Not So Swell

So I wanted to wait just to be sure but... my Ipod was stolen on Tuesday. I put it in my backpack during my soccer practice, and put my backpack on the bleachers. When I got back someone had stolen my Ipod. I've put up notices around my school offering a reward, but I probably won't get it back. I'm definatly hopeful, the thing is that Ipods here are worth $400 USD so it definatly makes it a worthwhile item to steal. I'm not sad about the Ipod but all of my music... definatly is a bummer. It isn't the only incedent either, today a bunch of kids in 3rd year(Freshmen) had there cellphones stolen from their backpacks in the classroom. I just never thought that I had to guard my things in school...
Today is Thanksgiving so I'm just going to say thanks to everyone who is reading my blog. Thanks to my family and friends and thanks to this amazing expirience. I hope that with these few words everyone understands that I'm really so blessed anbd completely thankful. Life is good, I have all the things I need and more. I'm living an expirience of a lifetime and soaking it up!
These past two weeks weren't that interesting as far as school goes. Besides my Ipod being stolen... Last week my team lost the soccer game. But 3-4, so it wasn't horrible. And I played for about 20 minutes, it turns out that my shoes are horrible, I bought shoes for grass, not hard packed dirt. All of the highschool games are played at "The Hole" and whover governs the interschool play has decided to eliminate matenance and scrape off the grass... I miss NMP. I got my sweats for soccer today and they are super nice, but excesively hot, there like flanel. I'm going to roast, It is never cld enough to wear both the top and bottom.
Today all of the kids in BI, my special program wen't to the one of the cities sports centers to cheer on our basketball team. We won but the no one from the other teams school shoed up so all of our yelling was pretty pointless. I did learn that I have a lasting impression on the 4th year BI. There are a bunch of kids on the soccer team from that class, there are 4 of them who are good friends and they remind me of the mini four. But I would just start yelling and cheering and jumping around and they would just clear out... I'm only like twice their weight... But they are fun and I ended up spending most of the game talking with them.

Weekend from really long ago part 3

So my sister and I got up early to catch our train. We ate a quick breakfast and left the house with my mom, we arrived at the train station where there was a train with about 5 or 6 cars. The last two had passengers inside and the others were box cars. We met the man who had sold us the tickets and he gave us two cushins! We walked over to the train and realized that the majority of the people on the train were tourists, Americans, Germans, Swiss, Argentinians, French, and one other girl who is in my exchange program but we never talked on the train, just after during my first rotary trip we met up. We climbed aboard the first car and sat as close to the front as we could along side two women from argentina. The metal on the top of the train was wavy... I think you could call it courugated, but I'm starting to loose my vocabulary. Anyways it was not comfortable, alongside all of the, edges was a metal bar which served as a railing, it was about 15 cm high. My mom watched us as we pulled away, a bunch of hooting gringos on top of a train. THere was a nifty sign that dipicted a devil and said Nariz del Diablo!!!!! We were definatly in for a ride. The train lurched away only to halt about ten minutes later to add another car and to pick up a few more conductors. Chimborazo remained elusive hidden behind the clouds but, the amazing thing was that the top of the mountain could be seen over its shroud. The mountain is huge! The majority of the train ride consisted of lurches, bumps and an urge to pee. I definatly missed out on the beauty of the ride becuase I literally had to pee worse than I ever have in my whole life... seriously I thought I was going to die... When we got to the first stop two hours later I was the first one off the train sprinting to the nearest bathroom... The ride before that was a a weaving path which wound its way out of the valley that Chimborazo dominates. There were the infamous Eucaliptus trees and lots of cows. We passed many farms which were quite isolated. The funny thing was that all the kids would wave and of course we would wave back they would be really happy when we did. The smatrer kids would put there hands out for something but I never saw anyone give anything to them, the part about hurtling along on a train probably made it difficult. After the first stop in which my sister and I bought empanadas and morocho. Morocho is a traditional drink, it is a type of corn and milk... and I really like it, it is something that is completely different from everything. Anyways, I also tried a deep fried banana for the first time... which is good, but definatly not the healthiest way to eat your banana! During the second part of the train ride my sister and I moved up to the first car to get away from the other cramped car. It turned out that this car was for the peopel who would be getting on at the last town. But we said we would move when these people got on. The second part was interesting we climbed up and crossed some very different areas, a couple of places we passed tree farms which really aren't all that pretty in a high grassland but there is some agrigultural value obviously, many trees had been cut in one area... One thing that was cool about the train was that it would stop andpick up anyone alongside the track and take them to their destination. At one point I saw a man literally sprinting down a rocky train well ahead of the train to catch it before it left. That was the purpose of the box cars, free transportation for the people living there. Also the train dropped off railroad ties at about five different spots! And finally at one point a backhoe that had been on a flatbed car up front drove its way off of the car. I felt a little awkward, paying for a train that was the only form of transportation for many people. The train only runs two or three days a week, so if you want to go some where there is only three chances per week. The last town was a little bigger, a bunch more people got on to see the Nariz del Diablo and we headed down to the famous place.
It was a let down... the reason it has this name is becuase the rock is superhard, we had heard about the switch back where the train goes abackwards for a short time. But really it is becuase it is a giant rock... there isn't much more to say about this one. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't an epic expirience, only that when your looking forward to the devil's nose and it turns out to be uninteresting... But the views and the expirience of riding on top of a train was really amzing. We did some switcher-U and we continued back up the track to the town. When we go there My sister and I caught a bus which was jampacked with people and headed home... a good day! Our mom picked us up at the bus station and we headed back to my grandmothers house to eat, after dinner we drove home! A good weekend for sure!

