Shopping

So the plan was to go to La Plaza de Independencia today, but Lisa’s host mother told her we were going there on a group tour of the city on Sunday. We both think it is funny that our host families know more about our schedule than we do. Lisa’s mom printed out a schedule for us to look at that the families were given on Monday. So now we know, roughly, what our days will look like starting next week. In the morning we are taking Spanish classes at La Escuela de Simon Bolivar and in the afternoon we will have speakers at the Universidad Politecnica Salesiana, UPS (see picture below). We still don’t know what clinics we will be going to during the week.

This morning, Lisa and I went to La Museo Nacional where we looked at literally thousands of paintings, sculptures, pieces of jewelry, and other artifacts from the coast of Ecuador. We saw some really interesting and beautiful things, but couldn’t take any pictures.

For lunch we went to Lisa’s house, where her host mom’s sister owns a restaurant downstairs. We had fresh squeezed juice, tomato soup, a pork chop, rice and a type of coleslaw for $1.50 each. Not a bad deal. Interesting note: everyone eats popcorn with soup (you are served your soup and a bowl of popcorn and you put the popcorn in the soup. The soup kind of melts the popcorn. It’s different.)

After lunch, Lisa’s host brother, Sebastian, and his cousin, Bolivar, drove us to a local market. The market had tons of blankets like the one I have on my bed, jewelry, replicas of famous paintings and other trinkets.  We didn’t buy anything, but I’m sure I’ll go back to bring some things home. Then we walked to a huge mall and wandered around for a bit. We didn’t buy anything at the mall either, so it was more of a looking trip than a shopping trip.

Tomorrow Lisa and I are going to meet up with our professor and get a tour of the city from her. She lived in Quito for three years, so she should have some interesting things to show us. Hasta mañana!