So much for keeping up on updates. Things got really busy again. A lot has happened since I have last posted. First off I got a job here in Ecuador. It at a private school called Atenas in Ambato, a smaller city about two hours south of Quito. I have been working there for about a week and most of it has been training and practice teaching other classes to show how I can handle Ecuadorian High Schoolers, which is actually extremely hard. But starting tomorrow I will be taking over the classes I will have for the rest of the school year. I will have two groups of High School seniors and one group of 8th graders. My current contract is for through the end of this school year which end July 31st, but they want me to stick around for at least one more school year.
I got the job on March 10th, after a sample lesson, not to students, but to a group of teachers that were pretending to be High Schoolers. I thought they were exaggerating the way they were acting, by not listening to me, talking and just general screwing around, but they weren't even close to as bad as I've seen since starting. But After the sample lesson and interview, I got the job. But they wanted me to start that week. When I got back to Quito that day I found out about all the stuff I need to do so I would be legal to work here, and no way could I do it all in 2 days. In fact it took me 7, which from what I've been told is record time, especially here in Ecuador.
I moved to Ambato on the 18th and am currently living in an apartment owned by they school, with another English teacher. It is a huge 3 bedroom place in a quite neighborhood, with most of the furniture provided, and I even have my own bathroom. The best part is that it's only $50 a month plus $10 for Internet, so I really can't complain. I haven't had much of a chance to get out and explore Ambato yet since I work for 7 to 3:30 and I'm not used to waking that early yet. I do miss Quito, but I feel like I could get used to Ambato once I settle in and figure things out more.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Trip to Banos
So this past weekend, I decided to take some time off from the job hunt. It has been kind of stressful, especially with my bank account running kind of low. But I needed a break so I decided to head to Banos with my friend Ruth, who had lived there for the past six months and knew all of the cool places to go. We left Friday afternoon and after a bus ride the took almost 4 hours I was exhausted, but like I said Ruth knew all the best places to go. So after a good meal and a huge mocha shake at a small cafe, I was recharged. That recharge was very much needed, because Banos has a ton of awesome bars with endless cheap beers. Bar hoping lasted late into the night with dance clubs, dive bars and meeting several other travelers Good thing Ruth's former bosses, a Canadian guy and Ecuadorian girl who are married and own the main English school in Banos, let us crash at their place.
The next morning while battling a pretty harsh hangover another friend of Ruth's, John, offered to be our tour guide for the day. First off we started at La Casa del Arbol, a tree house built high up in the hills as a Volcano look out. This place is also known as the Swing at the end of the world, because it has a swing off of one of the branches that swings way out over the hillside with an awesome view. I guess the whole place was recently rebuilt to be much safer, as well as adding another swing to deal with the crowds. Apparently we picked a perfect day to go up there, because the weather was perfect and clear so we could see the volcano, which is active and spit out some smoke a couple of times. We also got there before the daily crowds so we didn't have to wait long to try out the swings, but as we were leaving trucks and buses full of people were on their way up.
Our next stop on our informal tour of the Banos area was lunch in Rio Verde, a smaller village a little ways outside of Banos on the way towards the rain forest. My stomach was still fighting me from the night before, so I didn't eat much. After lunch we went for a hike down the Rio Verde to the waterfall Pailon Del Diablo. I may have heard something about it being one of the biggest waterfalls in Ecuador, but I haven't looked that up yet. It was really awesome. You can actually hike down one side or the other, and can pretty much go right underneath it, but both trails aren't connected in the middle because of some ownership disputes. It was very beautiful though. The trail we took even had a sketchy suspension bridge, but it was a nice little walk down. Wears you out on the way up though, especially if you get wet going under the falls.
By this time, we were all extremely exhausted and called it a day, because Ruth and I had to catch another 4 hour bus back to Quito so we wouldn't get back to town to late at night. We couldn't leave without one more of those gigantic mocha shakes though. Probably the only reason I made it back to Quito without completely passing out. Exhausting couple of days, but amazing trip.
The next morning while battling a pretty harsh hangover another friend of Ruth's, John, offered to be our tour guide for the day. First off we started at La Casa del Arbol, a tree house built high up in the hills as a Volcano look out. This place is also known as the Swing at the end of the world, because it has a swing off of one of the branches that swings way out over the hillside with an awesome view. I guess the whole place was recently rebuilt to be much safer, as well as adding another swing to deal with the crowds. Apparently we picked a perfect day to go up there, because the weather was perfect and clear so we could see the volcano, which is active and spit out some smoke a couple of times. We also got there before the daily crowds so we didn't have to wait long to try out the swings, but as we were leaving trucks and buses full of people were on their way up.
