Dana's Semester in Ecuador: La Ronda

Hola!

Even thought we didn’t travel anywhere – I had a great weekend in Quito! On Wednesday night La Liga (the Ecuadorian Soccer team) won the South American championship which was very exciting. There were lots of celebrations for that. My friends and I went out to the mariscal on Thursday night for a fun night of dancing. Then a few of my friends (who go to a different university) left to go on a service trip with their university. The rest of us woke up very early on Friday to get our CENSO which is some kind of official ID that proves that we live here and that we can carry instead of our passport. Apparently American passports are sold for $20,000 on the black market in Ecuador.

Friday evening my friends and I went to La Ronda. It is in the old part of Quito. There are a bunch of beautiful churches and big squares with fountains and lots of people selling things. The streets are cobblestone and there’s a few very long streets that cars can’t go down and they are lined with bars and restaurants and art galleries and shops. At night, everything is lit up and there are tons of people. We spent hours just walking around and eating. All of the restaurants sold this drink for 50 cents that was kind of like hot apple cider but it was made out of fruit juice. It was very interesting. I also bought all 6 Harry Potter movies in spanish for $1. I am excited to learn magical terms in Spanish.

Saturday I spent the day working on a project with one of my friends for class. Then we met up with our other friends at a Mexican restaurant for dinner and we ate and talked for almost 4 hours.

Sunday I woke up early and we went back to the old part of town for an art and music festival. It was very hot and there were tons of people but it was really fun. We saw the Ecuadorian ballet, a random guy singing, skateboarders, graffiti artists, and an Otovalan (an indigenous tribe in Ecuador) rap group. It was really fun!