GringoLandia

Llamas!!!!

The GAIAS UNC students at the equator

Jacinto, the dog in our house

Today is my birthday.  I turned 22 today, far away from home and my family.  It was hard.  This may have been the most difficult day I've had yet in Ecuador.  But it just serves to show what a great group of people I am here with.  Rikke and I went to the campus this morning to meet a group of other students and go into Quito.  We ended up not being able to meet up with the people we'd been trying to meet up with.  Instead, we found Erick and Gale and the four of us took a taxi into the Old Town.  We stopped at El Parque Eljido (I think I spelled that right), where there was a sort of market/ art fair going on.  Then, we walked through the city and enjoyed the day.  We ate lunch at this little restaurant inside of a cultural center and then got cake and coffee for my birthday at a bakery down the street.  At this point it started hailing, just to show how crazy the weather is here.  It can go from freezing in the mornings and evenings to super warm during the day.  And then, of course, there are the occassional freak hailstorms. 

As for the title of this post, GringoLandia: Yesterday when we were touring the city, we walked into one of the churches (one with gold almost everywhere on the inside) and passed some Ecuadorians heading outside.  As we went by them, I heard one of them exclaim "Gringo Landia!"  There were about 22 of us, so this was probably an appropriate response to the crowd of gringos he met.  It was funny. 

Plaza Grande in the center of the Old Town