I know what you are thinking. Nicole hasn't posted anything for such a long time while yeah I know. Anyway, last weekend was quite the adventure. I did the whole process of airplane travel, going on a bus to the airport, getting my belongings checked at customs, and landing in Quito, Ecuador from Lima, Perú. I was pretty proud of myself because I never flew by myself for the whole process of airplane travel. I met up with one of my best buds, Kelly or Kel or Kel Bell for short. Kelly is a good friend of mine from St. Mike's who is almost done studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador. We both traveled on many buses to finally get to our destination of Baños, Ecuador. Did they name it that because people pee in the streets? Get it. Baños means bathrooms and you go to the bathroom in Baños the city. Okay enough with potty talk. Baños, Ecuador is a funny place. There were these dinosaur cars that people rode around in. There were whole streets of the same type of kinds. For instance, I thought a street should be called la avenida pizza because every restaurant I saw was a pizza place on one street. Also, people casually make taffy in the street. No big deal. Anyway, we stayed at a hostel for two nights. We didn't get to do much the first night, except eat food and accidentally have a stray dog follow us for miles like we were its owners. She was so adorable, loved to be pet and get attention. Kelly told me that the stray dogs usually don't follow her for this long; she thought I must have something to do with this weird occurrence. The second day, we did quite a bit, zip-lining, swinging on a swing under a la casa de árbol (tree house), shopping, going to mass, and looking at a beautiful waterfall. Then on our last day, we took buses back to Quito and walked around. I was surprised by the heavy rainfall that came just after the sun disappeared. The rainfall had pieces of hail in it. Everything was fine getting hit slightly by tiny balls of ice and becoming very wet. Ecuador is very fickle with the weather in comparison to Peru's constant temperatures. The wet weather was a gift just for me because Kelly said it normally isn't this bad. It was a good time seeing Kelly and a new place. Descubran el mundo!
Hasta Luego, Nicole
