lack of time there and she seemed to agree. I told her I was going to Mindo and she seemed very excited- probably hyped I will be gone this weekend.

Yesterday, Carmencita sat and watched me eat both breakfast AND lunch. So irritating. I like her though. She's very nice and patient. Yesterday, after class, we were called into a room for another safety meeting. Some people went out two nights ago and a girl left her purse at a bar. Of course, things were stolen from it. Quito isn't ghetto, it's just poor. If I had a family to feed and absolutely no means to feed them, and I stumbled across a purse in a bar, I would definitely take some money.

After this safety meeting, a girl in our group asked how many people were going to Baños. 10 people (all but the 5 of us going to Mindo) raised their hands. 10 people! That's a lot of people for a weekend getaway. I'm pretty stoked about my little group- perhaps I'll describe the members at a later date. Spoiler Alert (I hate you Amath): One of the ladies in my group is like 50, married, and came to class the first day completely sunburned and telling us how she drinks the water here, despite warnings. She's nice though and it will seem like there is an adult chaperone with us, although I have a feeling she is pretty much the same age at heart as we are.

I have horrible news. YS was not present at dinner last night. There was no mention of her at all. I wonder who will move in next. The juice of the evening was ginger juice. Yuck. Ginger burns my stomach.

Supposedly, all 15 people in my group are going out to dinner to celebrate some girl's birthday. Guess where we're going? TGIFridays. Sorry dad, I might break our rule. I'm pretty sure the TGIF by the Tacoma mall is closed though, so I couldn't go to that one anyway.

This was probably the most boring post ever, but get excited for this weekend, because I will post some pictures of Mindo Mindo Mindo!