Playas!

Well sadly its the end of the weekend... Its been the most relaxing weekend here yet. Most of the other international students headed back to Montañita, the beach town we all went to two weeks ago, but I stayed here to explore Guayaquil a little bit. And Im glad I did! Friday night I went to the movies with my host mom, Rafaela, and Leonor the housekeeper. We were supposed to go to the movies at six, but the movie Rafaela wanted to see didnt start until eight so we ended up hanging out at the mall until the movie started. My host mom insisted on buying me coffee and pan de yuca... which are these kind of round home made bread balls. Yuca is a common vegatable here thats pretty much like a potato. Cecelia, my host mom, loves spoiling me and Rafaela when we go out. She walks around referring to both of us as "mi hijitas" (my little girls) or "mi corazon " (my heart) or "mi amor"  (my love) and then sending Leonor off

to buy us some sort of treat or something. Its all very strange and a little uncomfortable for me, but I suppose thats just their life style. Anyway, after the movies I met up with some friends and went downtown to Las Peñas on the Malecón. Its an area of bars right on the riverfront. There are these steps that go all the way up a huge hill and each step is numbered and there are all sorts of little neighborhood bars on the side as you walk up. Most people refer to the bar by the step number that its on... I think theres something around three hundred and some odd steps total... we only made it to seventy. But I thought that was even pretty good considering I was wearing heels. The best part of the night is to sit outside around three after the bars have closed and watch everyone try to stumble back down the steps...

Anyway, today was my big day at the beach with my family. I woke up and had breakfast with my host mom. We had fresh ceviche and hot patacones (fried plantains)... and popcorn. Ceviche is a really good mixture of lime, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro, and then your choice of seafood and its always served with some sort of plantains in Ecuador. People here have this weird thing about eating seafood for breakfast. They eat ceviche a lot and also this fish soup that youre supposed to eat in the mornings when youre hung over.

After breakfast and a monster of a temper tantrum from Rafaela over not being able to find her favorite bathing suit we finally took off for the beach. I felt slightly like a five year old the whole way there as my host mom repeatedly kept telling the cab driver to slow down because her "hijitas" were in the car. Although I think she also might have been trying to hit on him.. She likes to flirt a lot. We got to the beach and my host mom immediately rented chairs for her and I and had Leonor running back and forth to the ocean filling up a little pool for Rafaela since she doesnt know how to swim. I kept trying to get up and give my chair to Leonor since I like to lay on my towel anyway but my host mom wasnt having it...

Here is Rafaela burying herself in the sand. She insisted that I take a picture of her. This also ended up in me having to carry her to the water so that she could rinse off... which means she tries to run in to the ocean even though she knows she cant swim and then I end up having to chase after her and carry her every time theres a wave coming... which turned in to her new favorite game and ultimately resulted in another huge temper tantrum when I told her was time to leave the water...

This is the full beach of Playas. The entire thing was packed with people. Even though its technically winter here right now, this is the time of year when all their schools are out for vacation, so a lot of families head to the beach. There were vendors that walk up and down the beach selling everything from jewlery to hats to classic ecuadorian food like tortillas, chifles, and pollo de seco. At this point in the day my host mom was sitting in her chair like a queen, with a towel draped over her head and only moving to wave over a street vendor for a cigarette or ask Leonor to do something. The whole thing was pretty comical and made me feel like I was in a movie.

 Here is Rafaela and I again. At this point she was refusing to speak to me or take a picture with me because I went swimming without inviting her to come with me.  

This statue was on the main street. My host mom (in the long dress) thought it was funny to take a picture of us four girls with the big man statue... So we stopped the cab and did just that. I ended the day pretty sunburnt... Ive already had to start putting on aloe. Well, thats been my day at the beach.                                                                          I have my fist midterms of the bimester tomorrow in Spanish... should be grand fun. Sometimes I forget that I have to do normal things here too, like take tests. I really dont think tests should exist when studying abroad... I mean my head already hurts from spending the entire day speaking in spanish and nodding and smiling when I only understand about sixty percent of whats going on. Well to be perfectly honest thats only half the reason my head hurts... It also hurts because I ran in to a doorway the other night... If you cant tell from the above picture let me just inform you that Im a lot taller than most people here... and they make their doorway shorter... combine that with a pair of high heels and what do you think you get? You get me not paying attentioni and wacking the crap out of my head against the top of the door frame because I was too tall to fit through it. So now Im left with a big bump on the top of my head... Not to mention I already lost the back cover to my phone... and I dropped it in the toilet yesterday. But dont worry theres never a shortage of rice around here so I managed to get it nice and dried out and back in working order... Im still on the hunt for some duct tape to cover the back of it though .... some things just never change :)