Tomorrow we are going to the US embassy, hopefully we can get visas to go back to Seattle...
We are feeling fine and now are in the stages of planning the next step of our lives... aah vacations end so fast...
Anyway, I forgot to tell about a soccer game between Ecuador and Argentina that we were lucky enough to see in the stadium! We got there 3 hours before the game because it was getting packed to the capacity!! It´s kind of interesting how they do not assign seats for you (even in the theater), so you need to get there early to get good ones (some people got there early in the morning, while the game started only at 4pm). The weather was beautiful once we were waiting for the game, but it started pouring down right before the game... and never stopped for the duration of the game... Fortunately there were vendors that were selling ponchos for 2.50$, we got one each! Before the game and during the game, people (Ecuadorians) were swearing all the time! I´m glad we learned all the swear-words so we could pretty much follow what was going around us ;). Ainius most enjoyed a moment when after each Argentian player was announced, the whole stadium was shouting: ¨son of a bitch¨ :) Needless to say, it was really loud and fun! I didn´t really care who is going to win, not much of a football fan... However, we were wearing yellow shirts with Ecuador spelled on them. Ecuador won 2:0, which was quite unexpected from what I understand, traditionally Argentinian team should be much better.
One interesting thing about Ecuador, it seems everyone is selling something somewhere all the time... Sitting in the stadium, we had vendors with food, snacks, drinks passing by ALL THE TIME... We bought one traditional stadium dish: it had tiny boiled potatoes with toasted big kernel corn (no suprises there!) and interesting parts of the pig, soft, chewy skin being one of the stragest things that I´ve tried so far!
In general, it´s really suprising how people are selling everything and everywhere, even if you are in a taxi somebody is trying to sell you fruit, clothes or flash drives (!). Even in restaurants, people come in (children in tow) with trays of candy, cigarettes or fruit and try to sell you... Really not liking it.
Well, my birthday celebration started Friday and ended Monday (can´t remember the whole Monday night... only that there were lots of shots involved and one of them was on fire! :))
Sunday we went to thermal baths in Papallacta 2 hours outside Quito. http://www.papallacta.com.ec/termales.htm
Oh, how glorious it is to sit in steaming hot water with sun shining and doing absolutely nothing else!!! There were many pools with different water temperatures, we tried a few and enjoyed our time there immensly... Love being 33! :)