Our next stop on our informal tour of the Banos area was lunch in Rio Verde, a smaller village a little ways outside of Banos on the way towards the rain forest. My stomach was still fighting me from the night before, so I didn't eat much. After lunch we went for a hike down the Rio Verde to the waterfall Pailon Del Diablo. I may have heard something about it being one of the biggest waterfalls in Ecuador, but I haven't looked that up yet. It was really awesome. You can actually hike down one side or the other, and can pretty much go right underneath it, but both trails aren't connected in the middle because of some ownership disputes. It was very beautiful though. The trail we took even had a sketchy suspension bridge, but it was a nice little walk down. Wears you out on the way up though, especially if you get wet going under the falls.
By this time, we were all extremely exhausted and called it a day, because Ruth and I had to catch another 4 hour bus back to Quito so we wouldn't get back to town to late at night. We couldn't leave without one more of those gigantic mocha shakes though. Probably the only reason I made it back to Quito without completely passing out. Exhausting couple of days, but amazing trip.
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| La Casa Del Arbol in front of the Tungurahua volcano, a view you don't always get. |
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| La Casa Del Arbol also known as the Tree house |
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| I had to try out one of the swings. Not as scary as it looks. |
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| Ruth trying out the swing |
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| Banos from a view point high up in the mountains. |
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| Pailon Del Diablo |
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| The path down from the other side of Pailon Del Diablo |
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| In front of Pailon Del Diablo after getting drench going under it. |
Friday, February 13, 2015
Catching up on Updates
I know I haven't posted anything in quite awhile, so I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. First of all, I have finished my TESOL training. Turns out when they call something a 4 week intensive course, they mean 4 weeks without sleeping much. Since the course consisted of not just your regular course work you get in any class (readings, essays etc..), but planning lessons, teaching classes and reflecting on not only my own lessons but on my classmates lessons as well. All in all after 4 weeks of very little sleep and tons of work, I am done and am a certified English teacher.
Now for the next step in the process, finding a job. This isn't just a typical job hunt like most of us have gone through in the states. It has been hard, especially with my bellow average Spanish skills. For one I decided to stick around Quito. I decided to do that at the advice of one of my trainers. Since my main interest is in creative writing, she told me that Quito has a budding creative writing community, that I can bring my knowledge and skills to possibly help expand. This really excited me, not only to help other people with their writing, but to have a completely new look at my own. I have dropped off my resume at several of the more well known and respected language institutes around Quito, and now its time to play the waiting game. Hopefully it's not to long of a wait, but it probably will be. Ecuadorian culture is very slow and laid back and everything pretty much moves at its own pace. If you ever spend any time down here, get used to waiting. If you make plans with someone, be prepared to wait a half an hour to an hour, that's just how things work. And since its Carnival this weekend till Tuesday, I'm not expecting to hear back from anyone till after that.
Something else I have been working on has been searching for a place to live. My home stay with the Ecuadorian family I have been staying with ends the on the 21st, and I can't afford to stay here much longer. They have been great to me, having 3 huge meals a day and a comfortable bed to sleep in is great while I get used to the culture down here. Plus it has helped my Spanish a lot, even though I still can't have a full conversation about anything, I can order food, get around town in taxis and ask for directions (even though that isn't a very good idea, Ecuadorians are very vague in there directions, and even if they don't know where a place is they will try and give you directions anyway, possibly sending you in completely the wrong direction). I do have an appointment set up to check out a room next week after Carnival ends. It's in a five bedroom house shared with what sounds like a bunch of Europeans that are my age. Hopefully it works out because it's the right price and the right area of town.
As for some of the places I've been around Ecuador, It's been kind of limited so far due to the heavy work load of the course, followed by job and apartment hunting. But a couple weeks ago, I got to go to Otavalo, a smaller town a 3 hour bus ride North of Quito, where they hold this huge outdoor market every weekend. So far it has been one of the coolest places I've been, insanely bright colors everywhere, small and large trinkets of every possible kind, paintings, hand woven crafts and all kinds of jewelry. Ever turn you take is something new to see, with vendors trying to get you attention and little kids wondering around trying to sell you toilet paper or candy made from coca plants (better energy boost than any coffee or any drink you will ever find). The problem was that I forgot to find an ATM before leaving Quito, and by the time I found one, it was almost closing time so I couldn't buy much, but I did purchase a beautifully hand woven hammock, that's bright green strips and big enough for two people for just a few dollars. Looking forward to finding a place to hang it up and try it out. I wish I could post some pictures, but the market is not the kind of place you let it be known that you have a $1000 dollar camera set up in your bag or a $300 dollar phone in your pocket. Not if you want to keep them.
