The Weekend of Riobamba

This week was full of teaching, reviewing, and lots of exploring Riobamba. The swine flu test was negative, so I went back to teaching on Tuesday. However, my students have told me that there is another student in my class that is getting tested for swine flu, so I don´t know what´s going to happen with that. Otherwise, my students have a test tomorrow so we reviewed on Thursday and Friday for the test. My second class is slacking on attendance, so both of those days we did some review, then talked in a mix of English and Spanish for the rest of class. It´s really nice to be able to get to know my students, since they are almost all my age. I really like being able to talk to them a little bit in Spanish now, too. They are all learning more English and it´s interesting to hear them use their new vocabularies.

Our friends came to Riobamba this weekend and it has been awesome getting to show them around. Yesterday we explored a lot of the city, got A LOT of food, and just enjoyed each other´s company. Today was a slightly more adventurous day. We had tried to get tickets for La Nariz del Diablo, which is the train service that is supposed to have incredible views and leaves from Riobambe three days each week. We were unable to get tickets, and so we took a bus out to Volcan Chimborazo instead. It is the closest point to the sun and less than an hour away from Riobamba. It was so incredibly windy and cold, and we had a very interesting time of getting back into town, but the views were amazing. I never thought that I would be that close to a volcano in my life, let alone that close to the closest point to the sun on Earth. It was very humbling.

I only have two more weeks left in Riobamba. I absolutely LOVE my family and so it is going to be really hard to leave them all. However, I also can´t wait to get back to the States to see everyone. There is still a lot that I want to do while I am in Ecuador, and it will certainly be an eventful three weeks. I have a trip planned to the coast with a few friends before we leave, and it will be a great opportunity to decompress from teaching and the busy summer that we have had so far. I can´t wait to put more pictures up here! But it is really hard to upload pictures on the computers here, so if anyone has Facebook, I have a lot of pictures up there that I was able to upload last weekend on someone´s laptop. Otherwise I promise to put more pictures up. I have pictures of my school as well as a few pictures of my classes and trips. There is so much to show everyone!

I can´t wait to see everyone so soon!