AMAZONIA :D

More on Friday: Sebastian came over, and I still really don't know him or talk to him so I feel kind of weird around him. Pepe and Carie came over, and they're both super polite. I went to dinner with their family, which was absolutely delicious because we went to a really nice restaurant. They've told me Carie cries a lot, but since she's always been super nice and friendly to me, I haven't really believed it. At dinner she randomly started crying, which was weird, but then I remembered that that happened in Banos a while ago to me. Dang it. A story about today: the part seperating the toilet and the sink in the bathroom isn't completely finished, so whenever anyone is going to the bathroom just no one goes to wash their hands. Well I was just finishing up, and the grandpa goes to wash his hands! What?! I was in the bathroom! It was really weird and I don't think he ment anything by it, but still. Saturday: Here begins the Amazon. A fun, very fun, but interesting, very interesting, trip. We didn't go to the "typical Amazon," aka the giant river with trees everywhere. Apparently there are cities in the Amazon, which makes me kind of sad, but we went to one. I thought it was gonna be just our family and Molde (Molde: another name for Kmilo, my cousin who is at the house so often he's like my brother). Anyways, it was our whole extended family and two other families; crazy! We stopped at a place of some really nice people we didn't know, and I got to pet their MONKEY! It was so awesome, I absolutely adore monkies. I had my, I-feel-most-like-an-Ecuadorian moment: I was sitting in the bed of a truck, riding on a dirt road through the Amazon, next to eight large canas (a food dessert type thing everyone eats), washing my hands with a wipe because I just petted a monkey, washing butterflies chase eachother, and waving hello to a friendly Ecuadorian. It was awesome. We arrived and took this scary cart across the river which was awesome, and then we started walking. We didn't know how far it would be, so good thing someone came to get us because it was like 30km (and no, I don't know how much that is in miles, but it took a while to get to in the car). We got there, had lunch, and chilled. The adults were boring, so I went to the kids who were more boring, so I went back to the adults. I kind of hate that about being a teenager, you never really know who you're supposed to be hanging out with. Gaby, another cousin-type person, might just be my favorite person. She's twenty-one years old, and an absolute sweetheart. I think she could tell I felt kind of out of place because she would always come and talk to me. Chichi (my aunt) is also really nice to me now, which is awesome and she kind of acts like another mom to me. We went to a beauty pageant type thing, which meant more food. Favorite food here: a batido de araza, which is a shake made of an Amazonian fruit; delicious. SUPER loud pageant, a dog that I felt super bad for, I possibly had a crush on a cousin who I barely know (but maybe I just liked flirting with him and that he's super nice to me), more food, and a freezing shower. Sunday: We drove to a mirador (view) or three, I don't remember, and took so many pictures of the family. It was so pretty! I tried the petahuya (?) fruit, which was completely delicious. We ate more, then I took the TeraVeta (the cable car back across the river). After that, Chichi's car had people that needed a ride in it, and one of the guys invited us to his house. He offered a thing made of yuca, which was completely awful! Everyone was joking about it afterwards because, first of all, it did taste really bizarre, and second of all, there were hairs in it. When we went to eat more, they found a hair (from the plant that was holding the food, hopefully) in the food, and they joked again. Anytime they see anything light, like a blonde hair or a blonde child, they always say it's me, because they barely know anyone else with light hair. We went to Puyo, in a hosteleria called El Pigual, which was so pretty. We went into the pool, then into the steam room for an absurdly long time. It was so much fun! We went to dinner (pizza and batidos, my favorite!) and then watched Enchanted in Spanish. Monday: Oh dear. This is gonna be a tough day to write about. I would say probably the worst day here. My brother, Mateo, drives me completely insane! We always do this thing where he has something purposely to offend me, and I hit him. We both know what will happen, and both laugh about it. Well, he said something, and I hit him, and he freaked out. It was this huge thing with his mom, and he said it'd been bothering that I hit him but he would just "let it go"! What?! He would laugh and say more things so I would hit him more! That bothered me so much! Anyways, that went on for SO long that I just started apologizing, even though he wouldn't!, and to top it off he wouldn't forgive me. So, of course, I broke down. My third time! How embarassing! At least this time it was for a reason. I went out to the car after a while, and the second I got there my dad hugged me for a super long time, and I broke down again. He said we need to go up from the situation, aka transcend, aka IB coming into my life. After, we went to this super awesome zoo. There was a (probably) wild monkey, that wanted to go into the cage while the others wanted to leave it. It was so cute! And, I found an onion that we had fun using to play with, and we could get right up to the cage of all the animals; it was crazy. We ate at a really nice place, then started to climb to this waterfall, Pailon del Diablo. It was huge, and water was everywhere. After that, I got to hold a snake (put it around my neck of course!) which was super cool. I was super tired when we got back, but we were invited over to Molde's house because it was someone's birthday (speaking of which, my mom's was the 29th so happy birthday mom!). It was super fun, and I had a huge pillow fight with Molde and Pepe, they love bothering me and they don't get upset when I hit them, which is awesome. That lasted for like an hour, and then I danced with Mayte, who is also in the running for my favorite person ever. So last night. I really hate when I have to shower, because it takes forever to heat up, and the bathroom isn't finished. Well, I'm in the shower and I look down and see that there's water all over the bathroom! I ran and told the parents, then finished my shower in the other bathroom. When I came back, I felt really weird. The mom told me that when I see that it's flooding, I should turn off the water immediately and not wait, implying that I waited; why would I wait?! The dad told me I needed to make sure to shut the shower door, and that I should turn off that shower periodically. Needless to say, I won't be showering there any more! Well, this is my longest blog, and if you made it through to here, congrats!

