Feliz Cumpleaños!

Okay, so Sunday night I went with a few friends and walked around Mall del Sol, which is located in downtown Guayaquil and is the second biggest mall in South America. The biggest is in Brazil... go figure. The mall is a really funny place to be because its a huge confusion of cultures and a big mess of people. You pass by one stand of traditional Ecuadorian artisan crafts typical of the indigenous people and then turn the corner and there is Hooters. But my favorite thing that I ran in to in the mall was this "Japanese" arcade. This pool was in the mall window for everyone to watch as they walked by. They put the kids in the huge blow up balls and have them run around on the water like gerbals. It was awesome. Inside they also had a huge section of dancing arcade games and another area with large blow up spheres for people to climb inside and play something a little like bumper cars. The whole thing was pretty cool.

But anyway, yesterday was Leonors birthday. I woke up in the morning to the smell of freshly baked cake and automatically realized that she was making her own birthday cake... I had bought her a card a few days before so I wrote a little message in Spanish and brought it down to her at breakfast. I think she was excited.

My friend Alberto came over to help me cook lunch for Leonor and my host sister. I wanted to give her a day off for cooking on her birthday. We made home made Mexican Fish and shrimp tacos and they were delicious! I made home made guacamole to go with it. We even did all the tortillas by hand! I think it was the first time that one of the renters of the house had cooked for her because I could tell she didnt know what to do. We kind of just took over the kitchen and went at it.

Ofcourse we ended up with tons of food! There was barely room on the table! I think it was also the first time that Viviana or Leonor had ever eaten tacos because they were both extremely confused about how to make them. I dont think there is a lot of "assemble at the table" food in Ecuador, so it was kind of a fun little change. We even had soda for the first time since Ive been here to celebrate! Eventually I explained the step by step process to constructing the perfect taco and I think everyone really enjoyed the food. I figure it is the thought that counts anyway!