The night life around here has been pretty awesome so far. There is really only one main place to go for night life here in Quito, an area of town called La Mariscal otherwise know as Gringolandia to the locals but that is where all the good bars I have found so far are. The only problem I have come across is finding a decent beer that doesn't cost a fortune. Beer itself isn't hard to find, good beer on the other hand is. Pretty much anywhere you go you can find the same two beers, a brand just called Pilsner, which is very cheap, but just tastes like watered down Corona, and another called Club which costs a little more and tastes just like Corona. I did visit an Irish bar the other night, where you could get Guinness (in a can) for $14 which blew my mind, but I have also found two German bars that both have good beer selections for really cheap. I'm talking a huge mug of beer for $5.
My trips out have been pretty fun. I went with a couple other people that are staying at the same house I am to a sports bar for the super bowl. That was really interesting to watch the super bowl in Spanish, although it was on one of the ESPN translation channels so no good commercials. There were a ton of Ecuadorians cheering for the Seahawks which was pretty awesome to watch. The other funny thing about that night was that I was one of two Americans in our group, there were three German girls, an Italian girl and three guys from Finland, all of which hardly knew anything about Football, but they were all more into the game than I was. Another trip out was with my classmates from the TESOL course, the night we finished, that is how I found the German bars. Drinking started around 1 in the afternoon and wrapped up around 3 in the morning so the details are a little fuzzy. I also went with my classmates to an Irish bar in the Mariscal called Finn McCools, where we happened to win Trivia night, which first prize was a pitcher of beer (Pilsner) and a $40 dollar bar tab, which is where details start to get fuzzy again. But we did end up at a dance club on the Plaza Foch (the center of The Mariscal) at 2ish in the morning, which was more fun than I thought it would be. I have been out a few more times with people from my house, drinking with all different kinds of European people which is really interesting. Tons of new people to meet.
Well I think that pretty much brings us up to date on the adventures so far. Now that I have a little more free time I will try and keep this up to date a little more. I'll try and have more pictures next time.
Now for the next step in the process, finding a job. This isn't just a typical job hunt like most of us have gone through in the states. It has been hard, especially with my bellow average Spanish skills. For one I decided to stick around Quito. I decided to do that at the advice of one of my trainers. Since my main interest is in creative writing, she told me that Quito has a budding creative writing community, that I can bring my knowledge and skills to possibly help expand. This really excited me, not only to help other people with their writing, but to have a completely new look at my own. I have dropped off my resume at several of the more well known and respected language institutes around Quito, and now its time to play the waiting game. Hopefully it's not to long of a wait, but it probably will be. Ecuadorian culture is very slow and laid back and everything pretty much moves at its own pace. If you ever spend any time down here, get used to waiting. If you make plans with someone, be prepared to wait a half an hour to an hour, that's just how things work. And since its Carnival this weekend till Tuesday, I'm not expecting to hear back from anyone till after that.
Something else I have been working on has been searching for a place to live. My home stay with the Ecuadorian family I have been staying with ends the on the 21st, and I can't afford to stay here much longer. They have been great to me, having 3 huge meals a day and a comfortable bed to sleep in is great while I get used to the culture down here. Plus it has helped my Spanish a lot, even though I still can't have a full conversation about anything, I can order food, get around town in taxis and ask for directions (even though that isn't a very good idea, Ecuadorians are very vague in there directions, and even if they don't know where a place is they will try and give you directions anyway, possibly sending you in completely the wrong direction). I do have an appointment set up to check out a room next week after Carnival ends. It's in a five bedroom house shared with what sounds like a bunch of Europeans that are my age. Hopefully it works out because it's the right price and the right area of town.
