"La Mitad Del Mundo"

     This past weekend has probably been one of the best in my entire 22 years of life. First my Friday began with the Andean culture class, which is the class I've been looking most forward to. My teacher seems super sweet earthy. I think this class will be a pleasure to go to each week, not to mention that it's with all the girls in my program. It's nice to be able to see everyone rather than just two people. ( Although I look forward to our political and life talks every morning Brooke and Katie)
      After class we all went exploring around our school in the Mariscal area. Mariscal is known by the locals as "Gringolandia" because it's where the tourists from all over the world gather. I guess it makes sense that my school is smack dab in the middle of it. It was nice to get to see the area in the day time because later on that night all of us gals ventured out looking to have a good time. Boy is that place different at night! By the time we get out of school (around 1pm) a lot of the shops are just opening for almuerzo. At night everything is alive and people swarm the streets.

    The night began with all of us meeting at La Plaza Foch. Half of the group went off the begin the night with some cervezas while the other half chilled and waited for everyone else to arrive. Once we were all together we traveled down the streets looking for discotecas-which are Ecuadorian night clubs. The first one we found was pretty lame, but hey it was free and we had a good time dancing anyway. *Note I highly doubt we'll ever have to pay to get into a discoteca here* The second one we went to was called Oceana. That place was awesome! For those of you know me, you know that I love dancing and never hesitate to be the first on the dance flood. Ecuadorian night clubs are awesome because here is a good mix of many types of dancing and music. Also Latin American men have absolutely no fear about dancing with you. Most of the night I danced with my girls, but at one point a guy named Andres came up and started dancing with me. I danced with him for a couple of minutes-salsa dancing-then after I knew he was interested I turned to him and said "Yo tengo un novio...pero you tengo MUCHOS Amigas!" Which translates to "I have a boyfriend...but I have a lot of friends that are girls!" He looked pleased and told me that he had a lot of guys friends there. So then I brought him over to where all my single girls were and then a mixture of the Ecuadorian boys and Ohio girls danced the night away. All in all I think everyone had a good time. 

The next morning my friend Stephanie, her Padre, and I all went on a minnie road trip to "El Mital Del Mundo" which is translated to "The middle or center of the world". Pretty awesome. I got to straddle the Equatorial line...well the wrong one. Apparently where the giant statue below is located is the wrong place, thanks to GPS we now know this. So there is the big fancy line and statue, which is not the actual line, and there is a little sign a few feet away where the actual line is. Unfortunately we didn't know this so we went to the fake line. Next time.

Then later on that day my friend Naomi called us and said that she and her family were going to a soccer game later that afternoon. Of course we said yes and hitched a ride to Naomi's house. From there we walked to the Estadio Olimpico Atahualpa which is only a couple of blocks away from Naomi's house. We spend the game test the local game food, drinking the local cervaza, and cheering for Ecuador.  Futbol games in South America don't even compare to that in the US. People go nuts! It's like being in Columbus on a OSU vs Michigan game day. People love it. Unfortunately Ecuador lost to Mexico 0-1, but we still had a blast. Apparently losing is not okay for Ecuadorian fans because at the end of the game the people were chanting for a new coach and throwing their plastic bottles at the players as they left the field. I was shocked at their actions because I throughout the game no one booed or showed mal-sportsmanship, but yet they threw bottles at their own players when they lost? That is a lot of pressure!

    Kind of a funny side note, our group got stopped twice at the stadium by people in the public media field. Once was for national television and the other was for a radio show. Apparently being a gringa gets you lots of attention.