Au Revoir Quito

Dear Chris Kwon,

The past few days have been bittersweet. I had only written a little bit for my last final paper Sunday night. I worked on it Monday morning and managed to draft the most boring paper of my lifetime: Indigenous plants in local medicine. Monday evening, I decided to go see Alice and Wonderland instead of working on anymore homework. It was good, but not great. The theater was about a 15 minute walk from my house. It got out at 9:30ish. I walked all the way home, which may have been stupid, because it was late, but I ran for most of it and returned untouched and unrobbed.

Tuesday was more of the essay-editing, finals-preparing day. Yesterday, I woke up feeling sick, but told myself that I can't be sick, because I am going on vacation. I made it to school and crept through my finals. We had a goodbye party with our host families after school. I hated it. I don't like "mixers" especially with people I don't talk to normally (my host mom, the other host parents). The only thing my host mom said to me was "I put your suitcase in your room." Haha. I rode home with Antonio, Susy and Ibeth. I enjoy listening to their family interactions. Unlike my classmates, however, I don't consider myself a part of their family. They're really nice and have done a lot for me, so I'm grateful for them, we just never got too close.

I picked up a cab and met some friends in the Mariscol. Our two original teachers went out with us (precious, I know). We sat around and talked for a long while, then people wanted to go dancing. I had to pick up Schorn at the airport, so I hailed a cab and waited for her at international arrivals. I was super jazzed about life, so I struck up a conversation with a young man sitting next to me. The conversation originally made fun of the obviously U.S guy behind us. He was speaking spanish, but his accent was horrible. It sounded like the most sarcastic impression of a southerner you can think of. Erica arrived and I was super stoked! We taxied to her hostel and checked her in. This was when I realized I had left my phone in the taxi. I had gone almost 2.5 months without anything happening to my phone (two people had theirs stolen) and then I left it in a taxi? To make things worse, I had had that phone for a looooong time and it was definitely my favorite. STUPID!

I did some detective work and found out some information about the guy who took my cab after I did. His name is Chris, he's staying in Schorn's hostel, and he was going to the airport to pick up his sister and then returning to the hostel that night. I had a brief feeling of hope. I called my phone about 2010 times, but no answer. No one seemed to know Chris's phone number either, but everyone in the hostel (which was a surprising amount of people) were very helpful and sympathetic. I tried to wait out Chris's return by talking with interesting hostel guests (including a canadian who works at a chocolate lab in Ecuador and a bunch of people with dreads), but grew bored and convinced Schorn to set out to find my friends (and professors).

My classmates frequent the Mariscol way more than I do. I realized I had no idea where they were, or how I would find them. I asked someone on the street where one of the popular bars is located (I know some names from listening to the stories at school). He pointed me in the right direction. As I was walking there, I ran into one of the guides from the Amazon- again! We saw him last week too. He was with another one of our guides (he remembered me, I didn't remember him). They decided to try to find my friends with us. I went into maybe 4 bars and had no luck. I had one option left, so we headed down the street. I saw a girl in a dress that looked like Autumn, one of my classmates, so I yelled her name and ran towards here. It turns out, that wasn't Autumn. Classic.

I then heard my name and found all of my friends in line for a bar! Relief! The rest of the night was pretty dull. I took Schorn back to her hostel and we ran into Chris. I had never really met him, but I was sooooo excited to see him. I asked him if he had my phone. He said no (I think everyone in the hostel had told him about me), but he knew the name of the taxi driver. His name is Jeffrey. Great. In a city with almost 9,000 taxis, there has to be more than one with a driver named Jeffrey. I am marking this as a lost cause. I am officially phoneless for the first time since 7th grade. The thought frightens me, but I'm sort of excited to see how my two week trip will work out with even less helpful tools.

I'm not sure when I'm leaving for the coast. Either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm running on 5 hours of sleep. My only real plan for the day is to pick up Schorn at 12. I'll try to keep in touch as best I can, but I'm not sure how advanced all of the hostels will be.

Keep on truckin' and good luck with finals!