As for some of the places I've been around Ecuador, It's been kind of limited so far due to the heavy work load of the course, followed by job and apartment hunting. But a couple weeks ago, I got to go to Otavalo, a smaller town a 3 hour bus ride North of Quito, where they hold this huge outdoor market every weekend. So far it has been one of the coolest places I've been, insanely bright colors everywhere, small and large trinkets of every possible kind, paintings, hand woven crafts and all kinds of jewelry. Ever turn you take is something new to see, with vendors trying to get you attention and little kids wondering around trying to sell you toilet paper or candy made from coca plants (better energy boost than any coffee or any drink you will ever find). The problem was that I forgot to find an ATM before leaving Quito, and by the time I found one, it was almost closing time so I couldn't buy much, but I did purchase a beautifully hand woven hammock, that's bright green strips and big enough for two people for just a few dollars. Looking forward to finding a place to hang it up and try it out. I wish I could post some pictures, but the market is not the kind of place you let it be known that you have a $1000 dollar camera set up in your bag or a $300 dollar phone in your pocket. Not if you want to keep them.
The night life around here has been pretty awesome so far. There is really only one main place to go for night life here in Quito, an area of town called La Mariscal otherwise know as Gringolandia to the locals but that is where all the good bars I have found so far are. The only problem I have come across is finding a decent beer that doesn't cost a fortune. Beer itself isn't hard to find, good beer on the other hand is. Pretty much anywhere you go you can find the same two beers, a brand just called Pilsner, which is very cheap, but just tastes like watered down Corona, and another called Club which costs a little more and tastes just like Corona. I did visit an Irish bar the other night, where you could get Guinness (in a can) for $14 which blew my mind, but I have also found two German bars that both have good beer selections for really cheap. I'm talking a huge mug of beer for $5.
My trips out have been pretty fun. I went with a couple other people that are staying at the same house I am to a sports bar for the super bowl. That was really interesting to watch the super bowl in Spanish, although it was on one of the ESPN translation channels so no good commercials. There were a ton of Ecuadorians cheering for the Seahawks which was pretty awesome to watch. The other funny thing about that night was that I was one of two Americans in our group, there were three German girls, an Italian girl and three guys from Finland, all of which hardly knew anything about Football, but they were all more into the game than I was. Another trip out was with my classmates from the TESOL course, the night we finished, that is how I found the German bars. Drinking started around 1 in the afternoon and wrapped up around 3 in the morning so the details are a little fuzzy. I also went with my classmates to an Irish bar in the Mariscal called Finn McCools, where we happened to win Trivia night, which first prize was a pitcher of beer (Pilsner) and a $40 dollar bar tab, which is where details start to get fuzzy again. But we did end up at a dance club on the Plaza Foch (the center of The Mariscal) at 2ish in the morning, which was more fun than I thought it would be. I have been out a few more times with people from my house, drinking with all different kinds of European people which is really interesting. Tons of new people to meet.
Well I think that pretty much brings us up to date on the adventures so far. Now that I have a little more free time I will try and keep this up to date a little more. I'll try and have more pictures next time.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Checking out the Town
So I have been down here in Quito for about a week and a half now. So far I have been extremely busy with classes. The first four days was just extremely intensive Spanish training. 5 straight hours for 4 days of straight Spanish. After that my Spanish is a little better, but I still can't hold a conversation with anyone. I can catch a lot of what the native speakers are saying, but it takes me a little while to reply.
My first actually weekend here was pretty good. I was checked out the city a little, but due to the altitude I still get tired really quickly so I didn't stray to far from where I'm stay. Just down to one of the giant parks down the hill from the house. It was one of the coolest parks I have ever seen. Had just about everything in one place, well everything except a baseball field, which was kind of disappointing, but a million soccer fields, basketball courts, miles and miles of running trails, tennis courts, volleyball, a huge skate park and BMX track as well as horse trails, vendors upon vendors upon vendors, it was just crazy. One of the coolest parks I have ever seen.
Since then I have been in my English teaching classes from 8:30 in the morning till after 6 at night. Long days, but I think I'm actually starting to figure it out. Even though my first teaching experience with an actually class full of people that can hardly speak English felt like it didn't go very well. I by far underestimated how much they knew and my lesson was to easy. It was suppose to be 20 minutes but they flew through everything I had planned and I only made it through 15 or so minutes. My second attempt went much better. I filled the whole 30 minutes and it seemed like my students enjoyed it as well as learned something. I thought I did much better.
This weekend I ended up going down and checking out the Centro Historico, or old town to us gringos. It was definitely an interesting area. Tiny streets, huge churches, cathedrals, plazas and palaces. It was a cool adventure even with the rain trapping us in a tiny little sandwich shop for almost an hour. Good thing that sandwiches were so good. Wondering around checking out all the history and culture was pretty awesome. One of the main reasons for this whole trip. I especially liked the cobblestone pedestrian streets lined with little shops selling everything you can imagine. I could wonder those streets for days and still not see everything. The Bisilica del Voto Nacional was especially cool. Apparently it is the largest of its kind in the Americas. To bad we got there 15 minutes to late to go up to the top of the tower. I really wanted to see that view. Will probably have to go back there sometime just to check out that view.