Weekend from really long ago part 2

So after my Family made it to the house of my grandparents and had a really nice rest we wke up ready to climb Chimborazo! Chimborazo is 6310 meters, it is the farthest point away from the center of the earth due to the earths buldge at the equator. It is also the tallest mountain in Ecuador and taller than all mountains in the americas north of here, there are a few mountains in the andes south which are taller than Chimborazo. It isn't a very technical mountain and the only real danger is the weather. Which is completely unpredictable. I made the juice for breakfast, which was Tomate de Arbol, or as I like to call it Mango chiquito. We hopped in the car after eating, my dad, sister, uncle and grandfather and I. We drove through the country side We skirted the mountain and began to climb up one side. We passed small indiginious farms with llamas and cows until we entered the alpine zone where there were only small scrubby bushes and lichen. We saw vicunas! a smaller red version of the llama which is wild. They have been reintroduced to Chimborazo from Patagonia. They were all killed off but are making a good jump. We saw about 10 on our car ride up and down. We got to the turn off for the first Refuge. There was a box from a box car on the side of the road with two guys in it and we paid to enter the park. It was about three apiece. We drove up the mountain which had a grainy redish sandlike volcanic soil which is probably close to what is found on mars. The ground was crisscrossed with bike tracks... downhill biking the mountain is really popular. It is a steep but smooth down hill. We drove up to the first refuge where it began to snow, there was patched snow on the ground too. It was the first time that any one in my family had been in snow! I of course gave my dad and sister a babtism with a couple of snowballs. It was funny teaching them how to make a snowball... it was a completely new expirience for them! The snow was light and fluffy and was falling lightly. We parked the car at the first refuge to hike up to the second refuge which is 200m higher and about 1 km walking. My sister stayed behind in the first refuge becuase she hadn't brought more than a light windbreaker. I acompanied my grandfather who is 73. My grandfather is a beast we quickly left my dad and uncle in the dust. He just kept on trucking! The snow was falling and visibility was limited but with my support he just kept on going. THe second refuge is at 5000 meters, you definatly feel the lack of air at this elevation. We made it to the top and sat around a fire waiting for my dad and uncle. What we didn't know was that my uncle had turned back and my dad with him to check on my sister who was sitting in the first refuge. My grandfather and I talked with all sorts of people. There was a busload of Germans, Danes (Danish people?), and a few other European countries which were on a three week tour. We waited for about an hour before my Dad showed up... but the really cool thing was that I met another Rotary exchange student at 5000m. She is from France and she is really cool, she lives in Cuenca. She was with her whole family. She practices paragliding in France and told me that mountain climbing was in her blood and she does weekend excursions quite often in the Alps! I had a snowball fight with her and her siblings, I also discussed with a guide the option of ascendng the mountain at someother date! I want to do it and will definatly look into it. Finally my dad showed up and we descended the mountain, it was now snowing heavely and there was a good two inches of snow covering the ice and ground. We managed to make it down without any big falls! We returned to Riobamba where my guide book said that in the saturday market it is possible to buy juice with ice mined from Chimborazo! We showed up and looked for the juice stalls! When we encountered one and they showed us the dirty block of ice... it seemed genuine, so we bought juice. I got coconut and my sister and grandfather bought mora... which is a tart blackberry. The juice was exeptional... especiall with a dirty piece of glacial ice floating in it! We then went to the train station which I had read about in my guide book... The Devils Nose, a train ride from riobamba where you ride on the top of the train! We bought the $11 dollar tickets and another dollar to reserve coushins for the coming day! We returned home victorious, we had walked and eaten a mountain!

