long time, no update...

dear friends and family (if anyone actually reads this),

sorry i am a miserable excuse for a blogger... the past week has been up and down crazy and ridiculous and i have not found time to sit down for longer than 2.2 seconds to write about my life: ecuadorian style. and honestly, now that i am here, i don't even know where to begin...

basically after june 15th life around here picked up some speed. here's the list:
1. i got an apartment-mate. her name is spenser, she's going to be a senior in high school, she's from california, and we get along great. (AND she has a cat named scout... now please, tell me this wasn't meant to be!?!)
2. ecuador tied argentina in argentina (futbol obviously) in the last 30 seconds of the game... they were winning... which would have been a first in history. anyways. we watched the game at a bar. it was fun. and rowdy.
3. we bought tickets to see the ecuador versus columbia game in quito the following wednesday (the 18th)... we got there super early to get seats... and of course, i forgot my ticket at home. i got a cab back and everything worked out... oh, and one of my friends got pick-pocketed. quite the adventure. the game was ridiculous. it started pouring down rain (typical quito) an hour an a half before the game... so we were soaked... and cold... and it was just a recipe for disaster. some of us left at halftime because we were numb and that is stupid. (it was a 0-0 tie anyways. lame.)
4. my good friend, andy (from school), got into quito wednesday night at like 11 pm. i was waiting for him at the aeropuerto until 12:30 before i literally started panicking... like think gringa breakdown in the airport... awesome sight. let me tell you. but some nice guys in the tourism business helped me out and found out the customs line was 2 hours long... so it all worked out. andy got here. i cried. and we got back to the apartment at 2 am. solid.
5. i started spanish classes in the morning (instead of the afternoon) with this miserable woman named patricia who just drills grammar the whole 4 hours. so. fun. oh well. 4 more days.
6. i got the flu promptly following andy's arrival (that thursday) and was incapacitated for a good chunk of time. (this is all after we climbed to the top of the basilica and i was fairly certain there were no safety regulations on the ladders. typical ecuador.)
7. we left saturday morning for baños, this super outdoorsy town and the place i was most excited to visit... i almost fainted in the trolley station due to a lack of food... (from the flu)... but that was remedied... but i felt like crap all day, so i just lounged in the hostel and moped and pouted.
8. the next morning i woke up and needed to get back to quito to see a doctor pronto... so we caught a bus back and met up with the program director and went to the gynocologist... yes, you heard correctly. and no, i don't want to talk about it. (it was just a yeast infection... sorry for the too much information, but i think it is too ridiculous not to mention that i had to go to the stupid gyno in stupid ecudor. like seriously?! what is my life?! i need someone to follow me around with a camera because i'm fairly certain it would make a phenomenal sitcom.)
9. all is well. and i get another fever sunday night. but we're all good.
10. andy and i explored quito and all that jazz... and we took a day trip to mindo on wednesday. we decided to go the anti-tourist route and walk to the waterfall hike ourselves. of course we find this sweet looking trail, complete with river traversing awesomeness... we take it... and find it is not the most fun of hikes... but we finally make it to the waterfall (which you can drive almost the entire way to)... and we did the jumping deal and swimming in the water and all of that jazz. it was really beautiful... i promise pictures will come one day. sorry... but yeah. we made it back to quito for the night.
11. thursday we went up to the top of this hill in town called panecillo (little break loaf... yeah... leave it to the ecudorians...) and got some sweet views and pictures... then we checked my mcat scores (stupid pre-med ruins lives. i'm fairly certain of this. way to ruin an evening.) and went out to dinner with spenser to this nice place with GREAT food, for basically the first time in nearly a month! salmon never tasted so freaking good! :)
12. andy had to leave this morning in a cab at 4 am... so i went with him to the aeropuerto again... and he forgot his passport... so we went to the airport twice... said bye twice... and i might have cried twice. (this place throws the emotions way off. let me tell you.)
13. i went to class and to the museum with my professora. and here i am. internet cafe-ing it up.

those are the details of my life for the past week... tomorrow we are heading to otovalo to check out a sweet market and i have not decided if i am going to spend the night there or not... TBD. i leave next week to start volunteering in ibarra at the hospital (EEK)... so yeah. pretty exciting life around here. (although not so much now that spenser is in class and andy is gone. but i am making do.)

i guess on a more serious note, ecuador has forced me to do a lot of thinking. i mean, until last week i was by myself most of the day and i suppose you can't help but let your mind wander. it is difficult to be here in this big city when all you want is to be in some remote place doing good work. it is easy to forget that being here, studying my spanish, and learning to survive from day to day on my is part of the battle... part of the battle to getting to the point that i want to be. (wow. my english skills have gone downhill. forgive me.) it is hard to be separated from everyone who knows me best... especially when i went from literally living with my best friends... and having others right down the street. maybe separation is the wrong word... i can do the separation. i think it is hard to be in a foreign place where you understand the basics but no one knows you... or really even cares to know you. i miss sitting with people who knew what i was thinking without asking... and knew my sense of humor and knew when i needed a hug. but. i think that change, the kind that ultimately leads to becoming a better person, must happen during times of struggle. i mean, it only makes sense that way, or else change would be easy and none of us would fear it. (and i KNOW several people who fear change. i, of course, am not one of those... ha.) having andy here was such a nice change of pace. it was exciting to share this experience with someone i can talk it out with. someone i can bounce ideas off of. someone who does not make me feel crazy for not being 100% stoked for being here 100% of the time. i am not going to lie: this shit is hard. and i didn't realize the magnitude or importance of this struggle. sorry for rambling. i have not talked to many people today. one thing i have realized is that to hurt is human. and i get that. and i can hurt. i can get through hurt. what is difficult is to get through hurt when you are alone. ok, so i'm not literally ALONE... but. separated from everyone who does not need 15 backdrop stories to understand why i feel the way that i do.

anyways. enough circular roundabout semi-philosophic but not really BS for one day.

if you're reading this and worrying about me, don't. it's just something i have to get through in order to prove to myself that i can do this. and that i am more than a 2 digit mcat score and a 3 digit gpa. (which is hard to accept on most days.) sure there are tears. generally a fair amount of them. but i'm doing exactly what i wanted to do this summer and i don't think i would be happy anywhere else. this is my challenge. my opportunity. my time to find myself when i can't run and hide. i am 33% of the way in. and i refuse to fall down and waste away my next 6 weeks here. (unless i have to go the gynocologist again, which in that case... i quit.) life is good. ecuador is good. struggle is good. and i am going to be great. (send emails... i like to read them!)

besos,
sarah