This morning, Antonio watched me eat breakfast. I can't get over his blue eyes. They're different. He asked me if I had a lot of homework. I truthfully told him that I have 5 essays due Wednesday. I told him I was going to go out and enjoy life today, however. He seemed amused and pleased by the response.
I met Edan at the mall. We decided to get coffee because we were both tired. I love Juan Valdez. It's sort of like Starbucks, but cheaper and better. We finally made it to the Ecovia (bus thing) and went to the Mariscol (partyland). I received a call from Taylor who wanted to go biking with us. E and I walked around for forever trying to find anti-malarial pills. No luck. We met up with T and headed to yellowbikes, where we met some really cool people. They spoke perfect
english. One of them told us about her coast trip and spent a good 20 minutes writing in my notebook about all the places I need to go on my trip. We rented bikes for an hour and it was $5. They told us we could take longer than an hour. (If you come to Quito, use their services).
One of the main streets is closed on Sundays here, so we rode on that street. It was so much fun. We made our way through Parque
et. It was so much fun. We made our El Ejido, where I took a picture of Quito's version of the Arc du triomphe. We made it to Centro Historico. The designated bike route crosses through all the plazas in CH. The first plaza we rode through was Plaza de Teatro Sucre. There
was a jazz festival going on. I actually enjoy live Jazz. We listened for a bit, then moved on to Plaza del Gobierno, where they were
celebrating Women's Day. We didn't stay long there, but it was exciting. I have had a pretty woman-empowering weekend. With groups of women, I have climbed a mountain and biked around a city. In a machismo country, it's nice to be recognized.
We headed back to the other plaza and listened to some more jazz. E and I bought some sweet bicycle t-shirts and T bought some ice cream.
We trekked back and the ride was surprisingly flat. T wanted to check out an artisan market in the Mariscol, so we walked through that. It reminded me of the inside of the Starlight flea market in Tacoma. The word for flea market here is "mercado de pulgas" which literally translates to "market of fleas." The three of us walked across the street to a DVD shop. We went crazy. All DVDs here are bootlegged, so we bought some (okay, I bought two and E and T bought a million each).
T headed home for lunch. E and I rushed back to the Ecovia and ran to Mr. Bagel before it
closed. I had to get my bagel to go, because I was meeting Sam Phillips at the botanical garden. I'm writing a paper in one of my classes about the indigenous plants here and thought this garden would be useful. S and I wandered around the gardens (I didn't take any notes), took a million pictures of flowers, and discussed our travels throughout Ecuador. I have seen S more times in the past two months than I have in three years. She is here until May. We laid around Parque Carolina (my home park) and talked about life in general.
My feelings for Quito progressed to love today. There are so many secrets in this country. Quito is a fascinating city and the guidebooks do not do it justice. Seattle and Tacoma both have facebook groups that share all the secrets of each city. Unfortunately, I don't know of one for Quito. My advice to all of you is to just explore explore explore. You will find something interesting, like my favorite picture of the day: The Ecuadorian's wheelchair!
Also, in honor of women's day, go out and respect a woman today! 3 days left of class and then vacation! EEEEEEEEEE
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