Ecuador...

It's late and I've not posted in a while and I've also decided to start writing with paragraphs, it must be really confusing at times. Life is good, I have a soccer game tomorrow with a team that beat the team that we tied 5-0... I'm just a little scared. I also sprained my big toe in Capoiera yesterday. But if I get to play I'll go full out for sure.
Tonight I was watching the news with my family. I want to share with everyone my confidence in Ecuadorians... through this! So at about 4:00 this morning a couple of pickups were carrying $1 million USD. I think it was four pickups to be excact... They were traveling to another city. A bunch of robbers attacked the caravan to steal the money. But in the fighting they blew up the truck with the money and all of it was incinerated... So I was of course laughing my head off with my family telling them that this is the reason that I don't have a ton of confidence in the Ecuadorians. Another thing, today my class has decided to raffle an Ipod to get money for our year end trip to Esmereldas, we're going there to help out the people... community service. And tody we recieved the raffle tickets... everyone recieved 30, and the raffle is in 6 days. We have six days to sell them all, I think that I've picked up some of Tilly's vending tricks becuase I managed to sell all but two... and they are promised to two people. I'm going to sell my friends tomorrow. But the raffle tickets say AIPUT... aiput... seriously, like how can you misspell Ipod... it is only like everywhere, TV, Billboards, and people have them too, but less than in the US. Chau buenas noches tierra!
Ok I recieved a couple of negative comments about this post, I would like to say that it is easy to find these kinds of things the world over. If you find this objectable than please move on to my other posts or send me some helpful criticism! (Thanks Ian and Dad!) But you have to understand... the truck exploding with $1 million is pretty funny and wanted to share it. AIPUT, look I was selling these tickets all day and was getting laughed at as I was explaining what AIPUT meant on their tickets and people were seriously wondering if we were vending an Ipod or not. None of my writing is mean't to be mean... only I want to throw in some comic relive every once in a while. And a forwarning you may find more of this kind of stuff in my blog. There is just some really funny stuff that happens to me!

My house and around

So I don't have school today or tomorrow and i took a couple of photos when my sister and I went out to buy CD's which cost a whopping $1 with dvd's costing $2.50. The majority are of my house and our apartment. I'm standing on top of the wall, which there was a bunch of army guys standing on the other side of the road looking kinda funny at me... but really it is easy to climb up. I really want to talk to our guard about this one... it is a little dangerous to have a wall that is easy to climb over. The picture of the river is a little gross, my sister says that it is soap from women washing clothes farther up the stream. But all the flowing wateraround Quito is polluted. The mountain in the background of another is Ilalo... which is a mountain within the valley that we live in. Really the city of Quito is higher than Ilalo.

