Las Moiras

I’m over my cold (three and a half weeks later) and my cough is nearly gone. I actually felt well enough to go out on Saturday night – Liz’s sister’s birthday is on Tuesday, so we were partying in her honor. The four of us from Keene went, plus Eduardo, Liz’s two sisters, her brother-in-law, and two of their friends. Mauricio, the bro-in-law, led us to a bar called Las Moiras. For the first couple of hours it was just a bar, but once more people showed up, it turned into a dance club.

It was a whole lot more fun than Tonic, and a safer place to be than Nobar. We met a woman named Linda from Kentucky, who was there on vacation with a friend who lives in Quito. She was grateful to run into other Americans because she spoke no Spanish, so she hung out with us for the rest of the night. I lost track of time and was startled when Marie informed me it was 2:30am. I wasn’t tired when I got home, either, and I didn’t end up falling asleep until almost 6:00. As a result, I slept in rather excessively late the next morning, but I was up in time to have lunch with Lucía and her son Paulo, and his wife and two kids. The kids, Andrea and her brother (whose name I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew it), are a lot friendlier than Camino, so hopefully I’ll get to know them better, even though they don’t come around as often.

Me, Linda, and Braulio:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1468.jpg

Me and Marie:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1465.jpg

Me and Liz:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1456.jpg

Liz, Marie, me, Braulio:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1441.jpg

Class was deadly boring today; I consider myself lucky to have survived. Tony and Maicol, the two Chinese guys, are doing their project this week, which is on Ecuador’s main exports. “Doing their project” means that Monday and Tuesday they get the last part of class to present on their topic, and on Friday we’ll have a group debate. Unfortunately, not only was their presentation not too well-prepared, but Tony really struggled giving it. He didn’t seem to understand most of the questions we asked, and his Spanish is so heavily accented that most of the time I don’t understand him. I ended up with a beautiful flower drawn in pen on the handout he gave me…and no more clue on the exports of Ecuador than I had before. (No, I promise you, Texaco is not an Ecuadorian company that exports bananas. Really. Maicol still doesn’t believe us on this point.)

Note for Dad: I received the tax forms today (oh goody!), thanks for the help. I’ll follow your (and mom’s) advice and give them to Craig to mail. And by the way, mom’s last name is Bermeo, not Bermed, and I live in Jipijapa, not J1p1japa. But it did get here, so I guess the post office doesn’t care too much…

Me, mom, and Rachel at the Delaware group's cocktail last month:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1292.jpg