Traveling Through Ecuador

kalos kai agathos

so ahhh-parently i cant update anymore cause i dont have an attention span or time lol. butttttt
so amy and karen came up to boston last weekend to visit me and marsha and it was amazing!!!
fri after they got here we walked around fenway for a bit before picking up marsha and driving to the northend for an amazing italian meal and then cannolis. then we went to the improv asylum to see a show and it was sooooo funny! i wish we coulda been drinking beers like everyone else but i was laughing nonstop. we stayed for the aftershow and joey from full house showed up and even proformed a little!!
the next day we had brunch at tatte and walked to coolidge corner. we came back and marsha left us for a bit. me, amy and karen lounged around for a bit before eating in the dining hall and then coming back and drinking wine. tipsyyyy ahahah we got to talk A LOT. sooo goood.
then we took to the t to marsha's for her roomie, sarah's, 21st bday party!! it was kennedy themed so we were looking classy! it was really fun but i guess a base a wine is not a good start to mix drinks after. i puked for the first time in my life drunk. i felt bad but atleast i was with friends. before this happened me and amy got to catchup with hannah from NYLF! that was super fun and it was nice to bounce around to talk to all the people there that i knew.
next morning we had breakfast at marsha's dining hall and then went home and amy and karen left. :( such a nice weekend tho.

MARATHON MONDAY!!! SO much fun!!! i basically hung out with different groups of ecuador people all day and got tipsy on some smirnoff. sooo fun walking around, making fun the super drunk people getting arrestedm watching the runners, and catching up with everyone! me and katie went on a top secret mission to see my crush after he gave her a hug on the streets, and it was amazing! ahhahah he gave me a hug and asked for my number! eek ahahah he even texted me on fri ;) such a GREAT marathon monday!

so all this week i've been inspired by the marathon and i've went to the gym everday for an hour cept for fri cause i needed a break. i even did a 2 hour salsa class on wed that was amazing! i actaully felt sexy while my partners were spinning me around :) yay. and i'm going on a run on the esplanade with renee in a few mins! first bikini season ffor me here i come! (minus the pms-induced guac sesh with rania i had last night lol)


so close to the end. so bittersweet :(

So this is my schedule for next fall. I'm planning on taking evolutionary psychology, human disease, climate and the environment, cellular aspects of development and differentiation, yoga, and cardiostep and ab.  i'm getting excited!

Now that the love is gone...

What are we suppose to do
After all that we've been through
Where everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone
Love is gone...

man this is late. i dont remember much but i'll fill the rest in later

Monday 12/1/08   we left the rainforest during a horrible rainstorm. 2 hour canoe ride, 2 hour chiva ride, another 2 hour canoe ride, couple hour stay at a resort in el coca playing with the squirrel monkeys and looking at the saki monkey and parrots, and 30 min plane ride back to quito. stayed at home with my family for the night

tues 12/2   

wed 12/3

thurs 12/4

fri 12/5    we had our rainforest ecology exam so after it we had dollar pizza to celebrate and then me and ct took the bus to ecovia for the fiestas de quito and xavier's birthday. we met up with xavier, carlos, ludo, their friend "nigger" , his gf, and some of their other friends. we all started drinking beer, wine out of a bag, and canelazos at a kareoke bar. sooo good. and it was like 4 pm. we just wasted time in gringolandia till more people showed up. we drank in the street later when people our group arrived. they had a stage in plaza foch so we just drank and partied around that. we were very drunk by the time the band played so we were dancing and taking crazy pics together. after the concert, catherine was like falling down. we think she was roofied. and there was no taxi's. so me, carlos, xavier, and their friend philip basically carried her home. it was pretty stressful. and it was like 9 pm. her nonna gave the boys the dirtiest looks when we put her on her bed. they ran outta there. apparently she didnt remember anything at all. it was bad. then we walked back to mariscal and hung out in the streets because there was too many people so the cell phone service failed. we sat on our usual stumps jaja. so then we finally found everyone and got some pizza and ct was feeling sick so we went home at like midnight. crazy fiesta night
...more later

soooo today was mostly like everyday in the rainforest with the exception that last night we scoured the forest for supplies to build a turkey. i guess we were really bored last night because the internet wasnt working. we found a HUGE cecropia leaf to use as the tail feathers, a shelf fungus for the gobble,  part of a bromeliad for the head, flowers for eyes, three pronged leaf for feet, and a plastic bag filled with leaves for the body! it was amazing looking and very fun.
so today woke up at 630 which is when breakfast is so we didnt get to hide the leaf turkey. then after breakfast of a cheese sandwhich, me and katie went on the boat with kelly and man renee to go find turtle eggs on the river banks and collect sand for kellys garden, aka physical labor for free. some interesting kelly moments: "i like just like hanging out with sweaty young girls"  & " i see that steph is wearing strawberry underwear"  it was my bathing suit because it was laundry day! hahaha also katie and kelly shared a poncho on the boat while i got soaked! we found one egg nest with 24 eggs inside and then carried 2 huge bags of sand up the hill to kelly's house. soooo tiring. then i read before class and then we had soup and pizza for lunch. after lunch me, catherine, and katie hung out by the docks for a bit and then we went on a walk of chorango, puma, and then guacamayo. after that we were sooo sweaty so we took a dip in the caimen infested waters of the river ahahah. it was sooo refeshing. then after showering and checking for internet, i took a quick nap before our big meal. we brought our "turkey" up to the dining hall and put all the tables together to have a "family" table. they had a buffet table of the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and maccarroni salad. oh and our fave green juice and cranberry sauce on the table. they also gave us chocolate cake for dessert. yum but not pie!
now we're sitting in the lab listening to christmas music and worrying about the dream team coming back from their bats. urgh

back to quito on monday!! FINALLY!

