school holidays! and going to the beach.

Before this weekend, I had not worn my swimsuit at all. This weekend, I wore it three times. :)
We didn’t have school on Friday, because it was Guayaquil’s independence day. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador- it’s about 3 hours away from Portoviejo. Anyway, it was quite nice to have the day off. I feel like we don’t go to school a whole lot, which I definitely appreciate. Thursday afternoon I met up with some exchange students at a friend’s house, who lives in a neighborhood-sort of place where there is a pool, and we went swimming! It was nice to see the sun again- I have gotten so much whiter than I was when I arrived! Which is kind of ridiculous considering the fact that I’m in South America, quite close to the equator. I think there were about 10 of us, and it was great to talk to everyone (in english of course) and relax in the sun. Friday night Leslie and I hung out with some of Emilio’s friends who play the guitar, and they played songs in English for us, which was a lot of fun! She ended up staying the night that night, and the next morning, her host mom called us and asked if we wanted to go to the beach with her host cousins! So of course we went. We went to Crucita, which is the closest beach to Portoviejo- it’s about 30 minutes away. The road, though, is TERRIBLE. It is scary. Anyway, we went to her cousin’s cousin’s house next to the beach. Here, ‘beach houses’ are quite different. They are basically just the necessities. The whole house is made out of cement, and there’s only the bare minimum inside- a mattress placed on a cement slab, a very basic kitchen, and a plastic table and chairs for eating. Definitely not very luxurious. But really, it’s quite nice to go to the beach, so I’m not going to complain. We went swimming with her cousins for a while, and it was nice. There was a HUGE current, so we drifted quite a ways and walking back was kind of difficult. It was fun, nonetheless. We went back to the house around 5ish, because Ecuador was playing Uruguay in a qualifier game for the world cup. Ecuador lost. We ended up eating there and then going home afterwards, which was scary because the road is terrible in the daytime, and it is even worse at night. There are huge potholes that you can’t see until the last second, and cars going the opposite direction that are swerving all over the road.
Sunday, I went with my family in the afternoon to Crucita again! It was good, I built a sandcastle-city with Ricardo, and (unsuccessfully) tried to get slightly more tan. We ate dinner at a place on the beach, and it was very good. I have decided that I really like shrimp. That night, I was SO TIRED- the sun completely wore me out, so I went to bed super early.
Today I went to school again. It was good, but boring. After school, Leslie and Amina came to my house to hang out, and then we went with Leslie’s grandmother, who dropped us off at a gymnasium for ‘dance lessons’. We basically had no idea what we were doing, and that was quite obvious. It turns out that they only do dance lessons on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but on the other days they do exercise/step classes. So we did that, and it was actually a lot of fun! I am going to be sore tomorrow. We are planning on going every day starting today, so we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully it will work out because I am eating SO MUCH here! :)
LOVE, Kirsty