Well, I didn’t realize I hadn’t written in such a while. I will try to fill in the gaps while keeping this short (which means the same length as all the others and not longer). 
Entonces… after my quite awful first day of school, I had a very low-key weekend. The sickness only lasted about a day, even if it was a quite miserable day. Some of my friends went to the beach- which I heard later was a very poorly planned trip and I didn’t miss much of anything and made the right decision to stay behind. So I spent the 4 day weekend (because all my weekends are basically 4 days now, bummer I know), with mi familia. I visited the Centro Historico at night with my host dad which was much different from visiting in the daytime. There are, for one, much fewer people. I took pictures as well. It looks different at night as well. We walked down El Ronda which is apparently the oldest road in Quito. This is the same road that if you remember, I wrote about going to with my old host brother and his girlfriend. Ironically enough, my host dad took me to the same place to buy a carnelazo. I just couldn’t help but laugh a little inside at the irony. I was half-expecting to see my old host brother walk in, haha. (Thanks to something, he didn’t.) But we also watched some cultural dance and indigenous-ish music. I say “ish” because there was an electric guitar and bass as part of the group :p but the dancing was authentic, with costumes and all. It was fun. My host dad, who I guess I can start referring to by name- mi Papa Fernando- was very excited to explain to me all about the city and the centro and the churches. He is actually a very cute man and enjoys sharing lots with me about everything. He was also eager to take pictures of me for me.. but I only got two. 
We went for an ice cream after- also a favorite pastime for him- but the place was closed. They did give me an ice cream though, which turned out to be free because they did not have change for a $20 bill for a $1 ice cream. :] This culture is ridiculous, but great. The next day we went and ate at my host sister’s house with her and the three children- who are also in their own way very cute. My favorite was when the little boy, Andrés told his grandmother “cállate por favor”. I, my host mom, Ximena- his grandmother, and I think the maid all had to laugh. It was the funniest thing. I think I’m going to start using that one.
My second first day of classes was yesterday and it went infinitely better than the real first one. My Spanish Conversation class still is without classroom, and we decided that we didn’t want to move the class to the afternoon so the class is going to remain in the office where we had it yesterday. Very cozy. There are about 10 students, and after one day I’ve decided that Pete and I know more Spanish than pretty much everyone else, save maybe a couple, in the class. I guess there are different levels of “intermediate”. In any case, I think it will be good. The teacher seems cool and my friend who was here last year said he knew some people who took the class and really liked her. Still didn’t have volleyball. The coach was there at least, but just said we wouldn’t have class till Thursday… We’ll see… He is a big black man who mumbles a lot so we’ll see how much I understand Anyway, I went running instead. There is a nice reservoir to run around… but you have to go down a bit of a hill to get there, which of course you have to come back up again… And it’s kinda steep. So that was killer. Don’t know if I’ll frequent that path again much. Art went well. We lost our classroom in that class as well. There was just another class there which was apparently supposed to be there too. But we found another room easily and spent the day testing out our materials and drawing lines (vertical, horizontal, and diagonal), circles, and squares. I never had any idea how difficult it was to draw a straight line… but surprisingly I did get better at it. So overall, the second first day went much better. We’ll see how tomorrow pans out. With this school I do feel like it is a day-by-day thing.
Started my trabajo social today as well at the old-folks’ home… place. Still not entirely sure how to describe it best. It was interesting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I feel like this was something different. Many, the majority, of the patients there don’t/can’t speak, and those that do, you always feel like they’re only halfway there with you. But I think it could still be interesting to talk to them a bit, wonder what they’re thinking… I also spent about 20 min feeding half a banana to a woman, and then about another 40 min feeding her lunch. Definitely different work than I’ve ever done. The other people who work/volunteer are all nice though, and it’s interesting to watch them interact with the patients too. They also still give us an opportunity to practice Spanish. Like I said, it will be interesting. We are going to be going about 4 hours a week, 10am-2pm. Surprisingly the time went by fairly quickly today. Again, we’ll see.
The very thrilling part of my day though was that I somehow managed to run for 45 ½ minutes with minimal effort today at 9200 ft, about 15 min of which was in the rain. It was incredible! I’ve never run for that long in my life, and all of a sudden I’m doing it at 9000+ feet and feeling like I could still go more at the end of it. Next time I need to write an essay about “my greatest accomplishment” I am really considering writing about this. 
I really can’t express how excited and slightly confused I am right now, but you’ll have to try your best to understand the best you can. The only reason I even tried for that time is because a friend told me I couldn’t call him till I had run 40 min straight, so of course I had to try just because it was a challenge. Ha! Shows him!
Oh. One last bit of info, I now have cell phone. Not by choice though, I was still all about going 5 months without one, but my family wanted me to have one because it truly is much easier for communication. They had a phone they activated so I saved about $50 there not having to buy one- and… it’s got a camera! How exciting, haha. You need to buy minutes so I guess I will have to do that because with the activation I only got $3 worth. In any case, I’m still not planning on spending much money on my cell phone… Just emergencies… and a few other things
Classes start again tomorrow like I mentioned, and then the weekend again. Still no plans, but maybe I can find someplace close by to go and explore… I’ll do a little bit more research than was done with the beach trip and see who wants to tag along.
p.s. this blog was actually shorter than some of the previous ones
