life as of late

Most importantly, I fixed my internet all by myself. I'm not used to having to be my own tech support; that's what my wonderful friends and family are for :) However since you all aren't here, I've had to make do. I discovered that the power cord was the only problem with the internet, so I successfully found a Radioshack and bought an appropriate cable. Life is much much better now.
Last weekend I went to a recommended internet cafe called Mr. Bagel, which was amazing because apparently Ecuadorians don't eat bagels; I have yet to see any here other than this cafe, which is owned by an American. Needless to say, I enjoyed the bagels that I ate very much. I mention this because I (of course) had more internet problems: my laptop absolutely refused to connect to the internet. Because my tech-support experience is still in its infancy, I probably spent an hour exploring every single possible option under Network Connections, and finally discovered that my computer wasn't using the default IP or DNS server addresses, which fixed the problem.
Ive also had incredible difficulty uploading pictures on Facebook (my success rate is probably at 25 or 30%) but that's a less important aspect of getting technology to work...

On Sunday, I went running in the park and ran into Annie, which was a nice surprise given that Quito has almost 2 million people and I only know 14 of them well. I then joined my host mom for a breakfast of humitas and mango (two of my favorite foods here!) and then we went to mass, which I enjoyed a lot although I understood little because the acoustics were terrible. It was very short, only 30 minutes, so I had time to go superbowl-hamburger-veggie shopping before lunch. Sunday lunches are absolutely fabulous; my host mom's brother owns a restaurant (El Pajonal) and all sorts of extended family and friends come together and eat vast quantities of excellent food. Well, at least I eat vast quantities. I've pretty much established myself as the biiggest and fastest eater in the group of students I with. If someone doesn't want to finish their meal, they always ask me if I do haha
After this excellent meal of potato soup and bola soup, rice, lasagna, steak, bananas, salad, and mousse, I went to Dan and Beto's house for our Superbowl party. I could not have cared less about the Superbowl, but it was fun to hang out and eat lots more food. We had 15 people there, I think, and probably had enough food for 35 or 40. I've only been that full in my life once before, and I definitely did not eat much the following day.

As far as school goes, we have our new classes: Spanish 301, which is mainly grammar, and Spanish 322, which is Latin American Culture. They're both pretty interesting and I like them, except for the fact that they're an hour and a half instead of an hour. We have our midterms this Thursday (they're more like third-terms but we wanted them to be before our Carnival Break, which is 5 days long, this weekend). So, I have to write two 3-page papers and give two presentations, on the Ecuadorian Education System and Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Since I haven't done much writing yet, I'm off to do that!

Love Alex