Leaving Quito (Back to the Coast)

Old Quito

We spent a day hanging out in Old Quito which has some really beautiful buildings (although, oddly enough, the vast majority of shops in this part of Quito sell shoes or undergarments... it's a bit bizarre).

These pictures are of the Basilica, a rather old building that is still "in progress". From it you can get great views of the city. Unfortunately that requires you to go up lots of stairs and scary spiral stairs (think glorified fire poles...)A view of another tower of the Basilica, from the tower shown below. The arrow shows how high I climbed. Because I am a wuss, I didn't go higher--it would have required climbing up tall ladders made of rebar .

Teleférico

The Teleférico is a new and very cool thing here in Quito. As long as you can handle heights (or are capable of taking 15 minute naps when and wherever you want) it is an activity I'd highly recommend. Monday mornings seem to be the best time to go, provided the skies are clear.

If you've gone downhill skiing at a large enough resort, you've encountered this type of transportation before--boxes on cables. Quito itself is very high in altitude, but this takes you up to the top of a mountain that is about 4,050 meters.


When you get to the top you can walk to even higher lookout areas and get a fantastic view of Quito.

And yes, in case you are wondering, that is my fiancé :)

Middle of the World

The place where people go to visit the equator in Ecuador, near Quito, is called Mitad del Mundo which made me feel like I was going to see hobbits or something... Alas, the middle of the world is not Middle Earth...

On either side of the equator

The view from the top of the marker/museum

Something new...

To fix it or not to fix it, that is the question

Every so often something will happen that will make me realize exactly how living in Mongolia has changed me. One such event happened about a week ago when my boyfriend came to visit for the day. (Yes, we are now not only living on the same continent, but are living less than an hour apart!) After offering to help with the dishes it dawned on him that I don’t actually have a working faucet in my kitchen (nor do I have running hot water). Of course he asked how long it had been like that and why something hadn’t been done about it. The first answer is easy—it’s been like that since September. The second question took a little more thought… I realized that nothing had been done about it because, quite honestly, it is less of a hassle to carry water in buckets from the bathroom than it would be to get it “fixed”. Besides, since I no longer have to carry buckets of water from my radiator to my bathroom, I need some form of weight lifting. The problem with my kitchen faucet is that both it and the pipe running to it leak continually, and if the faucet gets used, the leaks become downright torrential. I know that not only would I have to wait several days for a plumber to come (should I decide to call one) but when he showed up he wouldn’t have the right tools, which would require another several days of sitting at home waiting, and then when he finally showed up again, with the tools, he would discover that we didn’t have the right faucet and pipe parts (i.e., we were lacking the proper horsehair to tie things up), and, after another long wait, he would come and fix one of the problems, but definitely not both.

Now the light in my toilet room has ceased working (but the light bulb is just fine—I checked) and I find myself having the same quandary—wondering which is less trouble: using candles the rest of the year or waiting for an electrician to come. I’ll give you a progress report in a couple months.

I don't think I used to be this content to just let things be...

A Catastrophe!

You may have noticed the lack of posts in December. Up until the 24th, my excuse was that it was a busy month. I prepped and taught a long seminar in UB, and when I got back home I leapt right into the madness of Christmas and New Year's parties. Now my excuse is that my friend's cat, as a sort of Christmas Eve present to me, decided to leap over my computer in a effort to tackle my cat, misjudged, and ended up sliding--with my computer--to the floor. Now my computer is awaiting a new hard drive that my boyfriend, awesome guy that he is, will bring to me in Thailand in a couple weeks. Where, as I soak in the warmth and devour fresh fruit, I'll put my little Mac back together. Until then I won't be doing anything interesting (besides tons and tons of grading) so it's not like I'd be posting anyway. Check back after mid February!

Who needs workout videos?