Muere, rato, muere!

Wednesday:
Lots of Guitar Hero and Wii (8 HOURS), I'm gonna be a pro soon! I got things sorted out for my Visa and the Spanish camp, so pretty much I gave $550 to this one guy whose going to do everything. I don't know if I'm excited for the Spanish Camp, like I should be because I'll get to meet the people in my area, but I'm always kind of nerrvous when meeting a bunch of new people. I think the guy that has all my money will be driving all the kids from Ambato, so that will be a fun time (hopefully) to get to know all of them. I found out I will get $70 a month, not $100, and I'm still super happy to receive all that money, it was just weird finding that out. I got another part for my uniform (hooray) and a phone to text all my friends here! Oh wait.... they don't exist yet. I'm kind of excited for school to start so I'll actually have friends. Anyways, my family paid for my phone, which was really nice of them, and I really did get lucky with my family. We had pizza (because they know I love pizza!), but that turned into a type of adventure.
Mateo, Kmilo, and Emi all went out to get the pizza and ran back in screaming. They're always pretty loud, so I didn't really think any differently of it, but I went outside. They used to have parakeets outside, so there was a cage with an opening in it. Well, this poor rat climbed into the cage and was now terrified because Negra (the big black dog) was barking at it. The adults started trying to kill it by hitting it with a pole, but the rat would jump at the hole so it could get out. I have to admit, I was rooting for this terrified rat. The line of the night was "Muere, rato, muere!" It finally did get hit, and I'm not gonna say the details, but it was disgusting.
We went to play Wii after that, and Mateo (thirteen year old brother) loves making fun of me, even though he knows he's gonna get punched hard for saying anything. So I was chasing him because I said something wrong in Spanish (of course....) and he suggested a pillow fight. I laughed at first, but then I figured why not? So me and him at first, then Kmilo, then Emi, and we were all just hitting each other. I hit Mateo pretty hard a few times, and I definitely won the pillow fight, if it's possible to win one. Kmilo had to go, so I jokingly hit him when I said "Chao", and again starts the pillow fight. Yep.
Thursday:
Not much happened, actually. We ate, played Wii, and made braceletes. Yes, I know how to spell bracelets, but I think it should be spelled like braceletes, so that's how I spell it. Anyways, Kmilo came over, and now I'm completely comfortable with him, which is good. Sebastian came over too, and I feel like he doesn't really have a desire to try to understand my broken Spanish, and he always just talks to Emi when he's over. So I will try to talk with him, but he just kind of looks at me, half amused. Thursday, though, I said a few things and he laughed, which is definitely good.
We went to the mall to look at appliances, got food (the hamburger took so long I was watching the makers like "give me my hamburger now!" - you know the stare), and tried to get money from my debit card, which didn't work.
