Day & Nightlife.

Another week of school done - can you believe it?? It's been a good week. My classes are all finalized - Ecuadorian culture, intermediate conversation, advanced grammar (all of these are pretty much for international students), feminine/feminist literature (I'm one of 3 international students! terrifying) and basic weaving (am the only foreigner, that's fun :) ) It's a great balance - literature is a lot of work and I'm still very intimidated to say much in class. The others are designed for us foreigners though so their emphasis is learning more vocabulary and improving our grammar - exactly what I need. And weaving is weaving, in other words - AWESOME.

I hadn't been out on the town at night yet so that was what I did last night! Everyone else had already been out so it was nice to just go and follow the others. I shared a cab with a friend of mine and met in La Mariscol, which is the party center of the city on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. We went to a bar called Strawberry Fields Forever, which was Beatles-themed and incredible!! It wasn't busy and we sat cozily in the back, taking in all the Beatles memorabilia and music. It was Julie, Lauren, Powers, Alli, and I. We stayed for an hour or so, just relaxing then decided to join some of our other friends at a discoteca!

So we went this place called Bungalow, which had no cover and was pretty well-divided between foreigners and Ecuadorians. They were playing great music and we all just danced and enjoyed ourselves!! There was some friend drama going on - never fun - but I managed to just ignore it all and dance. Ended up dancing with this guy who eventually introduced himself as Alejandro, to which I burst out laughing. He said "nice to meet you" and kissed my hand! Ahaha. Anyway, danced with him for a bit then just danced crazily with my friends. There was this creepy older man who kept hovering around our group and eyeing Julie, who is blonde and thus attracts lots of attention here. He kept trying to get behind her and dance and she kept inching away, absolutely freaked out. He would not leave her alone! Finally, later we were standing TO THE SIDE, not dancing anymore and he literally comes up behind her and puts his hands around her!!! I got SO mad and pushed him and yelled NO and told her to leave her alone! He freaked out - looked sooo angry and I thought he was gonna hit me but I stood my ground and he left. You don't even know how proud I was of myself :D Fearless little chica en Sudamérica!

Anyway, then some salsa music started playing and guys kept coming over asking to dance - I said no to 2-3 then one guy just had the best smile and ended up being so nice. He tried to no avail to teach me how to salsa and I was just terrible so I let my friend dance with him instead. My other friends are apparently masters at salsa already!! And I'm pretty sure I was born without the ability to remember sequences of movements in any form. But it was really fun. By then it was late, so we hailed another cab and headed home.

Was in bed by 2 and had to get up at 8 to get ready for class, which was good. Unfortunately in weaving I started feeling terrible and had to run to find the bathroom. Not a hangover no worries - realized later my strawberry daiquiri (my only drink of the night!) was blended with ice and so I found the cause for my illness. So today's been fun........ everyone's been picking on me and my need to stay in proximity of a bathroom.

Anyway, after class I returned with Powers to her place - which is absolutely beautiful. Her host mom is an ARTIST and there apartment is straight out of everything decor-related I've ever posted on tumblr. Absolutely gorgeous!!! We hung out all afternoon which was really nice... me fighting bouts of terrible nausea - then went out for Colleen's birthday tonight. That was a really nice dinner with everyone too! Took a cab back - got to meet this cab driver that my friends always call. His name is Carlos and he is so sweet. He has a wife and newborn and is learning English. He'll wait on the curb to make sure you get in your house and everything - basically just the nicest guy and best part is that we can absolutely trust him. Very nice to know. So he drove me home tonight and we had a great conversation in Spanish!

This weekend I'm going back to the Centro Histórico and then the Teleférico on Sunday, which takes you up the mountain!! I'm exhausted though so I'm gonna get some sleep and see how I'm feeling in the morning.

So that's been my week! Been fighting bouts of homesickness and real sickness but school has been and will be a great distraction. Am learning about all of the other places I'll need to visit soon so that's really exciting too.

Alright good night everyone :)