I’ve discovered a new form of exercise that incorporates both weight lifting and aerobic exercise. It’s called “attempting to get air out of the radiator by draining water from it” and it lets you feel like you are actually doing something important as you work out. There are ten bars on the radiator in my bedroom, and the bottom 2/3rds of five of them have gone cold. A student told me that if I drained out several bucket fulls of water (or is it buckets full?) that the problem would be solved because the air that is stuck in there would be released. If only! So, three days in a row I tried this. The beauty of it is that I’m always warm afterwards, and my bedroom ends up about one degree warmer for the next hour. Plus, running a relay with yourself, hauling buckets of water to the bathroom to dump out builds both arm muscle and endurance. They are supposed to send a repairman today, who hopefully will fix the problem once and for all, but I’ve taken such a liking to my new exercise that I may just keep doing it…

Three things learned at Thanksgiving:

1. There are cows with windows (or portholes, if you prefer) in their sides. Really. The rumor is that they are for veterinary students—not only can they see the insides of the cow, but they can also reach in a touch them. Just imagine if they did the same thing for medical students!



2. “Women are the downfall of men,” stated one of our adolescent friends who was out for the weekend. By way of further clarifying the issue, he added, “Seriously!” So young, and already he’s got it all figured out.

3. Is it tryptophan or tryptopan? When you gather people for Thanksgiving that come from different families, backgrounds, and parts of the country, you are bound to have this discussion. We formed a truce by renaming it: Tryptofizzle (or tryptophizzle, if you prefer). It’s kind of catchy, and it describes exactly what you do after eating turkey—fizzle out and take a nap. (For those of you who really want to know—it’s tryptophan)

Happy Thanksgiving

I decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to start posting again, and since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday (those of you needing a little practice with “th” pronunciation and those of you who can never remember when Thanksgiving really is, repeat after me: Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month.) I thought a Thursday Thirteen would also be appropriate. So here you go—Thirteen things that I’m thankful for here in Mongolia…
1. Snow on Monday and Wednesday this week, but not Tuesday. If it had snowed Tuesday I wouldn’t have been able to fly home from the aimag where I’d been teaching a seminar. This way I get the beauty of the snow without the messed up travel plans.
2. I’m thankful that I just had the opportunity to visit my friends and students in the town I used to live in.
3. My apartment, in spite of the over abundance of carpets (more than seven in the living room alone—on the walls, on the furniture, on the floor…) and despite the fact that the only thing coming out of the taps this time of year is liquid ice…which brings me to point number three.
4. I’m thankful for boil-coils and for hot water in the radiators. For those of you residing in countries and cities with hot tap water, I’d better acquaint you with boil-coils. They look like this and are basically an exposed heating coil. Not only do they heat your bath water to an acceptable temperature, but they also can give you an adrenaline rush as you flirt with electrocution (should you forget to unplug it before testing the water temperature).
5. The jar of peanut butter in my fridge and the Girl Scout cookies on my table. Yum! Plus, one can justify eating lots of foods like this in the winter in the name of “keeping warm”!
6. Layers of clothing and my cozy down coat… Even though the layers and coat make me feel decidedly unglamorous, they do keep me comfortably warm.
7. As much as I dislike the cold and the winter, I’m thankful for it because it makes things like spotting the first green blade of grass in May so very exciting.
8. I know I’ve talked about scotch tape before, but I just want to say again how much I use it! It works as an art supply, it works for fixing things, it works for putting up stuff in the classroom, it works for taping things to students foreheads, it works for picking up cat fur off the carpet… Yes, I am thankful for the abundance and cheapness of scotch in this country.
9. Students who are eager to learn are another thing I’m thankful for. I’ve had classes with people who didn’t really want to be there, and so I know how special it is that my students this year want to learn and are eager to participate.
10. Teammates and co-workers who have welcomed me and accepted me here in my new town. Not only that, but they like to have fun and can be silly. Case in point: the “occasion elephants”.
These lovely candle holders were given to two of my coworkers as gifts last year…and now we make sure that they show up at all of our special team occasions. Isn’t tradition great?
11. A playmate for Tom my cat: For five years, Tom was only ever in contact with people, and as a result developed a rather skewed view of himself. Here in our new place, he has two cats in close proximity that he can hang out with. He pretends that he hates playing with others, but then I see him get a gleam in his eye as he eggs his fellow felines on.
12. Good nights of sleep—with my down comforter. Self-explanatory.
13. Fun Thanksgiving celebrations with students, that of course includes the Thanksgiving tradition of gift giving. Our festivities were complete with the reading of Thanksgiving essays, a play, and lots and lots of yummy food.
13.5 Mongolian potato salad. Yum! (available in abundant quantities at the festivities mentioned in point 13.)