Mateo kind of fake cried and was fake mad for like an hour, which was completely bizarre because I didn't really know what to do. I wish if they were joking, it would go on for about ten seconds, like I'm used to, not an hour/ longer. Pato, another cousin that was new, came over. He started joking with me right away, which I love because I feel like you can only joke around with someone you know. Erin (best friend from Colorado) and I have a joke, "I hate you, let's be friends!" because if you can say that to someone and they take it as a joke, then you can be friends.
Two more cousins came over, Pepe and Carie, and I made them both braceletes. They were so polite, and they go to my school. Pepe (I think) called me today and invited me over to eat. It confused me because I'm not entirely sure if it was him, and I don't know when. Advice for making an Ecuadorian friend: make them a bracelete. Mayte came over too, and I love her so. She always hugs me, which is probably why I love her so much; I found out in church in Colorado that my love language is touch, which sounds weird.
Friday:
I'm trying to not leave anything out, so that's what I'm doing. I haven't been sad since I've been here at all, but I have cried. Once in Banos, which was crazy, and once today. I can't help it, I so badly want to not cry because I'm not sad at all, and it makes my family sad. So I practically ran from the breakfast table twice and prayed to God, "Please stop me crying!" What is wrong with me?! I thought no one saw me, but I was wrong. My mom later said, "No quiero ver triste" which makes me love her a lot but I just feel bad.
We finally got money from my card, and now I'm hoping that it will actually work from now on! Patricio (dad) and I went to Quisapincha, but all that was really there was things made of leather, and as I think they both are a waste of animals and ugly, we didn't stay for long. We went to Parque Provincial, a surprisingly-green-for-being-in-the-dead-of-winter park. It was really pretty, I saw llamas and lots of really good views. I got ice cream, and when we got home more Wii and food. I don't understand how the people here are so skinny, because they eat SO much food. We had "milano y pan", and if it sounds healthy it wasn't... chocolate and bread. Then came lunch, and gosh I wasn't hungry and they kept saying "try a little" of this or that, but I didn't want any more than was on my plate, and I think they looked hurt. I wonder if it's disrespectful to not take food, but seriously I don't want to take it and barf or something; when you're full, you're full.
I got a phone call today! From Pepe, the seventh grader, inviting me over for dinner. My first phone call here, other than my parents to see if the phone was working. The phone call was confusing, but I think I'm going over to their house and no one else is; will that be weird?
A little fact about Diane: I HATE the song "Cooler than Me" by Mike Posner. It's always on, even in Ecuador, and when he starts singing, "If I could write you a song...." it takes all of me to not punch the radio. Not really, but serously. I hate that song. So if you're at home wondering, "What song does Diane hate?" because you want to know little facts about me, the answer to that question is "Cooler than Me."
Wow, these are all really long blogs, and not much is happening completely out-of-the-ordinary, but I'm not leaving anything out. So thanks for taking that five minutes/hour (depending on how fast/slow you read) to read about this, even though it is extremely long.

Lately..

