Don´t worry, I´m still alive

Sorry that it´s been awhile since I´ve updated...there´s this strange thing called school that I am apparently enrolled in, and all of a sudden I had an obscene amount of work to do. Tests, papers, presentations...weird.

Anyway-I guess I don´t have all that much to report anyway. Last week was my host mom´s birthday, and we had a little gathering at our house. Even though she told me about it, I still managed to come home at the most awkward time and walk into a room full of all my extended family staring at me and the flowers I brought her...I pretty much brought the conversation to a screeching hault ( I think I was late, but it´s hard to say when you´re on Ecua-time) Anyway, we had a lovely little dinner, that is after the dancing...

My brothers and sister (who is currently living in Argentina with her husband) decided to surprise my mom (and me) with a mariachi band for her birthday (They neglected to tell me that the band was ¨from Laura¨too) We were all sitting in the living room, when we heard this live music, and sure enough the band marched right into the house and had us all up and dancing and singing in no time. It was really fun, and another great experience to add to the list.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent helping one of my friends celebrate her 21st birthday. Obviously it isn´t as big a deal here, as it is in the states, so we did what we could to change that. It actually ended up being a really nice weekend...no traveling...just hanging out in Quito.

So to make up for our chill weekend, we are going to take two trips in one week. We dont have class tomorrow, so we are taking a trip to Mindo, which is an area about two hours from Quito that has amazing waterfalls and a lot of eco-tourism. While studying at McDonald´s with a friend (how cliché is an American at McDonald´s, ew) we met a guy who had just been to Mindo and has a friend who is living there. He gave me his phone number and told us that he would set us up with a really nice place to live and have his friend show us all around. People are just so nice here, I love it. So I will be giving him a call here shortly and hopefully something will work out.

I have to be back on Friday to give a presentation, but then on Friday night we are planning on going to the beach again...different beach. Hopefully this time I will be able to avoid any juvenile urination....I guess we´ll see.

So that´s it for now...everything is GREAT! And if anyone is ever interested, my mom figured out how to call my cell phone, so if you ever want to actually talk to me, I would LOVE to hear from you. You have to dial 011-593-9-510-1104....hopefully it will work!

Love and miss you all, and again...keep the emails and such coming. Hope you´re all doing well and staying warm, for those of you buried in snow!