Tomorrow, I will have been in Quito for seven days. That is hard to believe. I was counting up last night...I really don´t have that much time left here. I have 11 days of Spanish classes and 3 weekends. The last weekend I am here I am taking a trip to Otavalo, so it will go by fast.
I figured I would make today a more worthy update than yesterday. Actually, yesterday after my update has been my best time in Quito yet. I have decided that instead of just having my blog, ¨Zach did this...Zach did that,¨ I will try to teach you a little bit more about the Ecuadorian culture than what I have been doing. I feel like the last few posts have just been similar to a journal or something and I am not really teaching you about life in Ecuador. So, my plan for tonight sometime...I am going to sit down, make a list of things that stand out to me (the children here, food, clothes, cars, etc.) and each day that I update, I will try to teach you something new about Ecuador.
First off, I was disappointed to get to my email this afternoon and have no emails...from anyone...nada. I look forward to hearing from people and all my faithful readers did great for the first 4 or 5 days. But you are slacking now. Get back at it!
Yesterday after I updated, I began to walk back towards my apartment. I can´t remember if I told you this yesterday, but I made a list of 16 different museums, gardens, parks, and things like that I want to see while I am here. Since I have all of my afternoons free, that basically gives me one thing to do each afternoon from now until I leave.
Anyways, yesterday, I began to walk back towards my apartment because I was going to go to the Botanical Gardens. According to my handy-dandy Ecuador guide book, it was opened in 2005 and has over 300 species of plants native to Ecuador. Of course, being my touristy self, I want to visit the Botanical Gardens. As I was walking, I passed by one of the city bus stops. The city buses here are only 25 cents but I had been afraid to get on them since I don´t speak spanish. Well, yesterday, I decided I was going to brave up, get on a bus, and go to the historic district.
Once I got off the bus stop, I walked directly to find the city square. I learned in Urban Geography this past semester that one of the main points in South American cities is the plaza. So, I found it. I just sat down and was watching all the people when all of a sudden, I heard music. I looked around and what I assume to be the national army/military band was walking around the plaza. All of a sudden, they doubled in numbers. There was some type of celebration going on and I got there just in time to see it! Some of the military guys were on horses playing their instruments and it was very organized. It was quite an amazing site.
Pictures- Just to let you know, pictures are a pain here. Sometime tomorrow afternoon or this weekend, I plan to put up a few more. I won´t be putting up many while I am here. Once I get back to the United States, I will make an entire Ecuador album on my google account and let you see every single picture I have taken. It will be much easier once I get back. Also, I have a few videos of the event I witnessed on the plaza yesterday that I will put on YouTube and link to my blog.
Otherwise, everything is going well. It is only 2pm here, so I think I may head to the Botanical Gardens today since I didn´t go yesterday.
Email people! Until next time, Zach will leave it at that.
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