So I forgot an important story from the day before yesterday. We were at my counselor (Cecelia's) house for tea, and I tried the cocaine leaf. It wasn't in drug form of course, and people use it for many things other than the drug, but I just thought it was funny.
Hm, what to say. Yesterday, we kind of registered for school, only I really just toured the school. I learned quite a bit about it, and I talked with someone who went there a while ago. I'm kind of excited, but more just nervous, especially about the all girls thing; it will be interesting to see if that creates more or less drama. We bought the uniform stuff and took the picture... I'm gonna look SO attractive in this uniform (no, there was absolutely no sarcasm in that). We went to a lot of places to look for stuff, and I actually thought it was kind of funny exactly how many places we had to go. The picture that was taken of me in my uniform is now in a frame in their house, and even though the picture is quite unattractive, it made me feel like I was part of their family. Much later, we had food and went to the store to buy things. They were cheap there, but not as cheap as I would have thought. It was pretty much like a smaller version of King Soopers, with like eight aisles-ish.
Today was by far the funniest day. I went to Riobamba to visit Iva and Maxi (an outbound to Germany and inbound in Ecuador) and that was funny. My family thinks Maxi is really attractive, so his name to them is "Max the Guapo," literally Max the Attractive; I can't say that I disagree with them, he is very good looking. The way to Riobamba was really interesting, and I saw Chimborazo the volcano. (By the way, Riobamba is my absolute favorite name for a city). When we showed up, they were all laughing and smiling because they saw him in person it was so funny. When I went to their house, Iva's dogs had had six puppies and they were all so cute I couldn't stop holding them. A dog from the cousins house peed on my purse though, which was really funny at the time and we were all laughing; it's clean now though, so it's okay. We ate there, I met an inbound from Taiwan who doesn't know any Spanish and hardly any English, I found out there is only one boy exchange student in Ambato, and we just talked. It was really fun, b/'ut I wish Iva wasn't leaving so soon.
Once I got home, I learned a few more things. Me and my dad laughed a lot about Maxi, and I learned a new word: changador. It means lovers, only a tiny bit more, and we laughed about that because I didn't understand for the longest time and finally i said "Oh, no no no!" Today, I also learned that Chip, the dog, loves me more than Mateo, which I love shoving in his face. (The only reason I put that in there is because I know it will bother him, and I'm glad I have him as a replacement of my sister to bother). I'm glad though, that I know him well enough to be able to joke around. We had food, played a lot of Wii and Guitar Hero (I passed a song on MEDIUM!), and drove to the paper shop which was closed. I even sat in the back of the car, like the trunk, which made me feel very Ecuadorian. All in all, today was my favorite day by far, and I feel like I'm getting to know the family much better as well as the language. Actually, I'm positive I know the language better, because I can have a conversation with Mateo (who speaks almost no English), and with Ophelia (the made-type person whose part of the family, who speaks no English). Well, I can't have a real conversation with Ophelia, but I can talk with her when we do talk, so that makes me feel better.

I'm loving life. :)

LOVING IT

Sorry if this blog is weird I´m typing on a Portuguese computer. Well I had one and a half hours of sleep the night before the flight, and slept a total of two hours during my trip, and then fell asleep at 3AM that night so I was very tired. I was nervous when I saw where everyone was because I couldn´t find my family, but then I looked and saw a huge pink sign and went to them. There were many people there, all smiling and hugging and kissing me... I loved it. They drive so crazy here, but since everyone here knows everyone else drives crazy, it´s actually safe even though I have like a mini heartattack all the time.
The next day I got up at 1PM and there was a huge lunch, like 20+ people and it was really good. They eat all the time... no seriously, and whenever I go into the room with them they ask, "¿Quieres mas comer?" which means do you want more to eat. I think it´s funny! That night we played Wii and had lots more food and toured Ambato. The mall is so different, well everything is it´s so funny.
The next day, today was amazing. I mentioned I wanted to go to Baños in passing and they said we´d go Domingo and we did! It´s so pretty, many cascadas (waterfalls) and delicious. Lots more food. It was weird though at lunch I started crying and I felt SO weird because I wasn´t sad I was actually really happy and the tears just came. I said I missed my family, which I do, but really I had no idea why I cried. The mom of one girl who left for Switzerland said she was watching me be happy and it gave her hope her daughter was doing well, but when she saw me crying she became nervous. I felt so bad because honestly I don´t think I could have a better family. After lunch, we went to the church which was really pretty, and then to get more food. We went to Salsaca, I think, on the way to Baños, and there was a really cheap market. I got so much stuff and spent so little, it´s fantastic. I got more stuff in Baños too, but my family is always offering to pay for everything so I hardly spend anything. I love them so much, they love giving stuff and I feel weird accepting, but it´s polite too and I really do appreciate all they do for me. We got home and now I´m at my counselor´s house and they´re playing a soccer video game.

One funny (well kind of) story:
There was a sign that said "Ambato tiene futuro" which means "Ambato has future" and I was reading it out loud in a questioning way and the driver, I forget her name but I absolutely adore her, though I was asking it as a question. It was funny.
Also, when we were driving around Ambato, there was a chick fight on TV with them punching eachother and ripping out eachothers hair. It was really funny, we were all laughing, and so so weird.

One thing I don´t like:
Too many stray dogs, it´s so sad. They´re literally everywhere and I feel so bad that I can´t do anything.

