By-week

I left Quito last Monday, after failing to climb Cotopaxi, to come home and do my thesis corrections. Not a very fun prospect, but it will be good to get it out of the way. I had the worst cab driver on the way home the airport in Houston. It is a 45 minute drive and he kept trying to hold my hand. Very strange. Thankfully, I had purchased a Newsweek magazine, rolled it up, and kept smacking him with it every time he tried to touch me. That is not an exaggeration, I was actually hitting my cabbie like a dog that took a crap in the house as we are barrelling down the freeway at 70 mph. Since then, I have been working on the thesis corrections and I am almost finished. I did get to spend Thanksgiving with Kate and her family having a fabulous turkey dinner and lots of wine. We also started whiskey tastings at 10:30 am. It was a great day! In a couple of days, I am off to Ecuador again to go to the Galapagos and then on to Venezuela. Kate has learned that her work will give her 4 to 6 months extended leave so we will soon be running around the world together and that could only spell one thing: T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

It´s all about the O

or more correctly those places that end in O. Colorado, Cabo, and now, Quito. I am living with an Ecuadorian lady somewhere in Quito and taking Spanish classes. I have no idea why, seeing that I don´t plan on moving to Spain or Latin America, don´t really interact with many Spanish speakers, and suck at pronounciation, but here I am. Already getting in trouble. This morning I was at Mama Cecilia´s house and she had put lunch for me in the microwave. This is at 9am and lunch is just sitting in the microwave. This just seemed wrong to me as I wasn´t going to eat for a couple of hours, so I was going to put the plate in the fridge. I open the fridge with the plate in hand and discover the fridge is pretty full so I start rearranging stuff with one hand while balanicng the plate with the other. At this point, my realistic capabilities center in my brain said, "you are a klutz, you are going to drop this plate." However, my over-confident superman center (these are real brain areas, trust me I am a neuroscientist) said, "What? That´s crazy talk. You´ve tottally got this." As you all know me, you can guess which one was correct. Rice and meat and sauce is all over the floor, inside the fridge, outside the fridge, and under the fridge. GREAT! Mama Cecilia is going to come home and think that I took the lunch she made for me and promptly threw it in the bin. I am now trying to clean it up with the random cleaning utensils which I can find in the kitchen. I have rice stuck to the bottom of my socks. I am getting very tired since Quito is located at 2850m and very frustrated at my stupidity. I go lay down and will clean up later. In the meantime, Patti (mama cecilia´s daughter) comes home to find part of my food on the floor. GREAT! Now, do they not only think that I threw their lunch on the floor, but that I was also not planning on cleaning it up. FABULOUS!

Anyways, thesis corrections are in! The good news is that I don´t have to do any more experiments, the bad news is that one of my examiners wants me to redo most of the figures. Might be going to houston to get corrections done before Ellis and Kate come to play with me, especially cause I really suck at Spanish.

Payin' cash, sittin' next to Vanna White

I went back to NYC last week for the sole reason of dressing up in short shorts and running around the city with jousting sticks. Literally running around the city. Kate and I went on a hash run through the city streets while wearing our American Gladiator costumes of fabulousness. IT WAS AWESOME! We were a huge hit with the crowd and got to lead the hashers through the parade on the account that no one could see anything except our jousting sticks. We also ran into another pair of gladiatresses who had a substantially more elaborate costume. Big hair and gold leotards-the works-I think they actually were American Gladiators in the 80's. It took me almost a day of arts and crafts to make the jousting sticks and we threw the iron-shirts together 30 minutes before the has run and it was worth it. The night ending with Kate and I laughing maniacally and throwing cold cuts at each other.

The rest of the week was great. Kate and I got to hang out heaps, just going to dinner and vegging. I got lost enough that I ended up seeing most of the sights of NYC. Kate got at least 5 phone calls a day starting with the phrase "okay, if I am standing at the corner of. . ."

I am off to South America on Monday to go live with an Ecuadorian family and bum around Venezuela. Will be back stateside on Jan 23rd. Be naughty and take care of each other.

Love Heather