Day: 347
My alarm beeped off at 8 am this morning and I jumped out of bed with the exuberance of a child at an all you can eat ice cream buffet. The sun was streaming in our second story window overlooking the street, and the day looked spectacular. Yet, for some reason Felicia didn’t have the same zest for the day as I; it could have been the time difference, the sleepless night on a plane the day before, the altitude, her reoccurring fever, or the new bacteria hanging out in Ecuador’s water, all I could coax from her was a general sense of malaise and an “Uggghhh…”
We finally created a united front and headed downstairs to the café on the first floor for a breakfast of coffee, assorted bread products, jam and cheese. We stuffed our faces quickly and soon found Luis (who, it turns out manages the Spanish school) waiting for us in the lobby. He wandered the four or five blocks with us back to the school and introduced us to our teacher, Jimena (a charming woman in her 40’s who has been teaching Spanish to travelers for 12 years). Class started and before long Felicia and I were conjugating up a storm, learning all sorts of priceless information (unless you count the $85 we each paid for 20 hours of private lessons with Jimena). Felicia was right in her element as a front of the class student and I was constantly scribbling to keep up.
After an hour or so, we were informed today, being Friday, was the day we would be taking our cooking portion of the class. We were each given a short list of groceries to buy and Jimena walked with us down to the market where we picked up some tomatoes, onions and chile peppers for the soup we were concocting. Each student had their own list and soon we all piled in the kitchen to chop and boil like mad. I was assigned to peel the avocados. Shortly there after the soup was ready and all the students and teachers piled in one room for lunch.
The next couple of hours with Jimena passed quickly, until I felt my head would burst of esta, estoy and nosotro-s pouring from my ears. We set up to meet tomorrow at 8:30am and Felicia and I headed out to see what we could find in the “Old Town” a couple of miles walk away. We bumbled through a church (where we promised to come back and climb the rickety steps to the top for $2), wandered the streets watching old men carrying refrigerators, and just got a general sense of Quito until it was time for an afternoon nap. Which lead into an evening of Spanish homework and overachieving (en Espanol!) followed by a dinner of assorted bread products from the bakery.
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Where’s the beef? Have you had any meat there? Or is that risky.
Mmmmm. Lunch looks good.