Update on the language:
I´m doing okay! They´ll say something in Spanish, I´ll say something in English, so on. Emi is the translator too, and we´re doing okay. I don´t understand when they talk fast to eachother, but when they talk to me I understand almost all of it.

To sum it up, I love it here. I absolutely 100% LOVE my family they´re so nice to me and understanding and funny and I literally couldn´t have gotten a better one. I´m never leaving here!

I miss my bed.

So Andreas got in! We made him a lot of post-it notes on how to do well here, as well as welcome signs. It's been pretty fun, kind of like having a sleepover and like having a brother too. He's completely fluent in English, but he says some things that really just don't make sense and it makes me laugh. My going away party was yesterday, and as weird as it is to say this, I'm actually going to miss Rampart HS. It made me realize how fun it is to be here and hang out with friends, so I hope I'll make friends really quickly in Ecuador! I kind of had a break down on Thursday where I realized what exactly I'm doing; I've had these before, but this one was out of nervousness. Then again, it was at like midnight so once I woke up on Friday I was back to being really excited and acknowledging all the stuff that will happen there with a sense of... adventure? I'm super stoked to go though, and I think I'm mentally ready, if not actually packing-wise ready. Oh, now that Andreas is in, I'm sleeping on an air mattress, so I guess it makes sense that I miss my bed. A plus of sleeping on the air mattress: my dog now sleeps next to me and it's so cute because I'll wake up and move because it's uncomfortable and he'll move so he'll still be next to me. I'm gonna miss my dog so much... Anyways, now I can say I'm leaving FRIDAY, not next Friday, just Friday. :)

more and more posts..

Okay, I really should not post over everything that happens. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I love posting about everything that happens. So I got my blazer tailored hallelujah; it now wouldn't fit another person and I together. I gave a speech to the Rotary Club of Colorado Springs and I think it went pretty well... I love speaking in front of people and I got to talk with a few really nice people. Well... two more weeks left.. two more weeks of stress, of senior pictures, of online English class, of meeting my wonderful brother from Denmark, of trying to get everything together, of cleaning my room for Andreas, of figuring out what to pack, of packing at the last minute, of trying to learn Spanish, of hanging out with friends/family, and of loving life. But two weeks until happiness..

I love beaches.

So now I only have 3-5 minutes to present to my sponsoring Rotary club, which is down from the 5-7 minutes I had before. Unfortunately, I have no idea what I will be able to take out as it had hit seven minutes when I rehearsed it. Also, I think I'm almost addicted to blogging... why do I post so much? Anyways, now I'm just trying to figure out pins (this is a bit harder than I thought it would be), host family gifts (I think I have this figured out!), and......... my online English class! Missing senior year does come with a lot of things that have to be taken care of, including this lovely class. But, this class does mean that I am able to graduate from my school in Colorado Springs, so I guess that's good. Oops, I still haven't planned a going-away party... this could be a problem. Eh, I'm sure it'll be alright and I'll work it out. I am going to end this on a picture-related quote from Stephen Wright who said, "Sponges grow in the ocean. That just 'gets' me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."

18 DAYS: the time is flying by.

I'm trying to keep this as updated as possible even though I haven't really gotten any new information.. I'm super excited, but kind of nervous because my host mom doesn't really respond to emails too often so I hope she'll get the one with my flight information in time! Right now I'm preparing for the speech I will be giving this Friday to my sponsoring club. I don't really get nervous from public speaking (it might be different considering there's going to be about 200 people there) but I do have to keep it within 5-7 minutes; good thing I talk fast. Preparing for the speech is just making me more and more excited though, I want to leave NOW! I still have a lot of stuff to do though, including figure out about pins and such. So anyways, I can't wait to meet all of my Ecuadorian friends! And to the outbounders from Colorado, I miss you all so much.. especially you wonderful RYLA kids. P.S. To my roommates from there, we still need to make that thing off California Girls that I so badly wanted to! P.P.S. It's Shark Week! And I think baby seals are really cute, so I actually kind of hate some of the programs aka the ones where the baby seals die. The point of this is to not only advertise for Shark Week, but there are going to be baby seals in the Galapagos Islands which makes me pretty excited.