"Captain Ahab took his crew... his harpoon and set sail... and he called out to ships have you seen a white whale?" "No-whale, No-whale..."

Before I start this I just want to make sure its noted that Gilberto the Gecco is extremely chatty tonight... and he is becoming less shy... I have seen him scamper up and down my wall twice tonight... come to think of it maybe thats why that wall is painted green... maybe they think I wont notice the geccos... And while mentioning animals I would also like to say that I went to sleep last night with a mosquito bite free face and woke up with a forehead resembling pepperoni pizza and a spattering of other dots all on my neck.. I wish mosquitos would at least be polite enough to only bite below the neck. Anyway, its been a long few days. I always thought how nice it would be to have three day weekends… it never once crossed my mind that it would be so exhausting (I know everyone feels terrible for me right). Anyway, this weekend I went for a lovely boat ride on a reconstructed version of Captain Morgans pirate ship. I posted that I was sailing with Captain Morgan on my Facebook and then immediately realized that everyone probably interpreted that as I was just guzzling large quantities of Captain Morgan rum, which was not the case. The pirate ship did have an open bar but I assure you the rum was far below the quality of Captain Morgan. But anyway it was my friend Karlas 21st birthday. She is from Canada so turning 21 doesnt really mean much there... but it was still a lot of fun.  She is the one in the picture beside me. 

But the boat ride was gorgeous, it took us up and down the two mile or so stretch that makes up the boardwalk along the river of down town Guayaquil. The ride lasted about two hours but it was very nice to see all the lights of the city and relax outside when the weather is a little cooler. But I think everyone had a good time, which I was glad since I kind of instigated the whole thing. The best part about it was that the boat was pretty empty which meant we virtually had a private party aboard the ship with just our friends. There were a few other girls there that were on vacation from Chile, but we quickly adopted them in to our group and they actually ended up hanging out with us at the beach for the rest of the weekend.  

I also allowed my newly adopted host sister to come along with us on the boat ride. She is from a very small beach town in Ecuador and besides a few visits to Canada to visit Aunts and Uncles  I think these are some of the first international people she has ever met. Not to mention that from what I gather her mother is a very strict evangelical and therefore she has never really been allowed to go out with friends… so moving to Guayaquil has been quite the adjustment… but she seems to be enjoying herself... even if you cant tell by the strange face she is making in the picture. The other guy in the picture is Alfredo (a very common name here in Ecuador... dont ask me why they are naming their boys after an Italian cream sauce...). He is one of the host brothers of another girl here, although I think his family just hosts international students so that he can attempt to find an international girlfriend. Sadly I dont think its helping at all...

Or at least she was enjoying herself until she realized that traveling to the beach with internationals means that not only are you expected to walk to the city bus stop (and leave your house on time)but then do the unthinkable and pay 25 cents to take a city bus to the terminal to catch a 3 hour ride on a bus without air conditioning… I think she asked me about 10 times why we couldn’t take a private taxi. I promise I tried to be patient the first three times and answer her politely that buses are cheap and they work just fine… thankfully I don’t think the sarcasm was translated accurately in to Spanish the last 7 times I answered her. In the picture is my Columbian DJ friend making fun of my host sisters face when she was so unhappy on the bus.

 
 But we all made it alive, even if I got stuck sitting next to the Australian that smells bad for a lot of the way.... And the beach was beautiful! We stayed in a gorgeous house where one of my friends knew the owner. Its three stories and we got full access to the kitchen, there were a bunch of hammocks on the porches where you could lay and still see the ocean, and clean bathrooms!! All for ten dollars a night! We got some great cheap sea food and I got the biggest fruit salad ever for breakfast (not to mention a huge portion of patacones). We spent a lot of time at the beach on Saturday and I managed to escape tanner but not burned.
 This is Jonathan (the DJ) sitting on the porch. He was angry that we didnt have any speakers to play music so he took it upon himself to play drumbs on a plastic chair. If you look in the background you can see the Australian that joined in beatboxing  which then followed by another boy singing until we had a pretty genuine impromptu concert going on.

This was my favorite spot of the weekend (as well as my bed).

 This is one of my favorite pictures from the beach. If you start from the left you have someone from Mexico then beside that an Australian, two Ecuadorians, a Korean, and then me. I was actually the only American in our group this weekend. We finally made it back to Guayaquil on Sunday night. My host sister finally broke down and took a taxi from the bus terminal back to our neighborhood even though I stubbornly refused to go with her because I think its a waste of money (even if it is only 2 dollars). Monday was a rough awakening. I didnt get any homework done this weekend and ended up having to wake up at 530 on Monday to finish up a paper before my morning class because I fell asleep face first in my computer the night before trying to write it! But I finished it and it was turned in on time... and I even succeeded in printing it out without any help! I have half of my spanish mid term tomorrow and the other half on Thursday and then my marketing mid term on Monday and Im done with my first bimester and officially on Spring Break! I also asked the housekeeper today to write down some recipes for me before I go home :) and I have an Ecuadorian cooking class on Thursday!

I think thats about all the excitement in Ecuador for now... besides the fact that these people are still driving crazy here.. someone just went blazing over a speed bump and straight in to a black trash can... while driving right beside a sign that tells them to not speed because children are running... these people are loco..