.GET.LOST.

literally? yeah, I got lost. ha ha I think its mandatory on your first day somewhere, within reason, I wasn't like skipping down alleys yelling, I.HAVE.AN.EXPENSIVE.CAMERA! but it was sure A neat experience. first off I guess, here is my room. there are only 3 other people staying in the hostel right now, so we basically all have our own rooms with 3 beds...I took this photo sitting on MY bed, I was too lazy to get a good shot...hopefully this shows that its not gross like you all thought it would be, (im SURE they will get dingier tho, im spending a little more money on this one, ha ha) okay and by more money... I mean like 11 dollars a night...lol. here it is, you can see the top of my bag at the bottom of the picture. its clean, and Its a bed, I like that. and there are Bob Marley posters all over the wall.

now, I got up at about 9 and set out to find a church I could go to...I couldn't find one ANYWHERE! I KNOW there are some, but im having a really hard time getting oriented to this city, its BIG! so I just wandered around and found cute kids to take pictures of, not as easy as it sounds. first off you don't want to just swing out a big camera in the most dangerous city in Ecuador...secondly, if the kid´s with their parent...chances are your buying something to get the photo. haha for this one, I bought some chicle! (chewing gum) for a quarter...but DANG...isn't she cute?

now, what you don't see in this picture below is this kids dad passed out cold on the street a few feet away while his kid played happily with whatever he could find outside a church, which looks a lot like a dirty rag...sweet eh?

I spent most of the afternoon looking around town, trying to get familiar with it, it was a pretty nice day! I guess its been colder in Quito than normal, but today it got up to about 20 degrees...but by the afternoon it was raining and only about 12 degrees, so I bought some manzanna Tea and went home for the afternoon. just a little while ago I helped 2 of the other people in the hostel make soup out of nothing but carrots, milk and spices...throw them in a blender? perfect! they are a really neat couple, they sold their apartment, and ALL of their belongings, got engaged and went traveling...neat huh? I would love that some day. they are just flying by their pants, spending a month in school to learn Spanish in Quito, then continuing on, I might meet up with them near the end of my trip in Argentina.

other than that, Ive been pretty spoiled! I just lock up my backpack in my room, and head out with my day pack, I ate a piece of chicken with this interesting side of beans and rice for lunch
(Beck, DON'T FREAK OUT! stay calm!)
she´s scared im going to get fat if im not watching what I eat...last time I was in Ecuador I gained 30 pounds! the diet here is all carbs. bread, beans, rice, potatoes....really you just mix in some chicken or beef and you have the daily special...one dollar.BUT. .don't.worry.everyone!. I wont get fat! I promise! ha ha. im going to run a sweet set of stairs tomorrow morning before I set out to see some sights I picked out...and today I probably walked at least 15km...its going to be okay...and its going to be AWESOME! so .GET.LOST.!.

seriously...do it sometime! go downtown where you live and get so hopelessly lost that you have to take a cab just to get somewhere familiar!
im leaving Quito on Wednesday morning so I can hit some cool indigenous markets on my bus route down to Cuenca...GAME.ON!

Im hurting for my Natalie Clark, and my family a little, I called my mom from a phone today and we laughed about how we had better get used to the delay on the phone line...it was pretty hilarious.

im here, and im having a good time, sorry if thats all you wanted to know...haha here you are at the bottom of my post! oops....

.GET.LOST.

xx

.R.