My first actually weekend here was pretty good. I was checked out the city a little, but due to the altitude I still get tired really quickly so I didn't stray to far from where I'm stay. Just down to one of the giant parks down the hill from the house. It was one of the coolest parks I have ever seen. Had just about everything in one place, well everything except a baseball field, which was kind of disappointing, but a million soccer fields, basketball courts, miles and miles of running trails, tennis courts, volleyball, a huge skate park and BMX track as well as horse trails, vendors upon vendors upon vendors, it was just crazy. One of the coolest parks I have ever seen.
Since then I have been in my English teaching classes from 8:30 in the morning till after 6 at night. Long days, but I think I'm actually starting to figure it out. Even though my first teaching experience with an actually class full of people that can hardly speak English felt like it didn't go very well. I by far underestimated how much they knew and my lesson was to easy. It was suppose to be 20 minutes but they flew through everything I had planned and I only made it through 15 or so minutes. My second attempt went much better. I filled the whole 30 minutes and it seemed like my students enjoyed it as well as learned something. I thought I did much better.
This weekend I ended up going down and checking out the Centro Historico, or old town to us gringos. It was definitely an interesting area. Tiny streets, huge churches, cathedrals, plazas and palaces. It was a cool adventure even with the rain trapping us in a tiny little sandwich shop for almost an hour. Good thing that sandwiches were so good. Wondering around checking out all the history and culture was pretty awesome. One of the main reasons for this whole trip. I especially liked the cobblestone pedestrian streets lined with little shops selling everything you can imagine. I could wonder those streets for days and still not see everything. The Bisilica del Voto Nacional was especially cool. Apparently it is the largest of its kind in the Americas. To bad we got there 15 minutes to late to go up to the top of the tower. I really wanted to see that view. Will probably have to go back there sometime just to check out that view.
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| The Bisilica Del Voto Nacional |
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| This place was really tall |
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| Not only did this place have regular gargoyles but pairs of different animals including Turtles |
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| Armadillos |
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| Monkeys and many, many more |
Monday, January 5, 2015
The Adventure Begins
So this trip has been along time coming and it has finally arrived. After so much anticipation and hoopla, it didn't have the best of starts. On the way to the airport the nervous finally got to me and I puked in the cell phone parking lot at Sea-Tac. After that I felt much better and said my final goodbyes to my dad and brother, got checked in, through security in no time and caught my first flight with no problems. So here's where the plan started to go wrong. The plan was to fly to Denver have an hour and a half layover, from there to Miami for a two and a half layover and then on to Quito. But that's not exactly how it work out. In Denver I had to go recheck in and was informed after waiting in line for the whole hour and a half layover that I would be going through Dallas Fort-Worth on the way to Miami, which would get me into Miami to late for my flight to Quito. After finally getting my boarding passes for my next flights I had to run to the flight barely making before they closed the door. With that flight being delayed because of having to rebook everyone on different flights I missed the flight that the lady tried to book me on from Dallas to Miami so I could make the Miami to Quito flight. So I had to take another that the airline screwed up again due to all the people that got rerouted through Dallas, but it was kind of cool watching a huge lightning storm over the Gulf of Mexico from above was pretty awesome. After all this I ended up having to take a flight that got me into Quito after 9pm. This was probably the coolest flight of the four, I watch Havana Cuba as the sun went down over the horizon, followed by Panama passing bellow us before climbing even higher up and into the Andes Mountains and into South America. Exhausted and ready to collapse I finally made it to Quito to find out my back missed more connecting flights then I did and wouldn't show up till the next day. So to tired for an hour cab ride into town and to my host families place, I caught a cab to the closest hotel that wasn't a hole in the wall. The next day I caught a cab into the city, on some of the twistiest bumpiest roads I have ever seen, thinking the whole time that these would be great for some kind of rally style car. Now actually among Spanish speaking Ecuadorians I have felt extremely cut off, but being eased a little by some of the fellow students and learning Spanish more and more. On the plus side my bag finally showed up two days after I did and I can put on some clean cloths and charge my laptop.
Tried to catch the lightning storm over the Gulf
Sunset over Cuba
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