The Past Week

Nothing to super crazy has happened since last Monday. The first week of school went well. I helped out in her chem classes and kept working on some planning for when I take over. It made it difficult at times this week because technology failed me several times. My external hard drive got a virus twice and my computer had a virus on it so bad that it wiped out everything. Luckily there's a guy at school in the library who a genius with computers. He fixed my external hard drive both times and completely rebuilt my computer for free.. which was really nice of him because otherwise it would have been quite a bit of money I think. I'm starting to get to know some of the students better but its really hard to learn their names when I have 120 of them and none of them have normal sounding names.  The other interesting thing about the school is that students call everyone by their first name. So everyone calls my teacher Lori and me Kyle.. they'll even call the principal by her first name.. its sounds really strange and takes a while to get used to. But they are all pretty nice.. they all say goodbye to both of us and some of them say thanks when they leave which also sounds kinda strange the first time you hear it.. probably because it never happens in the States. You can tell though that its a private school and they get spoiled by teachers and probably by the parents to. Teachers almost never give homework and if they do, it rarely comes back. Also if they do give homework the entire class will complain like its the end of the world. This is really annoying to me because they are never held accountable for things or have to work at something and follow through with it. They also never really get in trouble at school or have much discipline.. which is probably why they always talk during class. They think its being mean to not talk to others.. I told a few students to get back to work while they were in the computer lab working and they asked me why I was mad... I told them I wasn't but if they didn't get done it would be homework which got them back to work for a while at least.
Everyday after school when I get home Alba has a huge lunch/dinner ready for me. Usually its soup to start.. so far we've had celery soup which was really good, avocado soup which I dont like, potato soup was good, and one other kind that I dont know what it was but it was good. Then its a half plate of white rice.. always.. and then chicken in various forms, steak, or sausage. Also she usually has some type of beans or other potato food. One day it was lentils which were pretty good.. another time it was some sort of corn salad which wasn't that great.. another time like potatoes and something else in patties fried.. and another time cheese mixed in with potatoes and made into little balls which were really good. She usually also has salad and french fries sometimes also. Its a lot and usually I dont have to eat much after that. I thought I would lose weight here but not when I'm eating all that and when its soo good. Thursday after school I went and played basketball with some teachers from my school and some from other schools. This was the first time I really felt the altitude affect me. My lungs were on fire after only playing a game to 10. Running like that makes it more obvious that you get cant the same amount of oxygen. I was dead tired on Friday and I'm still a little sore. Friday night Ecuador's Soccer team played Paraguay which was a big game I guess. So we went to Mariscal, a small town in Quito, that has a lot of little bars and restaurants to watch the game. People here call it "Gringoland" because its where a lot of the foreigners go. It was crazy there! The streets were packed full of people and every bar was packed. It was like going to a college campus to watch a big college football game. People go crazy every time something big happens so it was really cool to watch. Ecuador lost but they did score once. When they scored the whole town was just yelling and screaming and jumping around. People in the streets were going crazy and in every bar down the road.. it was really fun to experience. Some of the teachers went out and we met them for a while and then Meghan's host brother took us around to some other places. But we get to experience the real thing this Tuesday! Ecuador plays Peru in Ecuador. Tomorrow after school were going to the stadium to buy tickets and jersey's. Tuesday were leaving school a little early because the game starts at 4. I am really excited to go and see it..  hopefully they win because I think the whole stadium will go crazy. A bunch of the other teachers from school are going to.
Saturday here wasn't very nice. It rained pretty much all day and was pretty cold. I just did some school stuff in the afternoon and watched football online since I finally had my computer back working. Saturday night me and the other student teachers went to a movie since it was nasty out and then got something to eat afterwards. But today was really nice! Probably the nicest day we've had so far. It was sunny and clear out all day. From our house I could see the top of a volcano that I've never seen before. It was covered in snow that the clouds usually cover up. Since it was so clear me and Meghan went to the teleferico (you can look up online). I don't know what it means exactly in Spanish but basically its an amusement park and it has a cable car that takes you to the peak of a mountain. Quito is at about 9,300 ft and the cable car takes you up to 13,250 ft! It takes about 8 minutes for the car to get up there and at times on a super steep angle. Once you get up there you can see all of Quito and can walk around on some trails. It's amazing up there. Your above a lot of the clouds or they are basically right above you or forming right above you. You can see several other higher peaks of the Andes mountains and there's some trails you can walk to where there is a super steep valley below. It was a lot harder to breathe up there! We hiked just a little ways and had to stop often to catch our breathe. Its also really quiet up there because there just nothing up there.. except a few llamas. You can look at the pictures but they still dont do it justice and its hard to explain how cool it is. When we got back down we went to the bus station and then took a bus to Mititad del Mundo.. its where the equator passes through Ecuador. They have a whole complex with little shops and restaurants and a monument where the equator is. Its actually not really the equator.. the equator is like 250 meters north of where the monument is but I guess they couldn't build everything there. They also have some little museums in the complex you can check out so we did that. One is full of huge insects found in Ecuador and other parts of the world that was really cool but the guy didn't let me take pictures. They also had some concerts going on in the middle so that was cool to see to. We were supposed to go to a crater from a volcano a few minutes away and another museum a few minutes away but they were both closed by the time we got there so we might go another time. We got a burger there but were not sure what kind of meat it was.. it was a little different so hopefully we don't get sick.. im sure we wont. Tonight Santiago's mom and aunt and brother came over and then I wrote this and plan to Skype with my beautiful girlfriend Heather Dreyer ;) Besides getting tickets and going to the game this week I'm not sure what else we'll do.. I'll probably play basketball again Thursday and hopefully have no more computer problems! I'll get pictures up soon of the trip today and of the school.. and a few others from zip-lining.