Senorita de Deportes y Desfile! and Sunday

Ok so the weekend before last was pretty crazy... During the week there was a competition for the Senorita de deportes, it was interesting becuase every class picked a girl to represent and then there was a competition. The day of the competition every class had a list of ten people who were going to enter the theater and support their Senorita de Deportes. I was on the list but Adam wasn't and we were only allowed ten. So when a kid from another class came and asked for our ten people to leave the room, I quickly told him to count off eleven and to let Adam through too. Once we had left the class the general inspector was waitting at the door counting how many were entering from each class, somehow Adam with his blonde hair passed without a problem... once in we were herded up to the balcony with all of the other seniors and juniors... the actual show was pretty boring. Seriously... like 80% of the girls said for their interests: I like to dance and listen to music... every single one... anyways our class was out at the first cut and I don't know which class actually won. But on saturday I was the gentleman for the parade. There was some confusion and Claudio, the exchange student from switzerland was the gentleman too. Adam and Nick were the mascots! Our class is really boring if I hadn't explained that before, we got these shirts for this and the internal sports championship but they are the worst of all that I saw. I ripped the neck as I put it on my head, probably about half the class did the same. Things here are faked all the time our shirts have a Nike symbol but they aren't Nike obviously. Other classes had real Addidas and Kappa shirts, we just got shafted by the bad planning of our class, there were also numerous errors in our shirts. I recieved 111 not 11. Anyways I didn't have to wear mine becuase I was in my monday uniform. We walked around the track with Adam and Nick dancing in a Pooh and Tigger costume. But all of the other classes had skits or dances planned and did these in fron of the judges, but we just walked on by, without a song or an idea... my class is lame. But anyways it was cool to see what the other classes had done! After the parade, everyone went back to the school yard where some classes were selling food... and beer! 1 liter of pilsner, the national drink for one dollar! I saw a kid who rides my bus, he's 12, drinking a beer! This place is crazy! I asked nick If I could return the costume for him becuase I wanted to wear it! Adam and I put the costumes on... which I quickly learned are horribly uncomfortable and hot! We went down to the center of the school yard and danced to the music trying to get people to dance... but we failed horribly! So we left and went to Los Shyris, one of the main streets in Quito and decided that we were going to go native and dance in the steets for money. It was an expiriment and an expirience that we both wanted to do! So we asked another kid from our school if he could guard our backpacks and take photos! He agreed and we hit the streets, we did it for only 10 minutes, about 7 stoplights, we ran out into the street durin the red lights, danced for about 20 seconds, did handstands and cartwheels and the ran to the cars and asked for money in the 10 seconds that we had left. I think we made like $2.50! It was really a fun expirience, after we were done we gave the money to the kid who was taking the photos and walked to the store where Adam and Nick had rented the costume and returned them! Definatly a good day. Sunday was interesting, I went to Parque de La Carolina, which is alongside Los Shyris. My sister and I left our house and headed there, there wasn't anyone practicing Capoiera so we decided to put up my slackline. Finally two other people showed up, a little kid and his family and another adult. We were all beginners and so we just kinda messed around. I practiced some flips and can now do a sideflip! Adam showed up and at about the same time my sister left because she felt a little sick. Adam and I worked on backflips, helping eachother out and handstands. He went to go and skate and we met up later. I met two new people in the park, one was an ex-practicioner of Capoiera. He is really cool and I got his number, right now he focuses more on the music and he dances Samba. The other person I met was a girl who was interested in Slacklining and Capoiera. She watched for a little bit and then practiced a little with us. My slackline became an attraction I didn't expect. A bunch of kids and adults who juggle, ride unicycles and do other things in the streets for money. They all wanted to try the slackline, Adam and I were amazed, the kids seemed very adult like, I guess when your working in the streets for money you grow up fast. They moved in a gang but were completely disorganized, it was crazy trying to get them to take turns on the slackline! These people are very interesting, there is a whole subculture, they dress in brightly colored patched cloths, have oddly cut and dyed hair, I assume this is to attract attention in the streets. I have seen some of the same poeple a couple of other times. I guess that around the park is there turf. They are all really nice and they remind me of hippies, they would fit right in at Country Fair for sure! It was a fun day! When I left there were about 30 people practicing and showing off on and along side my slackline! How cool, I'm definatly going to try and pick up some of their juggling skills!

