Low-key weekend

The weekend was in general low-key, especially compared to my travel-full other weekends. But I have spent a lot of money lately, and I spoke a lot of english in the Amazon, so I decided to stay home, speak spanish, and save my money. The first thing I had to deal with was my cell phone. I bought a cell phone when I got here, because we're required to have a cell phone, and to use my American plan here would cost a fortune. So, at the beginning of January, I got the cheapest phone I could find. Well the other day the microphone on it broke. When I spoke to someone I could hear them, but they couldn't hear me. So, I went down to the store to ask for it to be repaired. The guy was glad to repair my phone, and was also glad to tell me that because of two little nicks at the top of the phone I would have to pay for the repair. Since the phone showed slight wear and tear the microphone (which is located at the bottom of the phone) was somehow my fault. So I'll have to pay sixteen dollars for the repair. He gave me the sim card, and I asked if it could be rigged to work in my American phone. Of course it could, I learned, but I'd have to travel across Quito and pay twenty dollars. No thanks. I borrowed a phone from my ecuapadre and put my sim card in that one. I actually like the one I'm borrowing more than the one that I have. But I'll get mine back on Thursday.

After that, I hung out at home. I wrote an essay for my spanish class, and I started a book. I was in the middle of reading The Fellowship of the Ring in spanish, and I will probably return to it at some point, but I wanted to try my hand at a book that was not a translation, but an original, with a story I didn't already know, to see if I could understand it. So I picked up El Zahir by Paulo Coehlo (author of The Alchemist), and gave it a start. The story itself is okay. But I am very pleased with how easy it is to read and understand. My reading is advancing quickly, and I am definitely speaking better as well. Understanding natives when they speak continues to be my biggest challenge.

My ecuasobrino (in spanish sobrino means nephew) spent a lot of time at our house this weekend, and whenever he's over he always begs me to play with him. We played many games of soccer on playstation, which was a good time. At one point I was reading in my room and he came in and started to ask me to play with him. I didn't particularly feel like playing, and he loves it when I show him movies on my laptop. I have a couple of music videos, videos I've taken with my camera, and youtube videos saved on it, so occasionally I'll show them to him. I've pretty much run out of videos though, so I decided I'd put in my DVD of Spirited Away and show him the trailer. After the trailer, he told me he wanted to watch the movie. I decided to put it in because I figured he'd get bored with it. The movie is in Japanese, although there is an English dub option, but there is neither a spanish dub nor spanish subtitle option, and spanish is all he speaks, so I figured once he was lost he would get bored and leave. Not so. First, he quite enjoyed the movie, despite it being a very strange film to occidental eyes, and constantly asked me to tell him what people were saying and what they were doing. It was interesting translating the story as I read it in english into spanish, which had been translated itself from Japanese. Moreover, he insisted that the movie be in the original Japanese, not in English. I didn't understand why, but I suppose he, like me, finds the Japanese language appealing to listen to. I don't know, he never told me, and I didn't ask the five year old about his language preferences. But he was very engaged, and was eager to finish the movie.

Then on Saturday night, I decided I would go out, since I had been in (and bored) all weekend. It was my friend's birthday, and he had a whole night planned, so I decided to attend. First, we all met at his house where we ate a bunch of snacks, and an ice cream cake that he had made himself. It was delicious. Afterwards, we went to a place that he has wanted to go to since he arrived in Quito: a wine and tapas bar in the city. So we went. The price was a little steep, the cheapest option was about seventeen dollars, which was really twenty after taxes and gratuity. But it was totally worth it, mainly because it was all you could eat and drink for the single price. The waiters brought out an endless supply of food: bread with salsa, shrimp, quiches, vegetables, sausage, cheese, and more. And when you finished your glass of wine, they refilled it. I started with red wine, but switched to white halfway through the night, which I enjoyed more. And once we got there, we added one more thing to the spread. One glass into the night and we began talking politics. Someone brought up something political, and it was off. We discussed everything: U.S. foreign policy, Latin American policy, energy policy, immigration policy, gay marriage, abortion, the national debt, monetary policy, the U.S. military, healthcare. Two glasses in, someone challenged the actual contribution that President Kennedy made to the country. Being a stalwart defender of the legacy of President Kennedy, I answered every challenge voiced. The political discussion didn't end until we all decided to go home. All in all, it was a very fun night, and definitely worth the twenty dollars.

And herein lies the great thing about studying abroad. Usually after a fun Saturday night with friends, we find ourselves sighing and muttering "Well, back to reality." But for me, back to reality means back to enjoying living in a foreign country, and it's a reality I have no problem returning to.