so today i worked on an orchid project with catherine in the morning on the matapalo trail and then we rested until class at 11 and then lunch at 12. then we took the canoe down the tiputini river to rescue some river turtle eggs and on the way we saw capabaras, caimens, and lots of birds. pretty interesting. ahhah

so we've been here for more than a week and the days are all blending into one. we have breakfast at 6:30 every morning and then work on our individual projects until lunch at 12 and then more projects and hiking and then usually class at 6 and dinner at 7. we get soup with lunch and dessert with dinner. the food is pretty good and the water was good, but now it tastes like chlorine so i drink juice. man i wish they had grandinas back in the states. they are things that look like oranges but u crack them open and scoop out the jelly surrounded crunchy seeds with a spoon. sooo good. hahah
i do so much hiking in my adventure pants and rain boots here. i really like it actually, cept for the smelly sweat and the bug bites. i may get a botfly larvae in me before this is over. i get about 5 new mosquito bites a day after being drenched in DEET. some arent bad but some swell huge!
today katie had to get boated to the emergency doctor because her neck was swelling on the inside and outside since yesterday. they were astounded at the size and had to give her 2 shots but she came back ok and i think shes sleeping now. poor katie! urgh horrible but she did see the pink river dolphins!
tmrw we're doing a river float so hopefully i'll get to see some too!

Wednesday: normal classes. I did my presentation on Olivella snails.  I then met up with carlos at quicentro, where we played pool for an hour at the cosmic bowling place. Then we got coffee at sweet & sugar for like three hours and just talked about everything. It was good.

Thursday: normal classes. Carlos came to my school to visit me on our one month anniversary because we couldn’t hang out at night because he had a test on Friday. Me and CT showed him around our campus, we ate pizza at dollar pizza, and then hung out in the lounge and showed him pictures of my friends from back home and school. Carlos said he doesn’t belong there and that my school is stuck up. Ahahaha. Then we took the bus back to quito and carlos walked me home. Stressful night.

Friday: HALLOWEEN! class that got done early because we just prepared for the rainforest. Me and Catherine went to Museo Banco Central and looked at all the archeology, religious, and art stuff.  Then we walked to old Quito and found La Campania church and saw all the gilded splendor of colonial Catholics. It started to get dark so we hailed a taxi and tried to get home. I saw tried because after we dropped Catherine off, I was stuck on shyris in the taxi for another and a half in hardly moving traffic. It was also raining and not near my bus so I had no alternatives. I finally got home at like 7 and the taxi driver tried to charge me ten bucks! I was wtf, the taxi-metro says $7.30! I finally got out with 8. Then I hurried up and put on my “gypsy costume,” which consisted of my dress from the dance dance video shoot, flats, and some bangles.  I tried to call a cab but they were all busy so I walked to CT’s house and we tried to get a taxi on the street. We finally got one and on the way to Mariscal, Catherine called and said she and Renee couldn’t get a cab either so we went to pick them up.  There were SO many people in Plaza Foch. They had like a weird concert thing set up and it blocked the plaza from the side we came on. So me, Renee, Catherine, and CT went to O’clock for the fishbowl of vodka and juice and I found out that carlos couldn’t come out with me actually that night. He told me in a really weird text message and I was worried. We then went to chupitos and took some shots because I was depressed a bit. We had to fight off some like 16 year old Ecuadorians and then we went to bungalow for some Halloween dancing. It was pretty fun, the place was decorated, and they played their usual club mix we love. Laura met up with us dressed as a peacock. Ok night.

Saturday: woke up and called Carlos. He wouldn’t tell me what happened but promised to come over at two that afternoon. Me and CT decided to go eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which was not really a great idea. We had so much food but it was not very good. Then I went home and tried to clean my room. My mom went to my brother’s for lunch so I was home alone till 6!!  Great afternoon. ;) Me, CT, and Carlos all walked to morgan’s for her bday party dinner. Her mom made us snacks, pasta, and cake! It was very good with everyone except for Winston. We then all went to grab a cab to go to Van Gogh without Katie and megan. Van Gogh was AMAZING. Great music, free drinks, band, dancing with carlos til 4 am! So sometime during the night the hot drummer noticed CT and started dancing and talking to her. So at 4 am she was like lets go somewhere u, me, carlos, and the drummer, paul.  Somehow we got in separate cabs and she went to his house to drop off instruments and I went to mariscal to meet them after. But when we got there, they never came so we took another cab to the drummer’s house and we all hung out in his little bedroom on his sunken twin bed. It was very interesting, CT was sooooo drunk!! Too funny but at the time we wanted to kill her. So at 6 am we decided to leave and CT came with us. So tired when I got home.

Sunday: CHUCHAKI!!!!! Slept til 2 in the afternoon and then went to the computers to skype with my fam before I left. Then came back for dinner and packed and waited for Carlos to contact me. But he didn’t so I packed a lot. Last dinner with my family for a while, very sad.

Monday: woke up at 5 and at the airport at 6:30. took a plane to Coca, then hung out at a resort hotel for a couple of hours. There were little squirrel monkeys there that we played with and fed bread. They got a little rowdy near the end and attacked Winston and destroyed our stuff. called carlos to say goodbye which was really nice. man, a month is a long time. :( Then we took a boat for 2 hours, a open sided truck for 2 hours and then another boat for 2 hours and finally got to the Tiputini biodiversity station!!!