Looong school update! and more¡

Two weeks ago I had a real interesting expirience. On Thursday my inspecter came into the room and told us that we were going to a science fair in Conocoto. Conocoto is south of Quito, and north of where I live. It is situated on the edge of the valley. So the two classes hopped into two school busses and headed south. The school busses here are like charter busses in the U.S. All of the busses here really are better than what is found in the states... the only problem is that they can be uncomfortable becuase of my size. It was a military school, I'm not really sure what the difference is except that their summer break is from december to february. This is becuase all of the military schools in ecuador need to be on the same time. On the coast the schools are opposite of here... so all of the military schools are the same. Anyways, there school was more spread out with bunker like buildings. Adam and I were ushered into one of the rooms where there was about four ore five tables set up with science expirements. These really weren't what you would expect from a bunch of high schoolers. There were some really wild expirements, distilling alcohol, making wine, smoke machines, some really wierd thing with kidney stones... anyways it was really crazy, I sampled the alcohol and everything, one group had me mix an acid with my bare hands exposed. Essentially it was way better than any science fair in the U.S. plus there was tons of food, we ate granola cookies, cake and some other weird stuff. Anyways... the funniest thing was that we started being followed by groups of girls. We were aked to have our photos taken a few times and the floodgates were opened. There were girls trying to sneakly take photos with their cell phones, others would wait and ask for photos. THe whole thing was crazy, at first it was amusing, I've definatly had girls ask for my photos before but it became ridiculous. We were probably the main attraction, the thing was... the majority of the girls were from schools run by nuns, these schools are probably deathly boring because the dress code is really strict and they are only one gender. These schools also never take exchange students... all these factors kinda explain why they were like locusts... Adam and I ran at a couple of moments. After Adam and I were stuffed and had probably about a hundred photos taken we boarded the bus to head back to school. This is when some of my readers are going to cringe but I'll explain before I begin my stoy... So my school is crazy, the general inspecter does nothing but yell at me... take of your hat!, whay are you out of the classroom?, tuck in your shirt!, etc. Then I have to deal with my classes inspector. I don't know if this was clear but my program has four different classes. I'nm in a special program which is an International program. So, I have one inspector for four classes, everyone calls her la bruja, which is the witch. She is new to the school and seems to make it clear that under her watch we will be the best students the school has ever seen. So I am completely shut down, Adam says that we're a little army. So when the bus stopped becasue the police wanted to check our bus drivers papers, I asked if we could leave and buy pizza, we were right next to a place called la zona. This pizzeria is amazing, the pizza is only sold by the slice but... it is $1 for a pizza that literally is two handed, they back big square pizzas and your getting 1/8 of the pizza. But of course she said no. I had the bright idea to learn how to jump out of a bus window... really quite stupid! But I did, it is quite easy to do smoothly... but it is up to you to figure it out. I walked to the window of where she was sitting and tapped on the window and smiled! Well as you can imagine she was rightly pissed, and so was the bus driver when he found out that I jumped out of his bus. He told me that I had damaged the bus. I argued but to no avail. So when we got back to school I was told that tommorow I would need to remove the mark of my shoe. I was also going to need to talk to my parents, I had called my mom figuring that it would be best if she heard it from me first. She actually didn't care, and later told me about what my siblings have done in the past. When I showed up the next morning the bus driver was like whatever you didn't do anything... go back to class. I guess he was having a bad day after he spent 20 minutes talking with the police... Bueno, Another thing is that I now leave school everyday at 1:40, it has all worked out. The bad thing is that I'm not being graded in some classes and in others I'm getting really poor grades. The cool thing is that I've got more time to do new stuff. I'm taking dance lessons, latin rythms to be excact. I love Salsa, it is really fun and I'm learning how to dance for real! But Samba is the crazyest dance ever... it really doesn't mak any sense, I told my teacher that and she told me to teach the class. I lead the class in a movement but everyone just laughed at me :). I am also taking break dancing once a week. I think that Adam will start taking this class with me tomorrow. I have only done one week of classes but I'm dead tired and everything is great, yesterday for example finished school, had soccer practice, Capoiera, and then dance class! I am really tired but I'm loving it! As far as Soccer goes... I had a game today, we tied 3-3. My team is good but out of shape. We held them at 3-1 for the first 65 minutes or so, they scored two goals in 15 minutes, we have 80 minute games. It is really interesting, I don't have great skills, but I know how to play. All that time I spent with Chris and my dad taught me how to play... but two years without playing is a long time. In this league there are only four substitutions per game. I was actually the second person to be subbed but it was in the last minte of the game, literally. I never touched the ball. But I have uniform that is mine! it says Alexander and I'm number 9. The shorts are really small, the whole team recieved the same size. Mine are like higher than my compresion shorts... it is a little sad. The games here are really interesting, all the games will be held in this one place, which has a dirt feild, I bought shoes for grass... so this is a little anoying. My coach is really good, he is young but used to play pro when he was 15, but he continued with his studies and then became a coach. He has a soccer school for kids and coaches another pro team. He kinda reminds me of Eric, but he has a very different style of coaching. Hopefully I'll play more the next game... I just need to learn to play with my team. I lso need to work on my shot, becuase I'll be playing forward!